CURIOUS DIVORCE CASE.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 May 1921, Page 5

CURIOUS DIVORCE CASE.

VALIDITY OF A MAORI MARRIAGE. In the Supreme Court at Palmerston North last week, Sir John Salmond was called upon to deal with a divorce case presenting some unusual features. Maggie Parker asked for a dissolution of her marriage with Stanley Horace Parker on the ground of adultery. Mr. Biss appeared for petitioner. Respondent was not represented by counsel. Petitioner in her evidence stated that she was married to Parker in September, 1897, at the Native pa, Kohinui, by a Native Church of England clergyman. Witness was a half-caste, the Native blood being on her mother’s side, and her husband was a quartercaste, his father having been a halfcaste Maori and his mother a white woman.

Counsel said that the marriage had never been registered, and the only evidence of a marriage contract that could be procured was a certificate from the officiating clergyman. Sir John Salmond said that this was another of those extraordinary cases of Native marriages with which he had had frequently to deal. The parties to the action were not full-blooded Maoris, and yet the officiating clergyman had not conformed with the terms of the Act by marrying them in a pa, and its validity was exceedingly doubtful. If the marriage were valid it would be competent for any person with a tincture of Maori blood to be married in that fashion. He would hear the evidence in support of the petition for divorce, but he fhoiight that it would probably have to be amended to a petition for declaration of nullity.

Petitioner stated that there were thirteen children born of the marriage, of whom twelve were now living. She had been separated from her husband for some years, and practically ever since the separation he had lived with a young Native woman at Otaki. Corroborative evidence was given by a son and other witnesses. His Honor said that the’ status of the husband governed the marriage contract. As respondent was more European than Maori, the provisions of the Marriage Act (exempting persons of Native blood or of mixed blood, onehalf removed from pure Native race, from registering a legal marriage) did not apply. On these grounds he dismissed the petition, and advised counsel to enter a petition for declaration of nullity of the marriage.