MORAL LAXITY

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 313, 29 August 1932, Page 2

MORAL LAXITY

BOOKS AND PICTURES CENTRED ROUND MARITAL INFIDELITY. EFFECT ON YOUNG PEOPLE. Reference to the moral laxity apparently existing in New Zealand was made at the annual meeting of the Masterton branch of the League of Mothers by the Dominion president, Mrs. J. E. Elliott. • i Mrs. Elliott said that many books and picture shows at present centred round marital infidelity and debased and degraded the sacred name of love. Tbe effect of this sort of thing on young people was pernicious, but if it could be shown to belong only to the heated atmosphere of the sex novel and th'e sex play and to be very rare in real, 'every day life, the ill-effect would be greatly minimised and the poison would have its antidote. Members of the league could all help to provide that antidote by being good wives and mothers and creating in tba home an atmosphere that would give healthy minds and healthy memoriss to the children. "Having a Good Time." !It was the general belief that in New Zealand there was too little home life and that parental tles and parental control had weakened, said Mrs. Elliott. Too often girls in their early twenties became blase, hypercritical, and dissatisfied. The whole aim and object of too many young people was to have what they called "a good time" — a hateful phrase — and to be dependent not on inner joy and peace of mind, hut on an exciting and everchanging environment. We had much to be proud of in New Zealand, but there were certain aspects of our national life which should cause misgiving and anxiety. The figures supplied by the Government Statistician in regard to the frequency of extra-nuptial conception showed a moral laxity that was alarming. Sli"e did not wish to dwell on this unpleasant subject, but she held strongly that ethics and morality could not be divorced from religion. Going on to speak of religious ini struction, Mrs. Elliott asked by what auth'ority the teaching of the principles of Christianity to children was a political question. Surely it was a matter for parents to decide and not politicians. At all events, too often in New Zealand the unfortunate child grew up without religious principles and with no light to guide his steps through this world or to the next. What the league certainly could do was to show the necessity that every rnother who belonged to it should teach her children herself, or have them taught, the story of Redeaming Love.