The evening light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1881-1883, 1882-05-23
MORALS OF BREACH OF PROMISE.

of all experience and in the face of
all continuous f0ntretembs,will associate
marriage with the conjugal affection
which, as a sentiment of the human
heart, has an actual existence, or to
speak with more caution, is an actual
possibility. This love, having quail
ties of which law suits can not be bred,
having unselhshness and freedom from
sordld instincts, it becomes difficult to
reconcile opposites so absolute; and
the mind is hence prone to regard the
broken promise as one that had not
been squarely accepted and, therefore,
as wanting in judicial base. To be
sure we have the formidable legal dog
ma that marriage is a civil contract
setting itself with great force in the
universal mind against its higher WIS
dom: but a civil contract is without
life, or binding force, unless 1t be OF
good morals. So there are just six in
the morals and half a dozen III the
law. The real truth of human natures
repugnance to damages in breach OF
promise cases lies in its instinct. tits
stronger than the logic of the advo-
cate. As language is claimed by
cynlcs to be given to hide our thoughts,
so it may conceal in argument the
true logic of the breach. The reason
ing is essentially forensic. 1t might
mislead jury into the conviction that
promise of marriage could have been
accepted in the pure innocent trust of
marriage faith and yet, if broken be
attoned for in money. This argu-
ment the natural instinct of each
mind of the unofending and much
assailed jury repels. But often
more effective battery of offence
is found in the behavior OF
the defendant under pressure of the
proceedings. A rich man with poor
mouth in a breach of promise case
makes an indignant jury. In such in
stance the verdict does not, as we
hold, vindicate the complaining sutton,
but inAicts penalty upon the trans
gressor who fails to appreciate, not the
virtues of the fair object he is pur-
suing, but the debt of liberal and mag
unanimous conduct he owed to society.
He will be held for liberal spirit in
the administration of a wealth with
which the fury will failto see they have
logically nothing to do.
In the examination of breaches of
promise, therefore, we have never dis
covered our sympathies to be in any
violent rapport with the injured sensl-
bilities of the plaintiff. Every one is
prone to separate the conjugal affec-
tons from the sphere of business. They
are held too sacred to be profaned by
mercenary contact. The more exalted
the functions they exercise the more
grave and solemn the effects conse-
quent on their lack of purity. 1t is
impossible to us to feel that heart
lowered into that inviolable love
which opens the door upon maternity,
can receive any compensation for its
wrongs in the realms of money.
The St. 10 uis Globe-Democrat pre-.
sents the Mormon question as in a
dubious state of social collapse. A
correspondent at Salt Lake City, guest
of Mormon family, writes that the
hostility of the Mormon women to
the new Edmunds law is to the last
degree furious. "There has never
been," he says, "since Herod's order
darkened the nurseries of Judea, any
act of authority that has wrung sc
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