The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-04-02

eraI convention OF the Episcopai ChufCA
with characteristic common sense objected
to the canon forbidding clandestins mar
riages, saying that ''there is danger OF
making marriage too difficult; that the
true policy of both society and the church
for obvious moral reasons was to encour-
age marriages, for where marriage Is made
difficult, derided or disdained, vice il
promoted"
An interesting topic Of this divorce de-
bate is whether marriages are likely to BE-
come fewer and divorces more frequent
because of the increasing Independence OF
women in these days. When women in
increasing numbers become independent
of pecuniary support by the husband, will
not this increasing Independence change
their views Of marriage? If . woman
can not get along without the financial
support Of her husband, she will still
manage to endure his society, even when
all ties of sentiment are extinct through
inanition or chronic outrage. In that
event Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who logic
ally believes in free divorce, holds that
marriage will rise to higher moral level
when women cease to regard it as their
only career and possible means of support
and stop marrying for home"
Twenty years ago the social prejudice
against divorce was very strong among
women, who were disposed to endure any
thing rather than seek divorce or separa-
ton, even where they were pecuniarily in
dependent. Fashionable society is ne
longer prejudiced against divorce. d.
vorced women of blameless morals are no
longer, as they once were, under q social
ban, and even women who frankly say
that their marriage was Q mistake, and
seek divorce on the simple ground of in
compatibility, accompanied by no charge
Of marital infidelity, are not discarded by
circles of high fashion if they take
legal measures to break up the
contract, nor denounced if they enter in to
q new marriage. 1t is noteworthy that
the divorces in fashionable society are OBJ
tanned generally by wives who are indie
pendent pecunisrily and not seldom when
the dependence is on the side of the hus-
bands. These women no longer love their
husbands; they do not need to lean on
them for support, and they fee from New
York to a "liberal divorce" state and gain
their freedom. The number of fashionable
wives who do this is large in New York,
while the number of fashionable men who
initiate divorce proceedings, save for adul-
terry, is comparatively small
Liberal or free divorce has come at the
call of women rather than men; two
thirds of the divorces granted are on the
application of women. There does not
seem to be any connection between the
presence or absence of high average of
marital virtue and the conservatism or
laxity of divorce laws. France had until
recently no divorce laws, and she has al
ways been a more profigate nation in her
cynical contempt for the sanctity of the
marriage tie than England or the United
States, where the drift of divorce laws
has been steady in the direction of In
creased liberality.
Marriage laws, rather than divorce laws,
need reform. Marriage laws making i'm
proper or illegal marriages difficult would
be a step toward reform. A low popular
philosophy breeds the situation that clam
ors for divorce, and better social philoso-
ply taught at home, the church and the
school on the subject of marriage will d.
minish appeals to the courts. 1t does not
help society to maintain q marriage that
in bitter earnest does trouble the courts,
for within wedlock both parties, if de-
MED divorce. would insult morality
quite as much'a as they possibly could with
out wedloek. If divorce is denied, loose
life within wedlock is likely to ensue,
while divorce may be followed by a new
and happier choice of partners on both
sides. Able jurists are even disposed to
let the offending party marry again on the
plea that it is better for society to give the
guilty chance to negotiate another legit-
mate marriage than to force them to find
felicity or infelicity within the circle of an
Illicit union.
what God hath Joined together, let no
man put asunder," can not be pleaded
against putting those persons asunder that
God clearly never joined together. God is
no more responsible for bad marriages
that explode in divorce than God is re-
sponsible for bad children, for children
born organically diseased, or aborted in
mind and body, bearing the hereditary
burden of ancestral sin and folly.