Lovely day for petitions — crusading widow

Press, 12 April 1979, Page 18

Lovely day for petitions — crusading widow

Christchurch’s crusading widow, Mrs Rita Mauger, is at it again. This time, the mother of the motor-cycle racer, Ivan Mauger, wants the Government to change the Matrimonial Property Act so that blame and responsibility are put back into it. It was a lovely day for petitioning, she said, as she sat behind her stand in Cathedral Square, enjoying the sunshine.

So far she has received 400 letters in support of her cause, one from as far away as Antarctica, after advertising in several newspapers and on radio.

Mrs Mauger said that divorce was so acceptable today because “it is so damned easy. Before the law changed, you went to court and the magistrate decided who was at fault and how

the property was to be divided. People thought twice about breaking up then — now they don’t give it a second thought because they know they will get half, no matter what.”

Asked whether she agreed that women were better Off under the present law, Mrs Mauger said that if a woman had been “badly treated, kept short of money, the husband playing around, she deserves a fair percentage of the property. But now, people are just walking out when they please. And the children, all those little children, their homes are being broken up and nobody seems to care.” Mrs Mauger said she no longer got the same “kick” out of going to weddings: “You never know how long they are going to last anyIway.” She knew Of several

couples who were getting married who had had property and money left to them, and they were having contracts drawn up with a solicitor so that if the marriage broke up the other party could not touch it. “What sort of start is that?” she asked. “There is nothing Christian in that. You cannot begin your married life like that, surely — suggesting you will break up before you are even married.” Some of the causes Mrs Mauger has espoused in the past include traffic lights at Radley bridge, preventing a road going through Hagley Park, riding a motor-cycle to Invercargill and back for the Commonwealth Games, and last year, to the West Coast and back on the same vehicle, for cancer research. She planned to improve her notice — make it bigger and clearer — and be out in the Square again between 10.30 a.m. and 12.30 p.m. and to take her petition to New Brighton on Easter Saturday. Although her latest cause is slightly different from those she has espoused in the past, if her record is anything to go by, the Matrimonial Property Act is in for a shock. “I’ve been successful in everything I’ve done so far,’’ Mrs Mauger said.