The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-03-07
Is Independence the Cause of Div0rceS in America or is It Just a Natural
 Condition?

Some one has said recently, (and 1t was of the growing freedom of women will be to decrease, temporarily, the number of marriages. and increase divorces, but the ultimate result will be a more beautiful ideal of marriage than the world has ever seen.
 Women of independent means" said the gentleman. will not sell their freedom and their souls in return for home and social position.'
 He is right in that. Few women will sell their liberty if they have enough to live on comfortably, just for the sake of going into matrimonial bondage, how ever glittering, supposng of course that there is no love to palliate the bondage. And yet it is doubtful if there ere as many such marriages (without love- as the cynic would have us believe. The cause of the growing evil" of divorces lies not in that direction.
 The average marriage Is not one of convenience. The young husband or the old one, and the young wife, as rule commit matrimony under the unhappy delusion that they are desperately in love each with the other. Each has raised the other upon a pedestal so high that if it were not imaginary the loved one would be wholly beyond the reach of the one who loves And then by the end of the honeymoon each discovers the ephemeral quality of the pedestal. It fails with a crash amid tears and lamen- tatons and-there you are.
 The subject of the aforesaid gentleman's remarks was the marriage of the future. There is only one other topic that is a greater favorite than marriage, and that is divorce. Perhaps that is because so many have tried the one and would like to try the other.
 But all the talking and the writing, and the symposiumns upon these two subjects will never stem the tide of divorce. It has come to stay. It is to the suffering world of unhappy husbands and wives as morphine is to a headache. Having once discovered and tasted the apparent panacea the world is going to have it, when necessity requires. That is one effect of civilization, and whether the result Is an evil or blessing will not be agreed upon until after the millennium
 It Is cried from the pulpit that the grow ing number of divorces and bringing about a lack of purity in social conditions which Is appalling. And that is wrong. too.
 It is not the divorce itself which brings about such conditions. but what goes be- fore the divorce. After the honeymoon. and the crash of the pedestal, unless there is true love to heal the wounds and nurse the breach with tenderness, the tears soon dry and indifference mounts on the chimney top for the world to see. Then beware. A clever writer said the other day that there would be fewer divorces If married people had more chaperons. Very true. But somthing more~is nedea than-- chaperons, which brings me back to the subject I started out with-the growing freedoeh of women, As women grow more independent they take the bit In their teeth. I do not mean the "eye for an eye" sort of busi- ness, for woman's purity is innate and Is not built upon reason or rule. But she cannot control her heart, and chaperon or no chaperon, If the woman of today feels that divorce Is necessary for her happiness she is going to get it, what ever the cost, and then she doubly rues the cost when she finds she has raised another visage on another pedestal.
 So dlvorces are not happy. they cannot be when their foundation is crooked and shakes. But what are we going to do about it?