DION BOUCICAULTS WIVES.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 299, 15 September 1888, Page 6

DION BOUCICAULTS WIVES.

Markiaul: and divorce belong to that class of incidents of civilised life in relation to which uniformity of international law would be most obviously desirable. As a. matter of fact, however, the most radical differences everywhere prsvail, and the present year has been especially fruitful in cases emphasising the truth of this proposition. The litigation lately concluded between Mr and Mre Boucicault was, in fact, only the last of the series, but deserves attention because it brings out clearly the astonishing difference on the subjec.t of the marriage relation existing between two States whose general jurisprudence is extremely similar. The facts presented to the Courb by Mrs Boucicault were few and simple. An irregular connection having been established between the parties in 1852, in the following year Mr Boucicault informed the lady— who was then fulfilling a professional engagement in New York — that, if she would agree, they might at once be married by simple consent and cohabitation. To this she agreed, and thenceforth for twenty-five years they lived together as man and wife. The children were registered as his. He drew her salary, introduced her to his friends a& his wife, and they were received in society both in America and the United Kingdom on that footing. In 1883, however. Mr Boucicault married another lady in Australia, and the issue to be tried was simply and solely whether the New York marriage was valid or not. Here and in England it strikes one as very odd that so informal an arrangement should constitute a valid maniage. It is true that in cases of pedigree the English law allows the fact of marriage to be proved by repute, but that is on the hypothesis that the repute is evidence that a marriage with the ceremonies imposed by our statutes did actually take place, although the place and time of it may be undiscoverable. The New York law, however, requires no especial ceremony, and treats repute not only as a proof, but as a mode of marriage. It has, indeed, been laid down by the highest Court in that State that where a man and woman have li%-ed together for a long period as man and wife the implication that they are married "is the strongest known to the law " This axiom was put to proof in the celebrated action Badger v. Badger, in which the circumstances were of the most melodramatic improbability. In that case the husband — for so the Court decided that he was — lived two distinct lives. In fashionable New York society Mr Joseph Badger wa3 known to his friends as a rich bachelor, staying frequently at his sister's houhe, and being on the best of teuns with the large circle of his relations. He lived, however, as a married man with a wife in a poor lodging in Macdougal4>treet, where they were known a;* Mr and Mrs .John Baker. He resided there on the terms ot the closest intimacy with the members of hh wife's family, visiting them at their homes and inviting them to hit. None of the husband's relatives were aware of the existence of the household in Macdougalstreet. None of the wife's relative? knew that Mr Baker had another name and residence. This double life lasted for thirty-four years, and at the death of Mr Badger, Mrs Baker claimed dower as his lawful wife. After a prolonged litigation, the Court of Appeal at Albany unanimously decided that the secrecy of the lite in Macdougal-street did not afford any evidence that his lesidence theie had other than a matrimonial intent, and Mrs Bakei's claim to the righls of a widow was theiefore allowed. Owing to the formal registration of her children as born in wedlock, Mrti Boucicault's case was tar stronger than this, and undoubtedly Mr Justice Butt's decision in her favour is a? t-ound in law as it is agreeable to one.-. sen»e of fair nese.