Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-04-26
THE MARRIAGE PROBLEM.
1t is the Most Important for the Safety
of the Social Fabric.

W. E Gladstone in the Nineteenth Century
The greatest and deepest of all human con-
troversies is the marriage controversy. II APP
pears to be surging up on all sides around US.
and every book which helps definitely to map
out its lines has on that account both interest
and value. 1t is in America that, from what
ever cause, this controversy has reached stage
of development more advanced than elsewhere
Moreover, the present social life of America
offers at all points profoundly important
field of observation, toward which European
eyes have hardly yet begun to be turned. This
social life, if it does not already embrace the
largest province of the entire social life Of
civilized man, will shortly embrace not the
largest only, but the largest beyond all COM
parison, and will form, in constantly growing
proportions, a telling element in the general
condition of Christendom and even of human
ity at large.
THE PRESENT SOCIAL LIFE OF AMERICA
may be said to be new formation and to have
begun at date which would warrant our ap-
plying to it the alternative title OF waverly,
Its Sixty Years Since" Mrs Stowe must
have drawn upon the experience of her early
days in her admirable New England novels,
such as The Minister'S Wooing;" but the Pur-
itan life which she describes appears to have
vanished. at least from the wealthier circles of
American society. The true meaning of dis
cussion which calls into question the ancient
and specially Christian constitution of the
family is that it is a vast upthrow in the world
of thought and fact which, if consummated,
will change in time the whole moral surface of
the earth, and shift, in a revolutionary sense
the polarity of life. The chief spur thrown
out laterally from this great upthrow is in
America. Many a reader on this side the water
will be startled when he learns that in the old
state OF Connecticut one marriage is dissolved
in every ten, and the new state of California
one in every seven. He may learn with equal
surprise that in South Carolina there is (as
am informed) no legal divorce whatever;
mean, of course, divorce which leads the way
to remarriage. Again, it is necessary to bear
in mind that the divorces as well as the mar
riages of any one state are acknowledged in
the courts of every other.
AMERICAS EXAMPLE FOR GOOD OR EVIL.
understand that the experience Of America.
as well as of this country, tends to show that
divorce is largely associated with that portion
of communities which is lacking in solid and
stable conditions Of life generally. America
may suffer specially from the shiftings Of rela-
tive position and circumstances incidental to q
forward movement in things material of an un-
exampled rapidity, and it may also be true that
a state like Connecticut has to answer for
many offenses not her own, though she cannot
be exempted from full responsibility for the
laws she has chosen to enact. We must beware
of all sweeping and premature conclusions.
But it seems indisputable that America is the
arena on which many of the problems connect
ed with the marriage state are in course of be-
ing rapidly, painfully, and perilousy tried out.
In SO Tar she is intrusted, like a prerogativa
tribus, with the destinies Of others, and may
do much by her example to make or mar
them.