“Co-Habiting”

From Our Own Correspondent.

Rarotonga, Jan. 27.

ANOTHER co-habiting case involving a European, was brought to court recently. This makes the third recent pro secution of the kind.

Native co-habiting cases are too nu merous to mention. A choice of marriage in two weeks, or a fine, is the sentence; and, times being as they are, marriage is usually selected.

Some, queer unions are being formed, which can bring nothing but trouble later on. Many of these unconventional mat ings happen more through necessity than affection. A youth from an outer island, say, often gets in touch with a much older woman who cooks and washes for him, quite happy in having a man about the kainga to chop wood, etc. Neither has any intention of making a lasting union —she knowing quite well that when he can afford it he will arrange a marriage with a girl of his own age and kind. Then the police arrive, and the result is a hasty wedding, in preference to facing court and a 25/- fine.

EDITORIAL NOTE. —So far as we know, the N.Z. administration in the Cook Islands is the only Pacific authority which attempts to enforce a “cohabiting” law; and to that extent the N.Z.

Government is ridiculous. There would be some justification for preventing promiscuousness be tween Europeans and natives; but the effort to impose our ideas of Victorian morality upon the Polynesian people themselves is ludicrous. The Polynesians, all through the ages, have permitted a casual relationship between unmarried men and women, and —as residents of these islands well know —official attempts to prevent it lead only to hypocrisy and nastiness. The thing is not stopped, but is driven underground, and an evil is created thereby where none need exist.