YOUTHFUL AND HASTY MARRIAGES.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14971, 19 May 1914, Page 2

YOUTHFUL AND HASTY MARRIAGES.

A JUDGE'S WARNING

(r-KBSa ASSOCIATION TILXGKAM.)

AUCKLAND, May 18.

The disastrous results of youthful and hasty marriages were strongly commented upon by Mr. Justice Cooper in the Supreme Court this morning, and he expressed the hope that his words might have a warning effect. His Honour pointed out that his experience had showed that _ marriages were often entered into -without enquiries which ordinarily would be made if an employee were being engaged. In this case a woman's life had been practically spoiled, her husband's drunken career commencing from the day of their marriage. The case was a most unhappy one. A girl of only nineteen had married a young man who must have been, according to the evidence, given to excessive drinking before his marriage.' Accepting the evidence of the girl and her mother that they were unaware of this, and that the marriage would not have taken place had they possessed this knowledge, the case snowed that there ought to be some system by which, before marriage actually took place, some enquiry should be made, if not by the parties themselves, by the person officiating at the marriage, as to the character and habits of the parties who presented themselves for marriage.