Litchfield enquirer., 1870-01-20
MARRIAGE AND MORALITY.
! SocIAL OoNsEQUENoEs-CAsE IN REEL
 i aIoUs POINT OF Vmw. ... ..,t

A London weekly journal of Dec l3, treats the above subjects in the following words:-- +, f .-,.sss.. ...,4 .....-.
 A generation or two ago, when English pride was at it's highest, it was the fashion to dwell with much satisfaction on the sn. perior morality of Protestant countries. and England in particular, compared with that which prevailed in Roman Catholic lands. Fashions, however, change; Ro- manism attained something of premium in distinguished British circles, Protest antism falling to discount. And then the bold assertions of Romanists them. selves in favor of their creed began to re- ceive credence. It slipped somehow into a kind of maxim, that thorough Romanist populations are more moral, in the com- mon ecclesiastical sense of the word, which regards especially the relations between
 the sexes, than communities of the re- formed faith. This was kind of conces-
 sion gracefully made by persons of hb- eral religious opinions to zealous Roman
 ists. You are, mo doubt, superstitious and ignorant people; but 1t must be con- fessed that you have an advantage over us in point of what is specially called morali- ty. The mass of your believers are sound
 or in this respect, both in principles and conduct; great is the virtue of the comics sional to keep ordinary people in the straight road" And the pretensionJ thus
 politely conceded has been employed with abundance of self-laudation by the zealous persons, chiefly converts, who devote themselves to magnifying the glories of
 their persuasion in public writing and speaking. But there lies an appeal be-
 yond all this loose talk to an unimpassion1 stoned tribunal-that of statistical andy SIS. And this proves lassuming the figures
 to be correct) that the respective sexual
 morality of European countries, If tested
 by the number of iilegitimate births (and
 no other test can well be deyised), has no relation whatever to their respective ereeds.
 Here are the figures as given by M. Mau. rice Block in his very valuable work. eli Europe Politique ct Sociale. " ys... Of all European countries, that in which by far the greatest relative number of nat ural children is born is Bavaria, country. of which two-thirds of the people are Cath
 olic. and excessively Catholic, and in which l.s the confessional is more of real insti-
 tuition than almost anywhere else. In Ba-
 varia the illegitimate births amount to 20.
 2, or nearly 21; per cent. of the. whole.
 Next come Saxony and Wurtembsrg, the
 first exclusively, the. second chiefly, Prot estant. In these, iilegitimate births amount to 15 and 11.7 per cent respect iyelyo In Sweden and Norway Protest anti they are 9.3 and 9.2; in Austria fvery Catholic), 89. Next to these comes list of countries comprising. in fact. the great
 CT part of Europe, in which the illegiti- mate birth-rate is singnlarly uniform; no
 where much below ' per cent, and mo-
 where attaining g. These are-taken in
 order of immortality, beginning with the
 worst Belgium, Russia, Italy, France,
 Prussia, England. Of Ireland there are.
 we believe, no trustworthy returns, but common opinion makes it rank very favor
 ably in this respect. Below the countries
 thus enumerated, and therefore the least exceptionabls of all, come Catholic Spain with 5k per cent. and last, Protestant Holland with only 4 per cent, which thus
 attains the European prize of virtue , These diyersities are very far from ad- hitting of easy, or, indeed, any explana- tion from such materials for knowledge as l we possess. Something is due toslegaL m stitutions. For instance, the three Ger man countries which rank worst on the list all possess pecnliarly restrictive codes. oi
 marriage laws, which restrict honorable matrimony, and render irregular but dpra- bic connections-"sw wild marriages, as the Germans oddly but expressively call them l-mure common than they otherwise would lbe And the same obstructive Legislation 2 ah4ga8