The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-06-18
The Ratio of Divorce There to
Other Western States Is
as One to Four.
NOT so MANY IDIOTS EITHER
Punishment to Fit the Crimes Of
Women-FactS and Figures From
the Records of Wyoming.

MISS EllIdOeGn aIeSt now III LD1S OlIyI
and other champions of woman suffrage,
point with pride" in the same dramatic
manner as the masculine political orator,
to Wyoming as a beautiful illustration of
the practical working and success of en-
franchisement for women. They point to
that State, with its twenty-seven years of
equal suffrage of the sexes, as an example
for California to follow and as a shining
reputation of claims, all and various, that
the home is woman's only sphere. They
assert that it settles the question of
whether men shall 60 into the kitchen and
wash dishes, whether family ties and the
nome are broken up and the lodging
house and restaurant increase and multi
ply, whether woman cannot be woman
and mother still with the additional re-
sponsiDility of the ballot. According to
statistics and the lasf school census the
earth in Wyoming is being plentifully re-
plenished.
Miss Yates is from Maine. She is one
of almost host of handsome champions
of the ballot for women, who have been
sent into California by the National
Woman's Suffrage League. She is splen
didly equipped for the work. Her dark
beauty indicates that she is capable of
putting plenty of tervor into it. The
speech which Miss Yates delivered last
Sunday night before the Socialistic Labor
party, report of which occasion appeared
in the next mornings CALL, was more than
half a classic, in its correct style and its
fitting and finished metaphor. In the
speech she pointed to Wyoming as the
shining light of the equal Acknowledgement
of men and women. She said:
Wyoming in its purer homes, purer
social relations and purer politics, tells
beautiful story of the success of woman's
suffrage. 1t is proof twenty-seven years
old. When the time came for the Terri
tory of Wyoming TO be admitted to the
union of States, the men OF Wyoming
notified Congress that they preferred to re-
main Territory for ninety-nine years
than to be admitted to Statehood without
suffrage for woman. They had tried,
while Territory, and found to be sue
cess"
Miss Gates has some interesting facts
and figures which show the effect of
woman's suffrage on divorce. They fndi-
cate that marriage, at least in Wyoming.
is not so much of failure as in other
States, and that unhappy marriages are
more bearable. One of the great problems
of the day is how to maintain the sacred
institution of the home, and Miss Yates
says that Wyoming's experience shows
one way OF approaching its solution.
Wyoming shields more the marriage OF
its daughters than any other Western
State, requiring parental consent for the
marriage of any girl under 81 years of
age"
Another woman, who does some clerical
work for one of the most prominent
woman-suffrage workers in the State, who
is now absent from the City, gave the fol-
lowing facts and figures on divorce in
Woming:
1.-THE average duration of marriage be-
fore divorce, where persons have been mar
ried q years or over, is considerably longer
in Wyoming than in the average of West
ern States and in the average of the whole
United States, showing that the married
condition of even the unhappily mated is
more bearable than elsewhere. The per
cent of divorce granted to wives in the
United States is very much larger than to
husbands, while in Wyoming the differ
ence is much smaller than the average,
and it must certainly be for the safety of
domestic relations that the bonds should
be as bearable to one sex as to the other.
This, certainly, is a point in favor of
woman's equality before the law.
''In the United States" she continued,
"the estimated number of married couples
to one divorce was 664 in 1870 and 481 in
1880. the number of divorced marriages in
the United States increasing 80 per cent.
In the Western group, the States, omit
ting Wyoming, which are beyond or partly
beyond the Rocky Mountains, the average
increase was so per cent. In Nebraska,
Wyoming's neighbor, it was 79 per cent
To take the statistics from two exception
ally Iaw-abiding communities: In Michi-
gan it was so per cent; Minnesota, So per
cent. while in Wyoming the number of
divorced marriages had decreased 30 per
cent.
10 state the result in another way"
she said. divorces increased in the United
States from 1870 to 1880, 1914 per cent,
nearly three times the per cent of the IN
crease of the population for the same
period, and in the groupof Western States
that have described they have increased
1868 per cent. Now, in Wyoming the in
crease in divorce is 6l.5 per cent. only one
half as large as the per cent of increase of
the population.
ITO state the matter in terms that all
can remember" she said, "the ratio of
divorce in Wyoming is to that of the whole
United States as / to 8, and to that of the
other States in the Western group as l
TO 4.
"statistics show that, contrary to the
prevailing opinion, divorces are very
largely granted where the marriage was
celebrated, but of the few divorces OBJ
tanned in Wyoming almost all are of
those married before going to that State"
she went on. $50, while we can well con-
ceive what a shock it must be to married
men immigrating to Wyoming TO find
themselves for the first time in their lives
forced to see at their firesides legal and
political equal, it is sigificant fact that
men to the manner born find this condi-
ton conducive to domestic happiness.
That the conditions of society where
women have political rights and prigi-
Ieges conduce to tranquil state of mind
and high degree of intelligence is shown