The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1899-05-16

immense body of the public whose means
are small When a wife runs away from
q husband who has five millions, to join
a paramour who has only three millions,
1t sets the readers Of the Sunday papers
nearly wild with excitement and curl
osity. which are naturally increased If the
husband be q decent man and the para
mour little cad. and rises to the boiling
point If the cad is aband oping a wife of
his own. Every detail Of the wretched
business is worth q round sum.
But you will not find the morality OF
the matter much debated. What rouses
the gossips more than expansion, or the
Brig gigs case, Is the question why the wife
left man with five millions for q man
with only three. That the matter has a
moral side has ceased to interest people.
1t is the business side which occupies
Them They are not concerned about the
" ife's morality, but about her apparent
want of business sagacity, especially II 1T
can be shown that she Is not SUCH 1901
after all, since the cad. besides his three
millions, has plenty of diamonds OF his
mothers. As the cases are rare in which
these details are present, of course, there
is nut little discussion of the general
condition of our marriage laws. But
that condition is we'll known to be such
that the institution of marriage can hard-
| " be said to exist among US. any more
than In the fifth century at home, when
twenty wives in succession were not an
extraordinary allowance even Tor a
Christian deacon. When you see couple
living together happily or unhappiiy, IN
Goods holy ordinance" you inay feel
pretty sure that 1t Is not the law OF the
land that is causing 1T, but pure 1ncnna,
tion or strong sense OF loyalty trutn' anu
lnnOPS who
administer the law have no hesitation In
making the law, on this point mockery
without taking The trouble to oHer any
excuse but personal taste or oouvehlencs
Men and women both act as II we were
dwelling on desert island, where sense
of individual duty had to do the WORK OIL
lawgivers and Jurists.
| The reason of this is plain. We allow.
as q correspondent pointed out recently,
persons who have broken their marriage
vows, or wish TO break them, to use the
law to enable them to break them with
Iimpunity-that is, to give what Is really
state of ooncubinage, the appearance OF
| a real marriage, and thus to escape fhe
social stigma which is the laws best sup
port. Any one who is tired of his wife.
| any wife who is tired OF her husband,
| finds in the law an arrangement by
which the veriest strumpet can put her
self on level with the purest, bravest.
most constant wife. This Is the nteral
consequence .of allowing every state to
| have Its own marriage law; the only
remedy Is n national divorce law. 1t tis a
stats.of things. too, to which the public.
with the aid of the newspapers, is rapidly
| getting accustomed, SO that persons who
pass their lives in lawful wedlock, begin
| to have the air of prudes, or FOSSILS, OF
''old fogies. IL makes preaching vain
1t is not @ wild suppositlon that in an.
other generation We shall be In enjoy.
ment OF the advantages, In point of ex-
pense, of the regime of free love. Remar
riage "across the line" is already becop,.
| ing a formally; it will not take very