are unhappy with the Immigration Department's handling of what they see as a growing problem.

While reluctant to discuss their specific cases, Home Affairs Minister Quinton Edness said his department was doing its best to address a "complex'' phenomenon that was difficult to pinpoint.

He agreed it was likely that more non-Bermudians were marrying Bermudians for ulterior motives since immigration laws were amended to give greater employment rights to foreign spouses in 1994.

"My guestimate is that probably more people would be enticed to enter that kind of arrangement, with spouses having the rights that they do now,'' he said. "If this becomes of major concern, I think the Government would have to find a way to deal with it.'' It is a major concern to two Bermudian women who separately approached The Royal Gazette to tell their stories: A 38-year-old Warwick woman whose non-Bermudian husband left home nine months after their 1991 marriage says the man continues to live and work on the Island, despite her complaints to Immigration.

She said the man, a Jamaican, was unable to work until they were married for six months and was a good husband during that time.

"Once he got the job, it was a different story,'' she said. "He forgot where he lived.'' Since then, "I'm still trying to find out how he got Immigration to keep him here without me signing for his work permit.'' There were no children from the marriage. The woman said she cannot afford the legal fees to divorce the man, and he refuses to initiate one.

Mr. Edness, who was given the name of the woman, declined to comment on the specific case. "I don't know the details,'' he said.

But in general, a non-Bermudian who no longer resides with a Bermudian spouse "can be asked to leave'', he said.

Non-Bermudian men who marry Bermudian women have less protection in Bermuda than non-Bermudian women who marry Bermudian men, he said. The Bermuda Constitution Order says the wife of a Bermudian "is deemed to belong to Bermuda'' as long as she is "not living apart from such person under a decree of a court or a deed of separation''. It makes no such provision for a husband of a Bermudian.

As for the case in question, "there may be other factors involved'', Mr.

Edness said. "It may well be that they have separated and he's on a work permit, and it may be that that decision is weighted by the fact he's being permitted to stay here (to work) in any case.'' In a case earlier highlighted in The Royal Gazette , a 40-year-old Bermudian woman divorced a Filipino man last October, only to see him go to the altar with his third Bermudian wife, while under a deportation order from the Immigration Department.

Today, the man remains on the Island, despite assurances from Mr. Edness last year that: "If he's been asked to leave, he'd better go -- otherwise he'll be deported.'' If the man was asked to leave and married a Bermudian, "he'd still have to go'', Mr. Edness said in November.

The woman, who said her husband told her he realised their marriage was a mistake two days after their 1994 nuptials, is annoyed that he is still in Bermuda, especially when she recently read about a Portuguese family being forced to leave the Island because the children misbehaved in school.

Again, Mr. Edness said he did not have all the facts and would not comment on a specific case in any event.

But he said it could be that the man was being forced to leave and it was a matter of an appeal period expiring.

Mr. Edness said marriages of convenience were difficult to quantify, although "we know it goes on''.

"An obvious marriage of convenience is if a non-Bermudian man makes some sort of arrangement with a Bermudian woman, marries her, guarantees to pay her rent, and goes to live somewhere else,'' Mr. Edness said. From either side, "there's no obvious marriage relationship between them''.

And Immigration had heard reports of bribes being paid to Bermudians to marry non-Bermudians, he said.

More difficult were cases in which the Bermudian partner is duped into a marriage of convenience, since it was often difficult to distinguish from an honest marriage gone sour.

And, "we're not in the business of making moral judgments to determine whether a person should live here or not,'' he said. "We have to be guided by the law.''