ECHO OF ROMANCE.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5478, 23 September 1929, Page 3

ECHO OF ROMANCE.

A CONVENT GIRL BRIDE.

JUDGES AND MARRIAGE PUZZLE

Delivering an important judgment by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council holding that a marriage in France between persons domiciled in Quebec, which was void under French law, was not valid in Quebec, Viscount Dunedin disclosed how the couple concerned in the case first met, says a London paper. The parties were Eugene Barthaiume and Dame Anne-Marie Yvonne Dastous, and sitting with Lord Dunedin to hear the man’s appeal were Lord Darling, Lord Warrington, Mr Justice Duff, and Sir Lancelot Sanderson. Lord Dunedin stated that in 1913 the woman, a French-Canadian of the Roman Catholic faith, then a girl of 17, who had just graduated from a convent in a small town in Montreal, went on a trip to Europe with her father. There she met Eugene Berthiaume, a member of a Quebec family, and also a Roman Catholic, who had been living in Paris for a number of years. He proposed marriage to her, and she accepted. The marriage was celebrated according to the form of the Roman Catholic Church. They lived together until 1926, when Dame Dastous discovered that Mr Berthiaume had been guilty of infidelity. She applied for* a divorce in Paris, but the Court declined to proceed because no certificate of marriage had been issued. Having failed to have her marriage recognised in the French courts, Dame Dastous then raised an action in the Supreme Court in the Montreal district for a declaration of marriage decree of separation, and a judgment for alimony. Alternatively, a declaration was sought that the marriage was a putative one, and produced civil effects. The marriage was held valid, the decree of separation was pronounced, and an alimentary allowance of £3OO a month granted. The judgment was upheld on appeal by a majority. Unable to Agree. Their lordships, continued Lord Dunedin, were unable to agree. If the so-called marriage were no marriage in the place where it was celebrated, there was no marriage anywhere, although the ceremony or proceedings, if conducted in the place of the parties’ domicile, would be considered a good marriage. Those results might be altered by statute law similar to the legislation which was passed to cure what was thought to be abuse of Gretna Green marriages. All tTie judges held that there was perfect good faith on the woman’s part. It was just when a marriage was declared null that the doctrine of putative marriage became necessary. Cases of the insistence of the so-called wife on her rights were rare, but cases of the assertion of legitimacy of children born of a marriage subsequently declared null were numerous in every system which accepted the doctrine of putative marriage. It was quite true that, all civil rights appendant'to real marriage were not produced by a putative marriage. But the criterion was obvious that those only subsisted which were consistent with a real marriage not existing. Alimony was such a right. Their lordships were, therefore, of the opinion that the woman was entitled to alimony, and that the judgment amount of alimony should stand.