KEPT BY HIS WIFE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 3939, 7 May 1929, Page 3

KEPT BY HIS WIFE.

CLAJM (IN WILD FAILS. JUDGE’S STRONG COMMENTS. Hamilton, May 6. “It is certainly not common for a man to imarry a rich woman in New Zealand and expect her to keep him in idleness,” stated Mr. Justice Blair in a written judgment refusing the application of Alfred Jones, a billiard saloon proprietor of Hamilton, to he made a beneficiary under his late wife’s will. “Such cases have occurred, but it is rare that a man is content to accept this unenviable position. He loses caste among his fellows. Although before the; married woman’s property Acts the husband became entitled to his wife’s estate whey he honoured her by taking her in marriage, tiiis doctrine has received such a severe handling both by the legislation and the trend of modern ideas that it is doubtful if marriage by a poof man to a rich woman now gives him any moral claims on her purse. A man with any pride in his manhood would scorn, to advance such a claim.” The applicant married Catherine Mildred Cumjmings in 1920. She was then a spinster, aged 43. The applicant was a widower’ with seven children. The whole burden ol! supporting him and bringing up the younger members of the family the plaintiff left to the wife. The plaintiff procured from his wife advances of very large sums, which he put into property in his name. The deceased divided her ' estate equally among her four brothers and three sisters; each was left approximately £IOOO, except in the case of one brother.