Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-03-25
DIVORCE.
Some of the Trivial and Curious Causes
for Which They are Obtained.
The Larger Per Cent. is for Cruelty, Drunken
ness and Neglect to ProYide-0ur
Faulty Divorce Laws.
For the Gazette.

For the Gazette.
The recent official report on marriage
and divorce devotes a few pages to ex-
amples of divorces for trifiing causes, in
Guiding some for almost incredible cruel
ties. We take few at random: Accus-
ing the wife IS sister of stealing; smash
ing crockery; refusing to speak to wife;
speaking disrespectfully; treating wife
as child; using tobacco; compelling
the wife to black the husbands boots;
tying wife to gate post; showing her
into nest of bees; throwing a lighted
lamp at her while in bed; knocking out
river; breaking her nose, fingers, ribs;
chewing and biting her ears or face, are
some of the charges made against hus-
bands.
Wives also appear in the list of Offend
ers. They smash household wares; re-
fuse to sew on buttons, and do not mend
clothes. The wife pulls the husband out
of bed by the whiskers, runs needles into
his arm, strikes him with her hustle,
throws scalding tea in his face, and
commits great variety of other brutal
acts.
1t is to be hoped that most of these ex-
amples are from ruder communities or
lower closes, but we fear that so-called
high life has it's share of them. 1t is,
however, a serious fact that over 60 per
cent. of the divorces in the United
States are granted for cruelty, drunken
ness and neglect to provide, 80 per cent.
being for desertion alone.
Now, while we deplore this state of
things, it may be well to look little
below the surface and see one of the
ways in which the relief granted by the
courts affects these cases.. There is
some reason to think that this form of
state philanthropy is in part misdi-
rected. Society is learning that an in
discriminate charity in giving freely to
all who are distressed by poverty is a
direct encouragement of poverty. 1t
increases the pauper class. Ready re-
lief, it is now seen, discourages self
help. The man who can get an easy
dole Will not work. He will not cut off
his vices so long as they are no obstacle
to his relief by charity.
But most states do not vet apply this
principle to wretched marital conditions.
At present there is an almost exclusive
reliance upon the charities Of the courts
for relief. Our divorce laws are thought
lessly made and administered so as to
promote in effect the very evils they aim
to abate. In no small degree the present
opportunities for easy divorce are really
a standing invitation to shiftless domes-
tic morality to obtain state aid in re-
lief of conjugal distress. a divorce law
is often equivalent to an act to encourage
hasty and careless marriages, just as lax
marriage laws operate to encourage di-
vorce. The state too frequently is I'M
derstood to say: II you will marry impru-
IDENTITY, or if you will allow yourself to
becomeaweary of the marital bond, or if
you will abuse or neglect or desert your
family, we shall let you do so with i'm
punity. Prevention is not our concern,
but we can and will grant all the relief
in our power if you will only persuade
the courts that there is need of personal
relief of your spouse.
This indirect encouragement of di-
vorce needs more attention than has hith-
erto been given to it. Perhaps some
check may be put upon the development
of these offenses. How would it do, for
example, to set the man who smashes
the household furniture or breaks his
wife head at work breaking stone for
the city? Hunt up deserving and lazy
husbands and compel them to make
shoes in good prison and give part or
the whole of their earnings to their fam
lilies. This might not be always practical
able or effective, but it is at least worth
trying in place of the present system of
indirect reward for copjugal misdemean-
ors. Its principle certainly may be
studied, for there is too much that looks
like the despair of unthinking helpless
ness in our current ways of meeting do
mestio evils. American ingenuity
should yet point to Its declining divorce
rate with something OF the pride city
has in its decreasing percentage of pau
perism or mortality.
SAMUEL w. Dixie,
Auburndale, Mass.