Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1878-10-02
Reasons for Legislation upon Divorce.


the better
First--Because the evil under the present
system is already an enormous one. In the
seventeen years ending with 1876, there
were twenty four hundred and twelve di-
vorces granted in the good state of Vermont
For the whole period only one-fourth were
for the cause of adultery, while in the last
few years less than fourth were for this
cause. Desertion in nearly half the cases,
simple desertion with no claim to its being
wlful, covers forty per cent. of the whole.
Intolerable severity covers in the whole
period twenty-five per cent and latterly far
more than that proportion. Only four for
insanity and nine for the confinement of one
party in the state prison, and not one for
confirmed intoxication. So the records show.
OF course it is difficult to get at the true
causes in many cases, but we think they are
pretty fairly indicated by the figures. And,
by the way, the statistics of causes we have
given are no later than the registration re-
ports of 1874. Those reports are three years
behind date. Taken in periods of five years,
the ratio of divorces to marriages in the
earliest was one to twentyone in the second,
one to eighteen; in the third, one to sixteen.
The actual number each year is lately aver
aging one hundred and seventy-two. Nearly
five thousand persons have been divorced in
the last seventeen years, and the evil is going
on now at the rate of three hundred and
fifty year. Nearly one hundred and sew
enty-fve families are legally broken up each
year. while the i'll effects of the system are
felt directly in many times that number. 1t
would be impossible to calculate the more
insidious and dangerous effects from the
diffusion of loose ideas of marriage in society.
Legislation has no right to encourage wrong
in this way. 1t has no business TO put, as
it now practically does, premium on i'm
morality and trouble in the family.
.Secondiy-The mere fact that the Chris.
tian church asks so generally for reform is
reason for giving the subject the most seri
GUS consideration. Not to speak of the
Catholics, the four great denominations of
Professionals are known to be opposed to our
present divorce laws, and either have, or by
the end of this week will have asked, sub.
stantally, for reform in our legislation.
Should any class, like our manufacturers,
ask for attention to given matter, as one
affecting seriously their own interests, it
would be given at once. The friends of
trade, agriculture education or temperance
are always heard at the Capitol, and their
requests reasonably considered. The well
fare of the state is promoted by the protec-
ton of every healthful interest within its
borders But here are our churches, the
source of all that is best in morals and vir-
tue, and the conservators of the most valua-
bic interests of the state, calling for better
laws. They say that our present divorce
laws not only fail to encourage purity, but
positively discourage it. They are sources
of vice. They strike blow at vital part
OF their life. Discipline in the church is
made difficult by the indirect influence of
the laws, the family idea is debased into
tOulidcb DtbNttu bWp DditltS, anu
moral poison is taken into the social system.
The consciences of Christians are often vio-
lated by the course they are sometimes com
PEELED to take, and the practice to which
they are often parties against their desire.
We say that merely as matter of business,
and outside of the inherent right or wrong
of the thing, the Christians of Vermont
ought to, and we believe they will, get a
successful hearing before the Legislature.
But again, the state has an interest in
this matter for her own sake. The evil
saps her foundation not only in morals, but
in one of her integral elements. The family
is a part of the very framework of the state.
1t is builded into the very structure of So
ciety in such way that every attack upon
the family is a direct blow at the state it.
self. The family is the very storehouse of
national character and power. Says a
writer upon the nation The law has a
universal attestation that when the life of
the nation has been the deeper, and its moral
aim more clearly apprehended in the con-
sciousness of men, there has been clearer
recognition of the sacredness of the family
and conversely, when the family has been
regarded, as formed in contractual law, or a
momentary obligation, it has impaired the
power and spirit of the nation" 1t is the
degradation of the family and the lower APP
prehension of its obligation, that is repre-
sented alike by all her annalists and satir-
lists, as the cause and circumstance of the
ruin of Rome" Unjust divorce destroys
the family it strikes, and corrupts others
around it.
Lashy-Our present law favors the desires
of the worst classes, instead of aiding the
efforts of the best people to maintain virtue
and morality. This point was well taken in an
able article in the Rutland Herald last week,
We repeat it. Our law is much like that
temperance legislation that is made in the
interest of the rum-seler rather than against
it. Under it divorces almost inevitably in
crease from year to year. We have dwelt
too much on the real or imaginary ills of
the few, and too little upon their ultimate
good and that of the great body of our peo-
pie Our courts have been burdened and
the state expenses increased, not to repress
and punish vice and crime but TO crafty
the desires of the vicious and quarrelsome.
Our legislature can hardly find better
way to serve the interests of morality, or to
strengthen the foundations of the state and
society in these days of peril from COM
munism, or to promote economy in expendi-
ture, than to address itself most earnestly
to the remedy of the evils of our divorce
laws. Nothing would do more to distinguish
the administration of Governor Proctor and
the legislature of 1878, than the substitution
of good for wretchedly bad divorce law.
Prison Congress mt Stockholm.
DIR. Wines, gentleman who has been the
founder of all of the congresses which have
convened within the last few years in the
United States and Europe to consider the
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