River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1889-06-06
THE MARRIAGE PROBLEM.
How w. +. GIadstone's Contribution {
the Great Controversy.

the Great Controversy.
The greatest and deepest OF all hui
man controversies is the marriage
controversy. 1t appears to be surg
| ing up on all sides around US; and
every book which helps definitely
TO map out its lines has on that &C
count both interest and value. 1t is
in America that, from whatever cause,
/ this controversy has reached a stage
Of development more advanced than
elsewhere. Moreover. the present so
cial life OF America offers at all points
profoundly important field of OBJ
,ervation, towards which european
,yes have hardly yet begun to De
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
comparison, and will form, in constant
| ly growing proportions, telling ele-
ment in the general condition of Chris
tendon. and even of humanity at large.
The present social lie of America may
be said TO be a new formation. and
I to have begun at a date which
would warrant our applying to it
the alternative title of Waverley.
"'Tis Sixty Years since" Mrs. Stowe
must have drawn upon the experience
Of her admirable New England novels,
I such as THE Minister'S WOoing;" but
/ the Puritan life which she describes APP
/ pears to have vanished at least from the
Weather circles of American society.
/ The true meaning of a discussion which
call into question the ancient and spe-
cially Christian constitution of the
/ family is that it Is vast upthrow
/ in the world Of thought and fact which.
/ if coasummated. will change in time
the whole moral surface of the earth,
and shift, in revolutionary sense, the
! polarity Of life. The chief spur thrown
out literally from this great upthrow is
/ in America Many reader On This side
the water will be startled when he
learns that in the old State of Connect
/ cut one marriage is dissolved in every
/ ten, and in 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 di-
vorce whatever; mean, of course di-
i vorce which leads the way TO remark
/ age. Again it is necessary to bear in mind
that the divorces as well as the marriages
of any one State are acknowledge in
the courts of every other. understand
that the experience Of America as well
/ as OF this country tends to show that di-
vorce is largely associated with that
\ portion of communities which is lack
1 ing in solid and stable conditions of life
generally. America may suffer speci-
i ally from the shiftings of relative posi-
1 ton and circumstances incidental to q
, forward movement in things material
/ of an unexampled rapidity; and it may
also be true that State like Connects
cut has to answer for many offenses
not her own, though she can not be ex-
empted from full responsibility for the
4 laws she has chosen to enact We
must be aware of all sweeping and pre-
mature conclusions. But it seems in
! disputable that America is the Arena
on which many OF the problems connect
ed with the marriage state are in course
of being rapidly, painfully and peril
ously tried out. In so far she is in
trusted, like prGUogatiUa tribus, with
the destlnies of others, and may dc
much by her example to make or mar
/ them.-W. f. Gladstone, in Nineteenth
i Century