Statutes
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1950.tb00164.x |
| Date | 01 April 1950 |
| Published date | 01 April 1950 |
| Author | J. P. Lawton |
STAT
U
TE
S
MARRIED WOMEN (MAINTENANCE)
ACT,
1949
THI~
Act which came into force on December
16, 1949,
remedies an
injustice which had become increasingly grave in recent years. The
maximum weekly payments which courts of summary jurisdiction
can award under the Summary Jurisdiction (Married Women) Act,
1895,
and the Married Women (Maintenance) Act,
1920,
have been
increased from
€2
for
a
wife and
10s.
for each child to
€5
for
a
wife and
80s.
for each child. This will enable justice to be done by
the simple and inexpensive procedure
of
the magistrates’ courts
in
many cases where previously
a
wife’s only remedy was to petition
in the High Court
for
judicial separation
or,
somewhat insincerely,
for
restitution of conjugal rights, in order to obtain an allowance
commensurate with her husband’s means.’ An ordcr made before
December
16, 1949,
may be varied on the application of the wife
in
order to increase the payments within the new limits, but the
increase operates only from the date of variation.
Payments for the benefit of a child could previously be ordered
only up to the age of sixteen, but the Act provides that these
payments can be continued for periods of two years at a time up to
the age of twenty-one, if it appears to the court that the child is
or
will
be engaged in a course of education
or
training after attaining
the age
of
sixteen, and that
it
is expedient for that purpose that the
payments should continue. This welcome extension cannot, how-
ever, be made in an original order, but only on an application to
vary an existing order for payment for the child’s benefit. This
has the strange result that a child, who attains the agc of sixteen
before the date
on
which the wife first obtained an ordcr against
the husband, cannot be given thc benefit
of
payments for further
education, because in such a case there can be no existing order.
Moreover, if a wife first applies
to
the court shortly before the child
attains the age of sixteen, she
wi!l
have to apply again for variation
in ordcr that the payments may continue bcyond the age of
sixteen.
In addition to these provisions, the Act makes four minor
amendments to the law
:
(1)
Section
25
of the Finance Act,
1944,
in order to avoid dim-
culties which arose during the war when income tax liability
spread to the lower-income groups, provided that tax should
not be deducted from payments under
‘
small maintenance
orders
’,
but that instead such payments should be a charge
1
But
see
now
R.
5
of
tlir:
Lnw
Re~orrii
(Misccllnneous
Provisions)
Act,
1949
(noted.
p.
‘23.2.
irijrfi),
220
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