“ANY FORM SUITED TO NEEDS OF PEOPLE JUST AND RIGHT'

Shannon News, 21 May 1929, Page 4

“ANY FORM SUITED TO NEEDS OF PEOPLE JUST AND RIGHT'

WOMAN ADVOCATES FREER MARRIAGE CODE

Advocacy of companionate marriage which would embrace divorce by consent to childless couples and legalised birth-control was made by Mrs. Jean Devanny, novelist and lecturer, during a public address at Christchurch. Such a system, she said, was the remedy for the failures, ruins, and frequent homebreakings caused by the present marriage code. The speaker considered that woman would never attain her proper status and equality with man unless she gained economic independence.

' ‘ Why should chastity be regarded as a virtue?” asked Mrs. Devanny. '/Among natives chastity is not regarded as a virtue until marriage, and the earlier convention creates a better moral standard. Any marriage form suited to the Meeds of the people is right and moral. Marriage is a subject which should interest most people.. It is a subject which is closely and unavoidably interwoven with ordinary life, yet a vast ignorance exists as to the forms, reasons and purposes of marriage. It would seem that civilisation held an obscure fear to marriage.” Better progress had been made since the war, and there had been a tremendous loosening up of the regard of marriage. No longer was the divorced woman looked at askance in polite society. A readjusted code of marriage and an understandihg of that great force in modern society, universal freedom, was needed.

Mrs. Devanny detailed forms of marriage customs adhered to by different nations. The Chinese, the Eskimos, the English ,all'had different forms of marriage; and all were regarded as right and moral. The marriage form suited to the needs of the people was right and moral. "A rigid marriage code, will not bend to the needs of the new .society which has risen since the war,” she said. "There is much to be learnt'.from native marriage customs. A modern man regarding marriage thinks of a Stable home. The husband provides the means of support and the wife and children live according to their station. The wife is dependant on the man, and is inferior. This is not so in native tribes where the wife retains her liberty and equality. The mother has the care of the children and is independent.”

'Mrs. Devanny claimed that the Maori women had lost their old equality with the ccming of white civilisation and mmriage customs. . She cited child manio.ges in India, ard the cruel custom of deformed feet for Chinese women as cases of the inferiority of women under superstition based on religion. As culture progressed woman ’s. sphere of influence receded. Mrs. Devanny concluded with an advocacy of companionate marriage, stating- that the love of children, and not self-satisfaction, should be the basis of a home.