EARLY MARRIAGES

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2152, 19 May 1914, Page 6

EARLY MARRIAGES

THEIR DANGERS CRAVE, WORDS BY A JUDCE. (Bt Telegraph— Press Association.! Auckland, May 18. The disastrous results of youthful and hasty marriages were strongly commented upon by Mr. Justice Cooper in tho Supreme Court this morning in the course of :i case.

Expressing tho hope that his words might have a warning effect, His Honour pointed out that his experience had showed that marriages wero often entered into without those inquiries which would ordinarily bo made if an employee wero being engaged. In this base a woman's life had boon practically spoiled by a husband's drunken career, commencing from tho day of the marriage. The case was a most unhappy one. A girl of only nineteen years had been married to a young man. who must have been, according, to tho evidence, given" to excessive drinking before the marriage. Accepting tho evidence of the girl and her mother, that they were unaware of this, and that tho marriago would not, have taken place had they possessed this knowledge, the case showed tint there ought to be some system by which, before marriago actually took place, some inquiry should be made, if not by the parties themselves, at least_ by the person officiating at the marriago as to the character and linhits of tho parties who presented themselves for marriage.