Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-02-23
inclinations of the principles must be close
ly the same as before the act of 1857.

| Be this as it may, the absurdities and con
! fict of the present laws here are truly more
dangerous and pernicious than might ap
pear at first sight. In some instances par
ties are married in one State and not in an
ether. A young couple may depart, as they
| fondly think, on their honeymoon in one o.
Pullman's magnificent coaches and on wax
| ing in the morning find themselves in any.
thing but an enviable predicament, subject
to arrest for one of the meanest and mos
disgfaceful crimes known to the criminal
law.
In some places celebration, too, is neces
sary; in others it cuts no figure. / mean by
celebration not only the act of a civil or re.
ligious officer declaring the parties to be
husband and wife, but the prerequisite fol
such act and the duties resulting there from
not only the ceremony proper, but the con.
sent of the parties or license Consent of the
State), or banns Consent OF the church, and
the registry of the fact that the marriage
has been celebrated. The necessity of thi:
celebration depends on the lex loci or law
of the place. II a couple desire to marry in
Maryland, they must not only have a cele.
bration, but religious one. If for some
reason these two warm-hearted Marylanders
wish to avoid this, they need but step over
into Pennsylvania.
JURISTS DIFFER.
No celebration was necessary by the
common law previous to the Council oi
Trent, A. d. 1868, or by the civil law or by
the law of Scotland. Whether or not one
is necessary by the common law of England
is doubtful. However, believe it was
finally settled that it was necessary in the
celebrated case of the Queen versus Mills,
which embraces several hundred pages of a
very learned discussions by the most erudite
iurists of the time, and this view has been
sustained by Maryland, Massachusetts, and
North Carolina, and probably in Canada.
But the contrary has been held in Tennessee,
Alabama, California, Georgia, Illinois,
Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi,
Missouri, New York, Ohio and Pennsyl-
vania.
II may be we'll to notice that in only three
States, Kentucky, Maryland and Massa-
more it is probably necessary, in eight
others probably not, and in Connecticut,
Colorado, Dakota, Oregon and Utah, the
question is simply undecided; but it is alb
solutely not necessary in the remaining
seventeen, nor in the District of Columbia.
TRIVIAL CAUSES FOR DIVORCE.
The trivial grounds of the causes for di-
vorce have also been a cause, and justly,
too, of complaint. In each of the United
States, with one exception, divorce is al
lowed. In South Carolina, divorce is en-
tirely unknown, not even is it granted by
legislation, as in Canada. An act was
passed in 1872 allowing it, but it was re-
pealed in 1878. Not only has it always
been the proud boast of South Carolina that
she has never granted a single legislative
divorce, or vested the authority in her
courts, save the acts above referred to, but
also has she been lauded to the skies ad
sidera by Judge Nisbet, of the Supreme
Court of Georgia, in those remarkable
words: "In South Carolina, to her unfading
honor divorce has not been granted since
the Revolution Nor is this all. One of
her own best known jurists, Judge O'Neal,
contends that its frmness in that re-
spect has been for the good of the
people and of the State in every
respect 1.-THE most distressing cases." says
the Judge, "even upon scriptural grounds,
have been again and again presented to the
Legislature, and they have uniformly re-
fused to annul the marriage tie. Thev have
nobly adhered to the Injunction, Those
whom God hath Joined together let no man
put asunder.' The working of this stern
policy has been for the good of the people
and State in every respect"
SOUTH CARoLINA's BOAST.
Chancellor Durgan, too, in rendering
judgment in Hair versus Hair, says: ''The
policy of this State has ever been against
divorces. 1t is one of her boasts that no
divorce was ever granted in South Caro-
lima
These extracts from those learned jurists
h.. Tox. ro4o l,aL - IL !
issue, but never do you hear such halo or
crown of joy expressed by the judges in the
Western States, where divorce can be got on
the slightest pretext, as in Illinois, ''on
other grounds, in the discretion of the
court" This elastic word discretion" has
always had an animal magnetism about it
4 mysterious influence of drawing thou
sands OF votaries to its shrine, to dissolve
the sacred tie between man and
wife which was to bind them to-
gether in love till ''death doth them part"
"'Tis true, tits pity; pity tits, tits true
1t is a significant fact that the author of
the proposed amendment comes from Illi-
nois, which, rightly or wrongly, has the
reputation of being the easiest State in the
Union to obtain a divorce. Chicago has be-
come as famous in that respect as for "corner-
ing" wheat or slaughtering b1llocks. Now
if there is any truth in the principle that
men esteem what is their own more highly
than what is another's, we would have the
Congressman and Senator Cullom opposing
the amendment with the same energy they
are now employing in its advancement.
A QUESTION OF PUBLIC POLICY.
As I intimated in the beginning of this
article, since it might not be public policy
10 make the marriage laws entirely indissol-
uble, but as being best under circumstances
and for the benefit OF all to make them uni
versal, since not eternal; and perforce make
those who come under them regard marriage
as something permanent with their own
lives and not depending on the whim or
caprice of fancy, and only to be dissolved
by such conduct as shall render the connec-
tion wholly intolerable or inconsistent
with the happiness and safety of the
other. The Catholic Church, while she
repudiates divorce, does not favor her chill
dren remaining together in unhappy we'd
lock. But this church or any other has
nothing to do with that part 81 it which
belongs to the State. l have not on this
account appealed to a single Catholic the
ologian or ecclesiastical writer. They would
want us to do, very likely, what they have
been taught, viz, to do what is abstract
edly best. They may lack the experience;
they may never have been married.
A very learned Judge, well sehooled in
the teachings of that church, interpreting
the laws of his State, nicely remarked that
''True indeed, is it that this union is in
tended to be for life; that only in the most
extreme circumstances should it he dis
solved, but the very fact of its sacred na-
ture, TOO sacred to be made matter of tenn
porary arrangement, is the strong reason
why, when it ceases to have anything
sacred about it, when an erring one has
trampled it in the mud of his corruption by
his polluted feet, the law should cease to
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