The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1904-10-27
REMEDY FOR DIVORCE.

REMEDY FOR DIVORCE.
If divorce continues to increase in
the alarming fashion of the past 10
years a remedy will be needed, says
"a writer in an exchange. 1t is a dis
grace We ought not to accept with COM
placeney. The ease with which mar
riage bonds are severed tempts men and
women to rebel against things that
would be stolidly endured if the situa-
ton were different. Patience and for
bearance are no longer the essentials
Of domestic life, and marriage is view
ed as temporary state, to be ended
whenever its cares and obligations be-
come burdensome An immense selfish
ness seems to be the moving factor Of
men and women who regard divorce
whit lenient eye and to crafty that
selfishness they will be false to the
best part of their nature. Promises
We're made to be broken at leisure, is
their creed, and whatever stands in the
way of gratifying self must be trampl-
ed under foot.
The first false step in this outrageous
state of affairs is the marriage itself.
People who expect to pass lifetime
together should know each other pretty
Thoroughly, and be bound together by
similarity of tastes and harmony Of
feeling. There are people, who pirate Of
lopposites, but it is simply impossible
for a woman Of refinement and a
coarse man to be happy together. The
ways of one would seriouly disturb
the comfort Of the other. maintain
that refined natures are better by
themselves and coarse ones have Moth
in in common with them.
A lively Imagination makes Amer
lean girls sentimental. They call it
romantic, but the name matters little
when it urges them into hasty unions
of which their parents cannot APP
prove, even when they forgive. A girl
is rash, indeed, when she entrusts her
future to a stranger, or to whom she
does not know will be able to give her
enough to eat. Yet hardly q day passes
that we do not hear Of women throw
ing away present happiness at the sug-
lgestion of men they have not even
seen and tying themselves to rascals,
who make them repent their folly very
early in the game.
American girls look with pity upon
the French method of making matches,
yet it is a fact that the nation is
1singularly free of the divorce habit.
The French theory is practical, there
fore it stands the wear and tear of an
eminently practical world. 1t says that
lany two persons of similar stations in
life, of similar tastes, habits and gem
eral ideas, can love one another and be
lhappyin nlarriedlife. Marriage is aun-
lion of properties quite as much as a I'M
ion Of souls in France, and the journey
to it is guided by the parents, whose
experience counts for much in such
matters. Family conclaves are the first
steps then comes the qestion Of money
settlements.
There must be considerable on both
sides. and when they have been set
tied there are acrimonious calls to be
made, a public shetrothal and a trous-
seau, and common sense governs the
whole proceedings.
4 Make the body comfortable and the
lsoul will find its peace without much
difficulty. Mind you, am not advo-
eating a marriage for money, but am
lstrongly in favor Of something sub
lstantial on which to build the new life.
And that is not all, for congeniality is
absolutely necessary. to make the life
of two beings, no matter what sex,
llovable within the narrow confines Of
a home. There is altogether too much
sentimentality in American women. 1t
permits them to overlook the estimable
Qualities of their own husbands and
1overestimate those of other men whom
they have not tested.
The same charge can be laid up
against men, and somebody is to blame
for the serious state of affairs. Perhaps
women are too lightly won, too eager to
accept the first masculine hand ex-
tended to them. 1t is absolutely true
that when a man inserts matrimon-
lial ADVERTISEMENT In any kind Of a paper
leyen the most obscure, it is found by
feminine eyes and is met with an over
IWhelming number of feminine answers.
THE winner of such a proposition gem
Ierally has cause to rue her luck, but
can find precious little sympathy for
iher The stock of good men has not
yet been exhausted; so why put up
with limitations, and pretty bad ones
lat that? can see some really iustifi-
able reasons for divorce, but they are a
mere drop in the ocean of applica-
tons. Where is the remedy? In COM
jmon sense.