Page 11 Advertisements Column 3

Taranaki Daily News, 6 December 1919, Page 11

I ' War marriages have played the very devil among our boys," said an Australian sergeant-major, who in civil life is a farmer, to a London Daily Mail representative on September 10. "I am not surprised that many young women married to Dominion soldiers ar« unable to locate their husbands now the war is over. And the man are not entirely to blame. Take my own battalion. I Know of at least a snore of cases where the men have married girls after a week's acquaintance, only to learn subsequently that the wives they had sworn to love and cherish had deceived themNaturally they 'dodged the column' to use an Army phrase. There have been a good many bigamous marriages but there again the girls themselves have been largely to blame; they took marriage as lightly as an afternoon tea The man returned to the front with no thought beyond fighting, and the wife .stayed at home with little thought beyond the- separation allowance; and if they did meet again they met ahnast as strangers. Such has been the experience otf men in my battalion." The ser-geant-major's views are to a large extent borne out by the officials at Horseferry road, Westminster, where every effort is made to provide enquiring wives with information about their Australian husbands. The facts show that in many casfs the wives know practically nothing about their husbands. Als6 there is a pronounced disinclination on the Austral Eng '' iS ' l