The Portland daily press., 1896-12-14
THE INCREASE OF DIVORCE.
ssir@-
severing the Marriage Tie. No Longer
Shocks Amy One, Says Marion Crawford

Twenty-Five or thirty years ago divorces
were SO rare as TO be regarded in th
light of very uncommon exceptions to
the general rule. The divorce law it.
self is not yet forty years old in Eng
land, nor twenty years old in France.
In Italy there is NO civil divorce what
ever ut the present day, and the Catho-
lie Church only grants what are not
properly divorces, but nnnullments OF
marriage, in very rare cases, and with
the greatest reluctance.
Even in America every one can re-
member how divorces WAS spoken of and
thought of until very recently. Within
a few years it was deemed to be some
thing very like disgrace, and certainly
a profoundly cynical and immoral pro-
ceeding. Today we can most of us count
in or own acquaintance half-a-dozen
been married again. Whatever we may
think OF it in our hearts, or whatever
our religious Econvictions may be on the
subject, it has become so common that
when we hear Of fragrant case of cruel
ty or unfaithfulness. by which man
or woman suffers, the question at once
arises to our lips. "Wny does she not
divorce her husband?" or, why does
no not divorce his wifea'' We have
grown used to the idea, and if it does
not please us, it certainly does not shock
ue. 1t shocked our fathers but we arc
perfectly Indifferent.
Of course. there are many, perhaps q
majority, !. who, though not Roman
Catholics would in their own lives put
up with almost anything rather than
40 to the divorce court for peacs. Some
actually suffer much, and ask for no re-
dress. But there are very many who
have not suffered anything at all, ex-
cepting tho favorite "incompatibility of
temper," and who have taken advantage
of the loose laws in certain States to
try second matrimonial experiment..
In what calls itselfs society there seems
still to be prejudics against third
marriage for divorced persons, but at
the present rate of advance in ciyiliza
ton this cannot last long, and the old
significance of the word marriage
will be quite lost before orr youngest
grand children are dead; in other words,
BY the end of the next century, at the
furthest.
There are various forms of honorable
political dreaming and of dishonorable
political Notwithstanding nowadays.
which VIC are accustomed to call collec-
lively SOCIALISM" Most OF these rely
for their hope Of popular success upon
their ayowed intention of dividing prop-
erty and preventing its subsequent accu-
mutation. Marriage is an incentive of
such accumulation, because il perpe;u-
ates families, and therefore keeps prop
erty together by inheritance. Therefore
all forms of socialism are at present in
favor of divorce, as means of ultimate-
l7 destroying marriage altogether. A
nroyerh says that wLosoeyer deeires the
end desires also the means There ia
more truth in tho saying than moralitv
in the point of viaw it expresses. hut
there are those who desire neither the
means nor the epd to which they lead
nd q struggle Is coming the like al
which has not been seen since the berin.
ming of tho world, and Of which we who
are now alive shall not see the terminax
ton, Marion Crawford in the Century.