“Co-Habiting”

Social Problem in Cook Islands

From Our Own Correspondent

Raratonga, June 5.

IT was mentioned in the March issue of the P.I.M. that three Europeans had been brought before the court at Raratonga for co-habiting. The chief interest, locally at any rate, in this, lies in the revelation that the law on the point, apparently, is no longer to be any respecter of persons, either white or brown.

The ordinary man has some sort of vague feeling that the native ought cer tainly to have much more latitude in af fairs of this kind than the European. He has, too, an inward human sympathy for a white man who honestly falls in love with an Islands girl, and is unable to give his union the legal name of marriage. Yet the ordinary man is not wholly convinced that suppressing the law against the native is the best solution.

At Raratonga the court appears to dis tinguish between the various cases and frequently dismisses charges against couples.

Occasionally, queer unions are broken up —as, for instance, a married man trying to keep a second woman, while neglecting his legal children. Other couples are found to be only partly married—that is, the man has paid a license fee, thinking it sufficed to make his union legal.

On the whole, it is doubtful whether the offenders themselves do not get as much humour out of their court escapades as the native onlookers and, generally speaking, the couples do not get very much upset about things. The court makes a definite point of impressing upon offending couples that they need not get married if they do not want to.

Divorce Laws

Divorce procedure at Raratonga ought not to be overlooked, as it may have a

much closer relationship to the law against co-habiting than what might be imagined.

Legal humbug is minimised; the parties make their statements and, if the position of their marriage affairs is hopeless, the Bench grants a Decree Absolute there and then. The cost to a native amounts to exactly 26/-.

If, therefore, a native elects to get mar ried in preference to paying a guinea fine, it will cost him only 5/- more to get out of it if the marriage proves a fiasco!

The ordinary man, without any special interest as to whether the law is good or bad, might reason things out in this way: What may be the ultimate consequence if the authorities were bluffed into suppress ing the law against the native? The European, having gained this first sub versive step, might take the second step and escape through the loop-hole which he had created in the law. For instance, in the case of a mixed couple appearing before the court, the Bench might be obliged to say to the one party “Guilty” and to the other “Not guilty,” or alternatively, dis miss them both.

The question is a delicate one, hedged about with personalities. Until all the features surrounding the position here reveal themselves it would be premature for a correspondent to “rush in where angels fear to tread.”