The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-04-28
MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE.

When will marriage and divorce cease to
be subject of vital importance and one of
intense interest to humanity? Never, so
long as there are marriages and divorces.
Around the institution of marriage clusters
the chief happiness of mankind; and from
it, too, proceeds much of the sorrow, the
heart-ache, the responsibility and the ever
cankering care of mans troubled life. It is
a spring from which may run two streams,
the one sweet, the other bitter-ioy and
sorrow.
The subject of marriage and divorce re-
ceived intelligent treatment in the Congre-
gational club which met recently
at the st. Dennis cafe, New York
The Rev. DR.. SAMUEL w. Dixie, sec
retarE of the American Divorce Re-
form League, surprised the company by
showing that the increase in the divorces
of the United States during the twenty
years from 1866 to 1886 was Isl per cent,
while the increase in population was but
about 20 per cent. Though in looking over
the whole country the reverend gentleman
found that the laws on the subject were in
chaotic condition, he was of the opinion
that a constitutional amendment giving to
the general government supervision of
marriage and divorce would not help mat
tiers TO any great extent. He quoted
statistics to prove that 80 per cent.
of the divorces granted in the
United States were obtained in the
states in which the marriage occurred.
MIR. Dixie is the advocate of reaching
something like uniformity in our marriage
and divorce laws by the appointment, by
the different states, of commissioners who
should confer with each other and thus Sc
cure cooperative legislation.
If Mr.. dixie astonished his hearers with
his facts and figures, Mrs. MARY A LIVER
MORE still more astonished the members of
the club by saying that the laws protected
woman who lives with man illicitly
better than they do the loving virtuous,
trustful, faithful wife. The law gives the
former control of her children, and what
ever property the father gives her Is alb
solutely hers; while in the case of the mar
ried woman the husband has sole control of
the children and virtual ownership of the
wife and all she possesses. This rather
gloomy view Of the case was ightened
only by the reflection that men were better
than the laws, and therein lay the security
o. wives.
Il is as refreshing as it is unusual to hear
lawyer say that he strongly approved of
marriage as a sacrament and not as a mere
contract Such was the view held by the
president of the American Bar association,
Hon. SIMEON E. BALDWIN. He also depre-
Gated any attempt to amend the national
constitution so as to give the general gov
eminent control of marriage and divorce
holding that it would be a violation of local
f-governmept. The remedy, the bes,
remedy for this admitted evil, wa!
touched in the remarks of DR.
BRADFORD who in closing the discussion
held that the true solution of the problem
lay not so much in regulating the laws as
in properly training young people to lool
upon marriage in its proper light. With
that view we acquiesce. 1t is the people
more than the laws that want reforming il
this matter of marriage and divorce. More
care in making marriage contracts will d.
more towards reducing the number O
divorces than any amount of legislativ,
tinkering with the laws. Teaching mel
to LOOK upon the institution of marriage a
divine sacrament instead of q mere civi
contract that they may cancel at pleasure
and for trivial causes, will further protec
this institution upon which so largel,
depends the happiness of individuals an,
the prosperity and perpetuity of states.