REPENTANT WAR BRIDES.

Taihape Daily Times, 8 April 1919, Page 3

REPENTANT WAR BRIDES.

MANY BEING DISILLUSIONED.

Amazing marriages Have been born of war conditions. Sir Ernest Wild, K.C., recently gave some examples of reckless marrying in which the man ana woman had known each other for a few days only before their wedding, or who had eorresjpondled, to meet for the first" time at the church door.

A clergyman with whom a London correspondent discussed the problem of the war marriage, said he was afraid that the old ideal of sanctity had been seriously lowered during (the war. '' I have been asked to marry couples who have admitted to me that they knew little about each other," he said. "I could not refuse, but I have doubts as (to the wisdom of granting the request. It is one of the tragedies of the war. And yet one cannot be too hard on the young people. "There is no doubt that to many a man at the front it was a comfort to know that .he woman he had courted was his wife but very often the dissolusion on coming home has been bitter.

"Every man brings these disilluions. More men are coming home on leave or go'tting discharged or demobilised. They are getting to know their wives, learning all those things which they ought to have learned before marriage. The women 'discover that the men they adored during a brief leave are not what they imagined them to be. and disaster is difficult to avoid.

"Now that fighting is over, there

J should be no need for these hasty marriages, and it would prevent endless unhappiness and many divorces if marriages were made conditional on the man and woman having been engaged ( for some time. "In orgent. eases such a rule could not hold good, of course, but the vast majority of young people whewant to marry in haste would be saved much misery if they were obliged to present evidence of at least a six months 7 engagement before oi license was issued."