The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-03-25
SATURDAY, MARCH 25, 1871.
MARRIAGE AND DIVOROE.

A SUBJECT of the first Importance, which has
not vet received the general consideration
which it deserves, is the great and growing
necessity for a national code of laws regulat-
ing marriage and divorce. To establish such
a code, and to put stop to the uncertainty
and scandal which exist atpresent on account
of the varying enactments of the several
States, a constitutional amendment will be
necessary; and those whe believe that upon
the sanctity of the marriage tie and the
restraint of license depend the future safety
and welfare of our social organization, cannot
too soon commence to agitate in favor of such
an amendment. The Yelverton case and
some others which have engaged
public attention of late years have shown
how great outra6es upon public decency, not
to speak of private rights, result in Great
Britain from the varying and conflicting mar
riage laws of England, Ireland, and Scotland;
and in this country we are only saved from
innumerable occurrences of the same kind
because marriage is considered merely as a
civil compact, and the forms necessary to
constitute legal marriage are of the SIM
plest description in all of the States. 1t is in
our divorce regulations however, that the
greatest chaos prevails; and scandals of the
most outrageous character occur every day
through the facilities which are afforded in
some of the States for undoing the marriage
bonds In addition to this, the leaders of the
women rights movement, forgetful of the
fact that, if marriage and divorce are to de-
pend entirely upon the momentary
whims of the contracting parties, the
women will be the greatest sufferers, are
clamoring for the privilege of free divorce;
so that when either o husband or a wife be-
comes tired of his or her partner, or discov-
ers new affinity" the marriage may be
dissolved, in spite of the claims of children
or of society at large 1t is obvious at a
glance that if these free-love doctrines are
allowed to prevail all respect for decency will
speedily be swept away. Children will have
no natural protectors, and the whole founda-
tions of religion, morality, and social organi-
zation will be undermined. Marriage is,
from its very nature, something different
from q mere business partnership; and those
who enter upon it unadvisedly or hastily, or
who do not find all their expectations of we'd
ded bliss realized, cannot be permitted to
make society at large suffer for their mistakes
or misfortunes. This is one OF the relations
of life in which society has some claims supe-
rior to those of individuals, and it is infinitely
better that a comparatively few unhappily-
matched couples should be compelled to en-
dure their misery as best they may, and to
take care of their children, than that, by a
system of free divorce, all the foodgates of
the grossest forms of immortality should be
opened for the destruction of the nation.
No opponent of Capitalization, however
bigoted he may be, can contend that the regu-
iation of marriage and divorce should not be
in the hands of the General Government, or
that there should not be uniform laws for the
whole country. In fact, the only opposition
would come from the now unimportant and
uninhuential clique of coarse-minded women
who profess to believe that they are the vic
TINS of masculine tyranny; and the only
serious obstacle in the way of placing the
whole matter in the hands of the General
Government is in the difficulty of obtaining
the necessary amendment to the Constitution.
This difficulty could easily be overcome if
sufficient interest were manifested by those
who look with horror upon the pernicious
doctrines of the advocates of free love, and
there are already evils of sufficient magnitude
existing under our present system to excite
that lively interest in the subject that is de-
manded if q reform is to be effected.