MARRIAGES UNDER THREAT.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4511, 5 January 1923, Page 3

MARRIAGES UNDER THREAT.

JUDGE ON ‘BREACH" LAW. WAY TO DIVORCE COURT. Miss Gladys Saunders, 24, cf Queen’s Road, Lavender, Hill, S. W. (London), was given £4O damages in an action for breach of promise oi marriage brought against Mr George Tucker, Ambrosden House, Ambrosden Avenue, S.W. Miss Saunders said Mr Tucker was about 30 years of; age, and she understood that his salary was’ about £6 a week. He came to see her after breaking off the engagement and he told her that he did.not love her any longer. Mr Justice McCardie: Suppose you knew that a man had ceased to care for you, would you say, “I don’t care if you have ceased to love me; I persist in your coming to the alter with me ” •?—it is vepy hard to answer that. I am afraid I might have done so at the time. You would have married a man who had lost his affection for you ? Why ?—Because I would have, hoped to gain his affections .again. WHAT IS MAN TO DO? Mr Justice McCardie (who is a bachelor), summing up, said he had no doubt that an action for breach of promise of marriage was one whicn, often operated to compel a man to carry put a promise which Ijis conscience and his heart told' him he ought not to fulfil. What was a man to do ? Was he to say to th.e girl: “All my affection has gone. I have gdown almost .to dislike you. and your ways, but I will marry you rather than face a breac.i of promise to marry you” ? Or was he to say : “No, I believe that the right thing and thp honest thing is not to marry, and I will submit to the verdict a jury may see ft to give” ? His Lordship had long felt tha,t a contract to marry was not an ordinary contract. It was different, from (he bargain that was made in the counting house. It was a life contract, and according to trie great Churches it was a contract which nothing but death could dissolve.

if one reflected upon the consequence of an unhappy marriage one rearised of the issues, at stake—Hfe-long' misery, frequently infidelity, the divorce court, and social ruin.