MARRIED WITHOUT ENQUIRY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 297, 19 May 1914, Page 5

MARRIED WITHOUT ENQUIRY.

| A WARNING FKOM A JUDGE. By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, Last Night. The disastrous results of youthful and hasty marriages were strongly commented upon l>y Mr. Justice Cooper in the Supreme Court this morning in the counso of a case, expressing the hope that his words might have a warning effect. His Honor pointed out that his experience had allowed that marriages were often entered into without e-n----quries which ordinarily would be made if an employee were being engaged. In this case a woman's life had been practically spoiled, the husband's drunken career commencing from the day of her marriage. The case was a most unhappy one. A girl of only 19 had married a young man who must liave been, according to the ovid'onee, given to excessive drinking before the marriage. Accepting the evidence of the girl and her mother that they were unaware of this, and that tlio marriage would not have taken place had they possessed this knowledge, the cast showed that there ought to be some system by which before a marriage actually took place some enquiry should be made, if not by the parties themselves, by llie person officiating at the marriage, as to the character and habits of tile parties who presented themselves for marriage.