The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-02-13
MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE.

The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting |
him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for !
man to put away his wife for every cause And
he answered and said unto them. Have We not
read, that He which made them at the begin |
ming made them male and female, and said, |
For this cause shall a man leave father and
mother. and shall cleave to his wife; and they |
twain shall be one flesh =: Wherefore they are
no more twain but one flesh. What therefore
GoD hath joined together, let no man put
asunder.
They say unto Him, Why did MOSES then
command to give writing for enforcement,
and to put her away He said unto them,
MOSES because of the hardness of your hearts
suffered you to put away your wives; but from
the beginning it was not so. And say unto
you whoever shall put away his WIFE except 1t
be for fornication, and shall marry another,
comm-tteth adultery; and whose marrieth her
which is put away doth commit adultery.
An eastern paper has symposium on the
subject of marriage and divorce, chiefly on
divorce and its evils. Some of the facts
brought out in relation to the number of
divorces are quite startling, especially
when we are told that the number of
divorces annually granted in the United
3
divorces and separations in all the rest of
the Christian world, Protestant, Catholic
or Greek. Statistics are presented, says
w T. WILCOX, P. NJ. D., Sin the report for
all of Christian Europe except Spain, Por-
tugal and Greece, and indicate about 10000
divorces and separations each year. Aus
tralia has probably less than 100; Canada
has II; and few hundred would most Ger
tsinly include all that are granted in Mex
leo, Central and South America; 1000
would be an outside estimate of the annual
number of divorces and separations in the
Christian world, exclusive of the United
States, and in this country in 1885 there
were over $4,000"
The same authority says the number is
steadily increasing, and in the face of all
that has been done b. the National Divorce
Reform league, the rate of increase has
been accelerating through the last twenty
years. The second five years show an ex
cess over the first Of 27.9 per cent; the
third over the second Of 1913 per cent; the
fourth over the third of 31.4 per cent
This represents a state of affairs truly la
inevitable, and it is not to be wondered at
If men of thought begin to express alarm
for the integrity and perpetuity of the
family, the safeguard of our civilization.
1t is said that it only took Rome one hun
dred years to degenerate from condition
in which divorce was almost unknown, to
one in which the sneer could be uttered
that women reckoned time by the changes
of their husbands rather than of the con-
suls. That was in a slave age. 1t will
not take US so long to so loosen
the marriage bonds that they may
be as easily dotted as they were in Rome
under the emperors, when one man could
legally marry twenty women in single
year, unless our present rate of increase in
divorces be checked.
The majority of the contributors to the
symposium regret the present condition OF
our marriage and divorce laws in this
country; especially that there should be
such variety of laws, as great variety
almost as the number of the states, and
ranging all the way in severity or slack
ness in the matter of divorce from granting
absolutely no divorce, as in South Carolina
down to states and territories that admit
of divorce on six general causes-adultery
desertion, cruelty, imprisonment drunken
ness, and neglect to provide. Outside OF
these" says Mr.. WILCOX, ''no cause /.
allowed by law in more than one or 1--WE
states, and therefore all others NAV bt
grouped together as local causes. The gen
eral causes are distributed over the forty
eight territorial divisions OF the country a.
follows: Forty-seven admit adultery as
ground Of divorce; forty-fi admit deser
ton; forty-one cruelty; thirty-nine, i'm
prisonment or conviction Of felony: thirty
eight, drunkenness, and twenty-five, neg
lect to provide"
The stringent laws in some Of the state
in this matter are rendered practically nul
and void from the fact that residents o.
those states who find the marriage tie bur
densome to them may remove into a stat
where divorce is easy to obtain and thert
dissolve them. This leads many writer's OF
this subject to advocate the enactment of
national law regulating both marriage an
divorce, and RELOCATING to federal court
the execution of that law. 1t is pretty gen
orally admitted that before such law ca
be enacted and enforced in the states al
amendment to the constitution must be Sc
cured, thing Of itself attended with n
tuldl1 OllnCulJy, DIS udus u Gu0 SUdIe
would refuse to delegate any more powe
to the general government thai
1t already possesses; and then i
the laws of the states refiec
the opinion of the people. the national la,
which would take the place of the variou
state laws would most likely make it cas-
TO obtain divorce, and if SO, in what woul
the country be bettered, or how would j
check the increase Of this evill And i
these laws were stringent, limiting divorc
as the divine law does to one cause, that G
fornication or adultery, would not its yer
stringency be against it inasmuch as
would drive many. whose married life
intolerable to the commission of fearfr
crime in order to escape its thralldoms
The law of the gospel is what GoD hat
joined together let no man put asunder
such has been the divine law from the b,
ginning. 1t was the divine law in the day
of Moses just as much as it is to-day; bu
because of the hardness of the people
hearts, that law was modified by the SCI
want of the Lord-MosEs-and divorce PEI
mitted. The same conditions exist TO-DAY
The hearts of the people on this subjeC
are hard, so hard that they render tn
marriage relations in some il