Religious Sect And Marital Rights: Husband Wins Case

Grey River Argus, 4 September 1948, Page 7

Religious Sect And Marital Rights: Husband Wins Case

P.A. WELLINGTON, September 3. In the Supreme Court, before Mr. Justice Cornish, the hearing was continued of the petition brought ■by Laurence Bailey, aged 42, a carpenter, for the restitution of conjugal rights with his wife, Phyllis Bailey. Evidence was given as to sermons preached in the Commonwealth Covenant Church. The petitioner gave evidence that in 1946 . "Brother” Frank Wilson had asked him to sell up all his effects and specified even his wife’s fur coat. Wilson had wanted him to work for him at £3 a week "in the ministry.” To His Honour, the petitioner said he had told Wilson that, if he could prove that he was as good a qualified minister as the petitioner was a qualified carpenter, the petitioner would agree. He (petitioner) did not want it to be a case of the blind leading the blind. It would have cost the petitioner more than £7,000. He thought it was his wife’s duty to return to him on . the earlier basis, which included marital relations. He denied having ever forced such relations upon her. Sometimes when his wife was not feeling well, she retired to a back room of the church with “Brother Frank” to be prayed for' by him. It was in such a session that "the Gestapo” got to work, said the petiitoner, explaining that "the church” had apparently got certain information about his alleged behaviour. His Honour questioned whether the “doctrine of punishment” administered by Bailey to his children was necessarily the doctrine of the church. Mr. Oakley (for defendant) remarked that the evidence was that the punishments were inflicted while Bailey was a member of the church. Dr. Mazengarb (for petitioner): "Brother Frank” approved of the punishments. Judgment for the petitioner was ( given by Mr. Justice Cornish, who said that in all the circumstances he considered the husband entitled to the decree. His Honour made an order accordingly, requiring the wife to return within three months, which would enable her to ponder carefully the relative prospects of comfort and security with her husband, or the unpredictable situation in which reliance on the assembly might involve her.