The Evening Star TUESDAY, JULY 12, 1870.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2240, 12 July 1870, Page 2

The Evening Star TUESDAY, JULY 12, 1870.

Although chief attention ia now directed towards the financial scheme of the Government, because of its inauguration of new plans for the furtherance of Colonial interests, there are other matters engaging the attention of Parliament which will lead ultimately to greater social changes. Mr Richmond has introduced a Bill to secure to mairied women possession of and control over property acquired by or belonging to them. The necessity for some measure of this sort made itself apparent through the wide-spread cases of hardship consequent upon the gold discoveries twenty years ago. No doubt previous to that time there had been great suffering. Prom time to time the sympathies of friends and neighbors had been evoked on behalf of some patient woman, who plodded on for the sake of her children, and drudged and saved for them, while her worthless husband spent his time in riot and debauchery. In thousands of instances the brutal selfishness induced by such habits led to stripping the wife of her hardly-earned money, and to leaving her and those children

hitherto supported by her efforts to destitution and misery. Nor was the law more merciful than the debauchee. Having decreed that in him vested all his wife’s property, it became applicable to the payment of his debts, and thus some creditor, perhaps a participator in his vices, might seize what she in her honest efforts had earned, and leave her, like Sisyphus, to begin her toilsome work afresh. This evil has not only forced itself upon the attention of the Legislature ot die Colonies, but at Homer There, in numerous cases, wives and families have been forsaken for years. The husband in the first instance had been attracted by the hope of realising a fortune by some lucky find in California or Australia. He had left them high in hope, and perhaps with sincere desire to return and endow them with riches. But unfortunately in the lottery of gold-dig-ging, sudden success is the lot of few ; and after years of toil, soured with disappointment, and mined by acquiring bad habits, he returned to fiud those he left behind him better worked for and cared for by his wife than by himself, and he at once seized upon, as a right, all .ftkt had been gathered together in his absence. There was no doubt something vety beautiful in the theory of the two, united together for life, having property in common. So long as all went well, this might do. But oven Paradise was not without its drawbacks : and though the lady in that case was the first to transgress, experience has shown that in all ages since, woman has had to bear the burden of its consequences.

For man to man so oft unjust, Is always so to woman.

It is now some years since that a move was made in New Zealand in the direction of securing to women the property they had acquired, under certain circumstances. Small as the boon was, it worked well, but it did not go far enough. It was not those possessed of large property that had to be secured. They could always manage to make provision for contingencies. Marriage settlements could be made that would secure independent income to the wife under any circumstances. The rich can always take care of themselves. Sir John Coleridge and Lord Lyndhurst described the class that need protection in the following words quoted by Mr Richmond :

Cases of this kind had come under his notice times out of number. A man married a woman with some small means. He remains with her a short time, dissipates her money, and then abandons her. .She struggles on by herself, until by some good fortune she receives a legacy, or by her industry accumulates a little money, when the man re appears, seizes the property, claims it as his own, and then nets the old part over again, until, the money being spent, he finally abandons her. There is no reciprocity or equality in such a case Nine-tenths of the

marriages in this country take place without any settlements, and are governed, as to rights of property, by the Common Law. . . . . A wife is separated from her husband ; »y a decree of the Ecclesiastical Court, the reason for that decree being the husband’s misconduct —his cruelty, it may be, or his adultery, From that moment the wife is almost in a state of outlawry. She may not enter into a contract, or if she do, she has no means of enforcing it. The law, so far from protecting, oppresses her. She is homeless, helpless, hopeless, and almost wholly destitute of civil riuhts. She is liable to all manner of injustice, whether by plot or by violence. She may be wronged in all possible ways, and her character may be mercilessly defamed ; yet she has no redress. She is at the mercy of her enemies. Is that fair ? Is that honest ? Can it bo vindicated upon any principle of justice, of mercy, or of common humanity. Tho law at present in force in New Zealand only provides for cases of desertion or misconduct on the paid, of the husband. The Bill now before the Legislature proposes—

To reserve to women married after the year 1871, tho full control of all the property which they possessed at tho time of marriage, which they might acquire after by gift, bequest, or by their own labor, and to extend tho same privileges, so far as tho future was concerned, to all married persons whatsoever.