American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1873-02-01
The Saving Clause.

The great national magazine of moral
essays, the divorce court, still publishes
its daily lessons of weakness, whimsical
ty, and wickedness for popular admoni-
ton, and still receives nearly as many
contributions from the merely unwise as
is solicited to right those who are suffer
ing for their own egregious folly no less
than those whose grievances are the folly
and iniquity of others; and it is curious to
remark how frequently the petition of the
average divorce suit is for the dissolution
of marriage frankly shown to have been
the petit oner's own foolhardy invitation
of such consequence. In the Chicago
Post of recent issue is given a summary
of an unhappy wife's application to a
court in that city for deliverance from
her matrimonial bondage, and the social
story involved may be studied with profit
by a more than local audience. In 1867
the plaintiff in this case, who was then an
orphan yet in her teens, with patrimony
of some thousands OF dollars, received
the matrimonial addresses of the man
whom she now denOunces to the law.
Within less than a year from the wedding
day her husband had become inattentive
and cold, requiring the sordid bride of
nearly Quarter of his wife's little for
tune to win him back to any appearance
of tender regard. The first bride squan-
uCiCu, tHC lcAlOW UcCtlIlC
lcntly unkind and neglectful, and Was
temporarily conciliated once more with
another thousand. So the process went
on. with increasing. brigandism on one
SIDE, and decreasing means for its plaza
ton on the other, until finally, in August
of last year, the husband actually de-
serted the wife who no longer possessed
and substance of the complaint made
by the poor woman in the divorce
court, and the tale in such shape affords
ample evidence of the petitioners own OBJ
viOus folly in the performance of the con-
tract she would now have set aside. The
resort of deliberately purchasing a disaf-
fected husbands continued kindness and
fidelity argues for the purchaser such
weakness of character, decentralization of
self-respect. and compromise with evil as
might well feed and encourage instead OF
or shaming the meaner traits
in the nature of the purchased. Aside
from this, however, it appears that the
was, in the first place, an act
in direct opposition to the
Judgment and entreaties of the brides
best friends; and it is further revealed that
The bridegroom, while of pleasing per-
sOnal address, was notorious for his s'dis- |
sipated habits.'' With friends to expos
-ulate and her own simplest reason to |
each her that ''dissipated'' wooer could |
scarcely make 4 nOOU nlSDanu, the girl |
still persisted in the marriage. The latter, |
Is she justified it to herself, probably, was |
% be the means of saving the sinner,
md so had moral vindication beyond all |
over views. How that saving effect was
realized is shown in the pitiful story of the |
awsuit: and such must be the inevitably |
homogeneous result of any headstrong
obtained under the self
preteXt of self-abnegatory moral
mission. Parents and guardians who
eek to warn and guard respectable and
young women against the adj
RANGES of fascinating but depraved men,
nave no more absurdly sentimental, and
It the same time perplexing, argument to
,onfute, than that which presents what
nay be called the saving clause. 1t
'eally means no more than that passion
tie girl, having resolved to wed the
lrunkard, or gamester, or rake who has
her passional nature, has struck
lpOn an excuse which, while neither an
ctual conviction to her wiser self nor to
'thers, suffices to fetter common judg-
nent until revision and repentance are
90 late. But the law is facile to help the
mateur Saving" ones out of the moral
uin their experiment has made complete;
nd while this is the case the maddest of all
chemes of salvation must have its dis
omitted female prOphets.-N. r. World.