The Washington times., 1921-04-16
LAW UPHOLDS
PLURAL WIVES
Lawyers Assert Technicality In
Connecticut Statutes Makes
-. Andrews Immune.
BY MARGERY REX.

By MARGERY REX.
NEW YORK. April l6.--Sanc-
toned by law, man is living with
two wives in the same house.
Not in Utah, where respectable
Mormons long since have repudi-
ated the practice of plural mar
riage.
CO-OPERATIvE HUSBAND.
Not in Turkey, where the harem is
still a national institution. Not in
zululand or Polynesia.
But at 2S4S Hudson boulevard.
Jersey City, State Of New Jersey.
United States of America.
There dwells Herbert Thornton
Andrews. q 'co-operative husband"
as the neighbors call him. With him
live Mrs. Maud Augusta Haynes An
drews, who became his wife in Maine
in 1912, and Mrs. Esther Marie Tat
nall Andrews. who married him in
1921 in Connecticut.
q Andrews, a prosperous Wall Street
broker, with two legal wives, lives
quite within his rights as a citizen
of New Jersey and Of our great
Union.
Andrews and wife No. 1 haev two
children. They live in a pleasant,
we'll furnished six-room apartment.
The broker-husband and father has
had frequent occasions to travel 20
Pittsburgh, where he met Esther
Marie Tatnall, whom he eventually
decided to marry, and did marry in
Connecticut.
Bigamy, you say in horror! Not at
all, says our law.
WHAT CONNECTICUT LAW HOLDS.
The Connecticut statute holds that
a. pigamy has not been committed till
a bigamous marriage has been con-
summated within the State.
Strange! you exclaim. Unheard Of!
But wait!
For his unusual action Andrews has
had distinguished precedent in his
own State.
Two years ago Vice Chancellor Jo-
seph Merritt Lane, also of the State
of New Jersey and also a married
man. took a second wife by means of
a marriage ceremony performed in
Connecticut.
Laws of that obliging State contain
loophole for the dissatisfied married
man. Lane had, at twenty-nine. con-
tracted an unfortunate marriage. His
first wife later got a divorce in Reno
and Lane married Mrs. Geraldine
Garrison-Kerr in January, 1919, Sc
cretly.
Secretly, because some time prior
to that he had gone through ccre-
mony with Miss Grace Hercht, also a
resident of New Jersey. land she had
borne him a child. At her behest the
vice chancellor took her to Stamford,
Conn., in April, 1919, and there re-
married her.
Clearly bigamy on the face of tt
yet protected by our laws. Lane could
not be prosecuted since each woman
with whom he had been living wns
Joined to him by lawful ceremony,
and he was not guilty. as far NJ is
known. Of living with anyone but Bis
lawful wives"
cellorship. but could not be prosecuted
or punished.
OTHER MEN MAY DO LIKEWISE.
There is no reason why any other
man in New Jersey cannot IL he SO
desires, take a brand-new wife, marrv
her in Connecticut, live with her else
where and escape punishment.
He may be sure If he does so that
our laws will protect him.
If any one should seek to charge
that he is living with woman otner
than his wife, he can prove he is mar
ried to the second woman named.
II bigamy is charged the accuser
must prosecute the case where the
second ceremony took place. Since Z.
is in a state which does not consider
that bigamy has been committed "
the marriage is not consummated
there, such an accusation must Of
necessity be dropped.
Even the Mann act fails to reach
these palpable offenders.
No doubt the example of the ex-
vice chancellor of the State of New
Jersey, a plural husband but an un-
prosecuted one, must have given cheer
to Andrews IL he ever f1inched from
his intended second marriage.
Reform OF our marriage and di-
vorce laws has been vigorously de-
manded since the possibilities sug-
gested by the notorious Stillman
case.
SHOWS COMPLICATIONS.
Max Steuer. commenting upon the
possible legal tangles which might
arise from the Stillman divorce pro-
ceedings, said:
II believe there should be an
amendment to the Federal Constitu-
tion to provide a uniform marriage
and divorce s,w.
Uniform marriage and divorce,
laws could prevent these peculiar
situations.
III either party to the Stillman
case gets a divorce In Reno, Nevada,
that divorce, while valid in Nevada
and about half of our other States
in the Union, ewould be absolute
nullity in New York State.
Both parties would still be con-
sidered, in the eyes of the law. mar
ried in this State.
'If the one who obtained the d.
vorce decree in Reno got married in
New Jersey later. that State would
regard the divorce as valid and the
second marriage as legal, while New
York would regard the new union
as nothing less than bigamy, and
consider the two parties to the new
marriage as adulterous persons.
"In New York, then, the party 10
the Reno divorce, who did not get
married again. could institute action
for absolute divorce and get a decree
charging the husband with adultery
which across the river in Jersey