The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-01-11
Divorce Society
Is Earl's Scheme
SneciaI to The GIobe

scheme.
The objects of the Divorce society are
principally to agitate that divorces be
obtainable in the lower courts, for
equal rights for both sexes in the di-
vorce courts, to make three years de-
Sertion on the part of either ground
for divorce, and not to make miscon-
duct the sole cause for which wife
may obtain divorce from her husband
outside of deSertion.
London is becoming Chicagoized at
such a rapid rate that, if they cannot
import the actual smell of the stock
yards here, English people seem at
least determined to secure it's moral
putrefactions
The tearing up which Mrs. Walling
received from her fellow Eclectics is
! nothing to the storm of criticism
which is being raised over the adnlis-
sions made in her paper by the strict
set here.
The Mother Grundy papers have not
had such bonnie bouche for a long
While, but on the other side the ethics
of some parts of the paper exactly fit
| in with the ideas of those who form the
nucleus of the Divorce society,"
For instance, the following from Mrs
waiting is very nearly a paraphrase
of it's PLATFORM
ITO prohibit a man and woman from
dlssolv1ng a relationship which is joy-
less, and 1T may be odious, discordant
TO their mate delicate moral sense and
Gripping to their development, is
| tyranny.
Under our present social condition
| divorce, as a rule, must inevitably
or1ng IN the wake of it's happy release
a mournful dirge of desolate hearts and
b1ighted careers. 1t is only when we
nave arrived at some equitable social
| arrangement which provides for the
women and children that, unhindered
! by the restraints and exactions Of
! prescribed rule and convention can the
heart unite with it's own love-elect.
Marital unrest is neither an ailment
! OF the century nor an evil outgroWth of
| right and just divorce laws It is as
Old as the world. 1t began with sex
| We have only to turn to earliest scrip
lure TO prove this. If, as it is argued
our divorce laws only breed conjugaI
| discomfort how is it that this unhappy
| complaint is so prevalent in South
| Carolina, where there are no divorces
! woman is born and bred to the idea
that her divine mission, her natural
end in life. is marriage" she says
The girl of eighteen allows herself to
| be hurried by an anxious mamma or
clever matchmaking chaperon, under
| the subtle enchantment of jewels, flow
ers. music and candle light, into a de-
| S1rable' marriage, little dreaming that
|
! something more than social prestige, a
| palace and a title.
No less mournful failures are the
! marriages Of pure sympathy, and the
marriages of unequal sentiment, in
! which there is the miserable confound-
ing of love for sympathy, it's tender
kim"
! Here Mrs. Walling has duplicated the
sentiment of the late Lord Beacons-
| field, as revealed in the recently re-
! discovered and much quoted letter to
his sister, wherein he SCOTS at the mar
riage for love or sympathy idea.
A writer in one of the leading wom-
| ems weeklieS, commenting on Mrs.
| Walling's ideas, says:
Were there anything new in this parade
| of reasons for divorce the persons respon-
| s1ble for their utterance might be listened
| to with some regard, but they are as old
! as Sapho and Cleopatra and older by
| thousands of years.
| Those who cannot control their appe-
! tites but must eternally be thirsting for
what to them are forbidden sweets, may
not like to hear it, but they are degener-
ateS, and no amount of social veneer will
| cover up the ugly fact.
1.-THE tendency of the best people one
meets, of any nationality, by which one
means no class distinction, is to put in a
continually higher light the sacred insti-
tuition of marriage. The higher people rise
in the intellectual scale the deeper they
find the obligation of marriage incumbent
upon them.
But there is a class, both in England
and America, of men and women whose
| lives are devoted to the development of
social ambitions and the pursuit of pleas
ure. To this people the material side of
life is everything, the moral responsible
ity nothing. But they. are only the butter
flies of society, the ephemera; people
whose souls. If they have any, are merely
embryo, and who can only be considered
as moral and mental dwarfs.''
Another writer who yields caustic
pen comments on the following extract:
Inc frugal bride who puts away her
pretty nightgowns in sachets Of orris and
re1ncarnateS from ravishing divinity in
a witchery of laces and ribbons into a
mere woman, Smeared with ointmentS and
horned with curled papers, forgets that
the poetry. of marriage sometimes turns
into prose-
rs it possible writes this fair adjunct
of the Grundy forces. that women who
cultivate such singular ideas as this can
pc shocked at the nastiness of a modern
Sapho, or see anything to complain of in
| the most decadent plays?''
The Hartopp set doubtless echo the
sentiments voiced in Mrs. Walling's pa
per enthusiastically in their boudoirs
where the Eclectic club thinks they should
be confined to. but the English woman is
so Phar1saical compared with her Ameri-
| can sister that she would under no cir
| cumstances admit the impeachment
The Divorce society will be nothing if
not International. and we may look for
ward to a transatlantic branch as soon
| as It Is fairly on its feet here.
take the form of secret society," and it
| Will need to be very much so, as I un-
derstand that membership in the society
| viii at least preSuppOse that divorce is
IT'S ultimate aim, since all fees paid in
| go to the formation of a fund out of
| Which the legal expenses of those mem
paid. - -
One can imagine some grim1y ironical
| contretemps in such an arrangement, the
meeting OF a husband and wife on the
same errand bent. for instance.
There is no doubt that a society of this
kIno might prove advantageous here as
J the expenses of procuring a divorce make
1t practically impossible for poor persons
70 indulge In this luxury, no matter how
degraded her partner may be, how be-
Sotted he may have become, an English
woman Of the lower classes is actually
bound to him for life, with no redress
| except the questionable one of having the
breadwinner committed to prison.
But the Earl's Divorce society is not
intended to take in this humble element
not being. in any way philanthropic. 1t
is simply intended for the benefit of those
who, to quote Mrs. Walling once more
find that ''the heart is a thing mysterious
and capricious, a law unto itself'' she
declares. Thou shalt and thou shalt
nots are somehow more successful in
breeding perverSity and destroying charm
than in preserving sentiment and fidelity
For a man and woman to vow to love
each other forever in the same way is
infinitely more hazardous than to pledge
for particular Individual under every
change of condition, unalterable and I'M
dying friendship. For how can it be in
the power of the human heart to know
how long 1t can continue to feel a senti-
than 1t comes. a sentiment so supremely
Independent Of the will and as utterly de-
pendent upon the subtle laws OF mutual
selection?'
Notes From Kansas.
Evarv ha III headed mon hos Io+1 &c - =.