ANZAC MARRIAGE RUSH

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2954, 18 December 1916, Page 8

ANZAC MARRIAGE RUSH

"33 PROPOSALS AND STILL SINGLE!" An official at tho Australian Commonwealth offices recently said': "Ever since our men returned from Gallipoli ,there has been a Vush of marriages. Many young women of good family have como over to the Old Country to bo married to their spldior heroes. I'heir meetings have been encouraged by the authorities. Tho wedding is hastened on, the bridegroom has to conform to the law allotting a certain proportion of his pay to his wife—in the case of an ordinary 6oldier l it is about 4s. a day—and if the wife desires it she can bo s,ent back home at the cost of £4 or £5.

"Unfortunately some Australian diers have made too hasty marriages. The women have dono the proposing and' made-all the arrangements. /In two or three days the soldier is wooed and married and back at the front, and his wife, little more than a stranger to him, is on her way to her new home in Australia. One trooper recently out of hospital told me the other'day that ho had been proposed to by thirtythree different girls.; He was amused at first; then became frightened. Finally he.overcomes the difficulty by declaring that lie is already married. He can remain single only by repeating the assurance that he. is the father cf a family. Most of the men who marry aro those who are on extended furlough, and a good proportion aro wounded soldiers who havo married their nurses."