The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-10-26

Statistics present a mournfui tale of marital infelicity. The voice of the priest finds support in the voice of the jurist. The former trembles Tor the morals of the community, the latter for the well fare of society. Be 1t as it is. the fact remains that statistics indicate the per- centage of divorce has doubled since 1870, and that in 1900, 8 per cent of all the marriages contracted in this country ended in divorce
 I am not surprised.
 When any serious minded person gives thought to the way young men and wo- men enter into the contract of marriage and bears in mind that the mercantile agencies report that 95 per cent of the firms that enter into commercial enter prises fail for lack of capital and other causes. it is not surprising that per cent of the marriages come to grief, but that 92 per cent survive.
 Marriage becomes very much co-part- nership relation with affection as the stock in trade. When a marriage is based on affection, when each, the man and the woman, take to 1t heart full of love 1t becomes endowed with an abundance of capital When each partner to the union brings good sense, honesty of purpose, good dispositions and kindly natures, the ordinary evils the years Sring with them, serve only to develop the affections and make dissoluble, only
 by death, the tie that binds them. But these are not the marriages that
 end in the divorce courts. These are the
 marriages that are consecrated by love,
 these are the men and the women that men cannot put asunder
 There are others. Young men and women do not always marry for love. Motives other than those of affection often bring young men and women into the matri- moniai partnership No one knows it bet ter than the priest of the fashionable parish who proclaims them man and wife. Fashionable society In New York city provides annually grist for the d. vorce mill fashionable society in the same city, spring and fall. produces its matrimonial victims.
 So long as marriage Is a contract to be entered into for purposes other than those which causes a good man to take to him. self a wife or a good woman to take unto herself a husband, 1t Is perilous in it's re- lation to society and adulterous Tn the light of morality.
 In the best circles of society marriage is often a contract effected for the pur- pose of strengthening family ties in a narrow, prescribed social circle or for uniting property interests. In such in- stances affections simulated or are one sided, they are at least subordinated to affection In other circles of society marriages are often entered into by wo- men as a means of securing mainten- ance, to avoid dying unwedded, or to escape existing surroundings. In such cases the love the man possesses is the total asset in affection and frequently the woman develops her affection after mar riage.
 Tn considering the lives of those to whom marriage and divorce are the alpha and omega of their welded lives. 1t is easily found that the end is logical se- ouence of the beginning. There should be no surprise by priest or jurist that a union which should never have been be- gun should seek an ending. It is not so much that there is laxity in the divorce jaws as there is laxity in marriage.
 Pious men in all our great cities stand at the altar wearing their priestly robes and unite in marriage couples standing before them Often they have turned and prayed that the union may be blessed, feeling in their own hearts that the couple are unmated. that it was only social function. the result of g mothers