MAORIS AND MATRIMONY.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 459, 18 March 1909, Page 7

MAORIS AND MATRIMONY.

Tho Maori women's welfare will be one of tho questions for discussion by the Women's Christian i.omperaiica Union at is convoution this afternoon, tor recently the movement has become or interest to Maori women and there arc now six branches of the union among the Maoris. AWnlo they aro about it the union might well give a little attention to the subject of Maori marriage laws. So far as ouo can gather a very unhappy state of tilings prevails at present in the Maori villages, it was only the other day that an Anglican clergyman, who has had many years experience of Maori customs, expressed tho opinion that Maori girls should be encouraged to go into doinestio servico with the European, because it was not fitting that they should return from school straight to the kainga. Ho said that a girls parents would arrange for her marriage, perhaps with someone for whom sho ?iad no affection, and this marriage would only bo considered binding while her parents lived. As soon as they died, tho girl would, without any formalities, choose another partner, and sho might perhaps leavo him for a third. A missionary speaks of knowing one Maori girl, who is only sevfnteen, and who already lias her third husband, and another girl of twenty has hor fiftii husband. Tho marriage of convent* i once seems largely responsible- for this stato 1 of things. A girl's, parents may choose for hor a husband whoso land is near by, and sho may never have seen him till tho we'dding tlay Just the other day thcro was a wedding, when the bride and bridegroom met for tho first timo on their wedding day, and it is in cap-es like that that there is most temptation for tho parties to dissolve tho union, though that does not account for the third and fourth and fifth marriages that aro so lightly contracted.