AMERICAN WIVES

Hokitika Guardian, 31 July 1929, Page 8

AMERICAN WIVES

NOT FIT FOR GERMAN NOBLES. BERLIN, June 17. Dollar princesses and other heiresses who may think of marrying a German who has a great title will do well to note the amazing verdict of the German Supreme Court by which the children of his Serene Highness the Duke of Croy are disinherited because their mother was an American. Charles Duke of Cjroy married Miss Nancy Louise irishman, daughter ol the American Ambassador in Berlin in 1913, and they had three children — Prince Charles, who is now 14; Princess Antoinette and princess Marie Louise, children of 13 and 9. The House of Croy is one of those families which possessed under the German law the right to make its own marriage laws, but when the duke married Miss Leishman no objection to the union on the ground of inequality of rank was raised, nor was the position of their children questioned when the duke and his American duchess were divorced in 1922. Now, as the result of a family dispute, the whole question has been raised, and the Supreme Court has ruled that the marriage was contrary to the laws of the House of Croy, and, therefore, the children are not entitled to inherit as they would be if the marriage had not to be regarded as morganatic. The decision implies that no American woman is fit to be the mother of Germans of the aristocracy. It is all the more amazing because according to the constitution of the German Republic, the special privileges of the nobility are abolished.