New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1860-03-01
DIyORCE-WOMAN,s RIGHTS.

Our Legislature Is again mpoftuned 10 Try lts
hand at increasing the facilities Of Divorce. We
trust it viii ponder long and carefully before it con-
sents. That many persons are badly mated
is true; but that is not the laws fault. The law OF
our State says plainly to all the unmarried" BE
"yery careful how you marry, for mistake in
"tbs regard is irreyocable The law does not
"constran you to marry does not hurry you to
"marry, but bids you be first sure that you know
/" intimately and love devotedly the person with
"whOm you form this irrevOcable union. We
"rectiy DO mistakes; it rests with you not TO
'make any, If you do bear the penalty as you
ought and do not seek to transfer it to the shout
/" ders Of the community And this, we think,
u.s. in the broad view, right though in special cases
i. involves hardship.
The paradise of free-lOvers is the State of Indi-
ana, where the lax principles of Robert Dale Owen
and the utter want of principle Of John Petit dead
ing revisers of the laws) combined to establish,
some years since, state of law which enables men
or women to get unmarried nearly at pleasure. A
legal friend in that State recently remarked to US
that at ore County Court, he obtained eltren di-
vorces one day before dinner: "and it wasn't o
good morning for divorces either" In one case
within his knowledge, prominent citizen of an
Eastern manufacturing city came to Indiana, went
through the usual routine, and obtained his divorce
about dinner time, and in the Of the evening
was married to his new inamorata, who had come
on for the purpose, and was staying at the same
hotel with him. They soon started for home, hav-
ing no more use for the State of Indiana; and, on
arriving, be introduced his new wife to her aston
ished predecessor whom he notified that she must
pack up and 90, as there was no room for her in
that house any longer So che went.
How many want such facility of divorcing in
New-York1 We trust not one in hundred. If
we are right in this Judgment let the ninety.n nine
make themselves heard at Albany as well as the
one. The Disconnected are always active; the
contented ought not to sleep evermore.
We favor whatever may be done to mitigate the
hardships endured by mismated persons in perfect
consistency with the maintenance of the sanctitY
and perpetuity of marriage. Cases are constantly
occurring in which virtuous and worthy girl per-
ssts in marrying dissoute scape grace, in spite of
the most conclusive demonstrations of bis worth
lessness. Five years hence, when ne mas become
miserable oafer and sot, she will wish herself d-
yorced from him; but the law says No, and we
star by it, But the law ought to allow her to earn
for herself and her little Ones and not enable him
to appropriate and squander her few hard-won
shillings. This is asked for, and ought to be
granted. So the law should allow the woman
who is living wholly separate from her husband
by reason of his brutality, cruelty or proAigacy
to have the same control over her property
and earnings as if she had never married
This is not now the case. Nay: We know
an instance in which 8 woman, long since sepa-
rated from her worthless husband, and trying hard
to earn meager living for their children, was dis
abled and crippled BY railroad accident; yet the
law gives her no right of action against the culpa-
BILE company her broken ankles are legally her
runaway husbands, not her own; and he would
probably sell them outright for gallon of good
brandy, and let the Company finish the job Of break
ing them at its convenience. We heartily approve
of such changes in our laws as would make this de-
serted wife the legal owner of her own ankles; but
we would not dissolve the marriage obligation to
constancy for any other cause than that recognized
az sufficient by Jesus Christ.