Catholic Missionary’s Opinion
p. 30 · Read in the full issue
¥>ROTESTING against the new Marriage Ordinance, Rev. Father J. G. Madigan, an experienced Roman Catholic mission ary of Matupit Island, Rabaul, wrote to the Rabaul Times on March 3. The fol lowing are extracts from his letter.
No one can deny that since the advent of the European, native culture in refer ence to marriage has weakened. An Ordinance designed to regulate the cele bration of marriages in this cosmopolitan land has already become law and the only people excluded from its benefits are those most in need of its protection.
According to the native custom obtain ing here when the European appeared, a native had only one wife and marriage was strictly regarded as something sacred, solemn and life-long. The sole exception was the village chief, who usually had a plurality of wives. Sexual irregularities among village natives were punished with death by spearing both the guilty par ties. As tribal wars had isolated the vil lages, would-be law-breakers had little hope of escape from the punishment which was promptly executed; consequently
sexual crimes were rare and married life on a high plane.
With the advent of the white man and the breaking down of the barriers, which isolated villages, one unfortunate result has been the weakening of real native marriage laws and the growth and exten sion of baneful practices which had and continue to have disastrous effects on native life.
Benevolent officials, uninformed and misinformed, have in the name of free dom done much harm by informing vil lage natives that a benign Government will only smile on them if they take two or even more wives. Those who have lived among natives in the last century as well as this have looked on and deplored the weakening of the native’s former high ideal of marriage—innocent native women and children neglected by unscrupulous men who could claim the white man’s protection; moreover, depraved employers in order to retain the services of useful natives have promised them a “Mary” and to honour the promise have gone into neighbouring villages and by half-threats and half-persuasion have succeeded in bringing home unwilling native girls to be used as the unfortunate victims of indentured natives during periods of ser vice. No account was ever taken of the unfortunate victims’ future.
The lamentable result has been that during the past 30 years changed condi tions have fostered the growth of certain depraved habits entirely unknown before and these habits pass, among a certain class of European, who has never been trained to distinguish the cockle from the wheat, as native customs and often enjoy the protection of law . . .
On Matupit Island I have a congrega tion of nearly 500 Catholic natives, and among them four generations bf Catholic people. We are living under a Mandate that urges us to do the utmost for the moral and material welfare of the people and their social progress. I have instruct ed them in Christian principles, and nat urally being Christians they desire to be married as Christians, as is done all over the world. Yet the effect of the new legis lation, according to the Crown Law Officer of the Territory, whose opinion must carry weight, is: “In my opinion, now that natives are excluded from the Marriage Ordinance 1935-1936, a marriage may be celebrated between natives according to the rites of any religious de nomination, but the law of the Territory would not recognise the marriage as valid, and such marriage would have no legal effect.”
In every part of the British Empire to-day Christians who enter matrimony according to the rites of their respective denominations are assured that their mar riages will be duly recognised and re spected by the civil government. The sole exception must be the Territory of New Guinea since March 2, 1936. To secure recognition here, natives must trample on Christian principles and marry according to native customs. On Matupit Island, as in other places, the real native marriage customs have long since dis appeared. No student of native culture would call the fashion which has sprung up like a toad during the past 30 years a native custom.
In my opinion the matter cannot be allowed to rest where it is to-day. Thous ands of Christian natives in this Terri tory know and understand the nature and obligations of marriage. Naturally they feel they have been sold and are filled with contempt for a system of government which admits such injustices. Apart from the speech of the Crown Law Officer whose duty it was to present the Ordin ance, not a word of explanation or pro test came from quarters where it might be expected.