MOUNG HMOON HTAW ... Vs. MAH HPWAH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE Appellant was the Defendant in an action brought by the Respondent in the Court of the Recorder of "Rangoon, in which the Respondent alleged that she was married in Rangoon to the Appellant according to Burmese rights and customs, and claimed Rs. 10,000 for her expenses of necessaries and living for five years, deducting Rs. 1400, the amount realized by the sale of a house given to her by the Appellant. The Appellant denied the marriage and that the Respondent was entitled to any maintenance. The Recorder found as a fact that she was the wife of the Defendant by a validly constituted marriage, the Burmese law recognising a plurality of wives, and the Plaintiff being what is generally called a lesser wife. Their Lordships are of opinion that this was quite in accordance with the evidence. He then considered the question of maintenance, as to which the material facts may be taken from the evidence which the Planitiff herself gave.

(2.) THEY were married in Tagoo 1235 (about 1873 A.D.). The Defendant is a trader in timber and a forester, and has forest leases in Zimmay, the Mine-loon-gyee forest. The Plaintiff carried on a business of her own at Rangoon. At the marriage the Defendant gave her a dower of Rs. 20,000, and they lived together for some time, principally at Rangoon, but the Defendant's business frequently took him away. He wished her to reside at Rangoon, and requested her to live in a respectable style, which she did, entertaining the relatives and friends of the Defendant, and he not giving her any money towards the expenses of those entertainments. The Plaintiff' always carried on a business of her own, dealing in mineral oil and rice, and accumulated Rs. 80,000 in different kinds of property; and lived, she said, in v the same style after marrying the Defendant as she had done before. In the opinion of the Recorder the Plaintiff received from the Defendant about Rs. 23,500, but she said she had expended all that and large sums of her own in works of merit for the Defendant at his request.

(3.) SINCE this judgment was given, Mr. Jar dine, the present Judicial Commissioner of British Burmah, has published some valuable notes on Buddhist law, with translations of the Wonnanna Dammathat, and several others, on marriage and divorce, and inheritance and partition, with notes, and cases illustrating the Burmese law of marriage and divorce, as now administered in the British Courts. In coming to an opinion upon this appeal, their Lordships have had the advantage of this additional information about Burmese law.