The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-04-13
DIVORCE AMONG THE RICH.
ChiIdIess Marriages often Lead to 1t
Music as Cause.


Music as n Cause.
Rev. Percy s. Grant, in Ainslee's Magazine.
1t is among the rich-or, at any rate, in
classes above the so-called working classes
that divorces most frequently take place.
Opponents of divorce laws not infre-
quently urge in support OF their position
the many marriages and divorces of GER
tain popular actresses. L think the matri-
monial habits of actors and actresses
should not be permitted to complicate the
modern problem of divorce. The kaleido-
scopic alliances of Miss Blank give the or
binary sober citizen moral vertigo He usu-
ally knows little about the men whose
very names the footlight lady disdains.
The whole transaction has an appearance
OF unreality and vulgarity that is disgust
ing.
Children are guardians Of the home.
Where there are few or no children in the
family there are many lurking dangers.
These dangers are more frequent among
the rich than the poor. A church in New
York attended by many people OF wealth
undertook to have Sunday school for the
children of these persons because there
was some objection made TO regular Sun
day school on the ground that ii was filled
with poor children from the tenements.
But II was discovered that there were in
the whole parish only twenty-nine children
Of Sunday-school age from homes of
wealth and five or these were in one fam
lily Family life suffers intellectually from
Limitation OF its numbers. The maternal in
stinct, even in a wife who believes she
lacks ii, is restless force that leads 10
many dangerous quests and is often respon-
sible for conjugal alienation.
But not only is the natural hunger of
woman's nature satisfied by children. In
taking care of them she has a soothing
and engrossing occupation If she will be
truly mother. Moreover, when a strain
comes between husband and herself she is
strong in the strength of her children.
| Their companionship and their inspiration
help her to stand firm and to be patient
and without authority or love to do what
| she considers her duty.
The limitation Of the family is a question
! too serious for more than passing refer
! ence. There is, however, one cause Of it
/ among women Of fashion that is deplor-
| wanting children. She cannot go about
/ freely if she is to become a mother, nor
can she wear shapely clothes for couple
/ of years at a time.
| Another infeIicity OF married life that
! leads to divorce is inequality of age. This
i is more subtle and powerful dissolvent
| than is usually believed. Shakspeare's sew
en- ages Of man have always been taken
| hguratively. L believe they are realities,
| almost as distinct as geological periods.
! There are physical, mental, moral and gen
|
/ Chinese walls around childhood. youth,
middle life and old age. A sympathy suffi-
cient for marriage is rare with great differ
ence in age. Grabbed age and youth can
not live together"
Women of the upper classes have too
! much leisure, and often their husbands
| have too much business. In New York
| date Is sometimes assigned to new social
phases favorable to divorce. There was a
time, a score of years ago, when new for
| tunes had freed the sons of their posses
| M going
and left uptown all day gilded youth with
| time and money on their hands looking for
] found diversion with the equally idle young
woman whose husband had to go to his
office.
| The influence of music upon women Of
| the upper classes have sometimes thought
| TO be very positive quantity I'm describing
| their family relation. The great art of to-
! day Is music. There is no city in the world
| where more music can be heard than in
! New York. Concerts, private muscales, the
| opera, numberless daily opportunities are
| given women Of listening to this intensest
| afternoon audiences of women sit listen
! ing to popular singers. Love songs are
mostly what they hear. They are continu-
| ally under the influence of a sentiment
which, If it be true, is the characteristic of
| youth, OF passion, of exceptional circum-
stances, and Of unattained longing. This
| sentiment, sung ad nauseam, is not that
| feeling which gives strength or perma-
| nence to marriage or honor and reverence
| to old age. Yet these audiences are filled
| with a theory of love which they are apt
| to exact from the busy men their hus-
! bands, whom they find waiting for them on
| their return home. Plato said: when the
modes of music change, morals change"
| and am sure that the appeal and infiu-
| ence of much of the music women listen
TO in New York is unhealthy, unreal and
| disturbing. Mr.. Howells once said to me,
| The appeal of some music is infamous"
| There is to-day too widespread a desire
| for mere sensation. This mood snatches at
| physical pleasure carelessly and ruthlessy.
| 1t has no faith in spiritual pleasures, or il
does not know what spirituality is. Men
| and women rush from pleasure TO pleasure
| more for distraction than for enjoyment.
For instance, the worst Of the bridge-whst
craze is that il prevents it's votaries from
| thinking. But this is precisely why many
of them play. This mood reverences no
| sanctities and can even laugh at decencies.
When our wealth perceives its duty when
| our luxury realizes its wastefulnesS, and
| when faith is discovered to be knowledge
of the spiritual law, then this love of mere
| sensation may change for the love of the
life of the spirit.
The freer habits of life permitted to men
| before marriage are very fertile cause Of
| family disunion. A pleasure-wearied man
| and fresh girl are not in the same spiritu-
| al class. Her ideals and his own. even their
| senses, are so different as in time inevi-
| Jably to lead to disaster.
The manager of a house of mercy told
! me that the unfortunate young women I'M
der his care declare that their class Is
| York there are 100, 900 such women. A spir-
| itual detilement, destructive of marriage
| Is found In these facts, for which men are
| almost entirely responsible.
| Besides these causes there are many 9TH
| ers too personal in their nature to be
| preached even in frank discussion Of
| facts as this paper has undertaken. An
| honest man, a church member, the score
| tary of legislative committee in a State
| where divorce proceedings were intrusted
| to the Legislature. told me that he had
| heard thousand divorce cases. In almost
| every case, as he heard it fully and freely
| set before his committee, there seemed to
be just ground for divorce He said how
| ever, that many of the true causes Of d.
| vorce were never published in newspapers.
| The newspaper reading public consequent
| ly often estimated the grounds OF divorce
| to be more frivolous than they really were.
| Many women (and two-thirds OF the d.
| vorces in the United States are granted to
| women) petition for divorce on less often
| sive grounds than they might in law, set
! forth They do this to protect their name
| and their children. and to create as little
| publicity possible.
zz,kzzfza
= IN N nm