The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-05-15
LECTURES JUDICIALLY
DECLARED TO BE NO GROUND
FOR DIVORCE.

those that are granted. The divorce
| mill turns them out of the hopper
so fast that little attention is given
to the individual cases where the ma
trimonial bonds are Embossed. 1t is
only where an application for divorce
fails that there is any news in the pro-
ceeding. AS they seldom fail-thanks
to loose and unscriptural laws-there
isn't much news in divorce cases. In
The News and Observer of Friday,
however, in the Wake court news COL
umn appeared an item of news that
attracted much interest, which is as
follows:
-. O. Carroll wanted a divorce
from Fannie Carroll on the ground
that she made it so disagreeable for
him that he had to leave her, but
Judge Brown did not consider that
sufficient ground for divorce, so a
juror was withdrawn and a mistrial
ordered. The Judge said that it did
not amount to more than an ordinary
curtain lecture.
But" said Col. j. G. L. Harris,
this thing has been going on for
three years."
We'll" said Judge Brown, "a great
many of us have to listen to curtain
lectures all our lives"
And Judge Brown declined to grant
the divorce. In doing so he raised a
question that will be debated in every
home in North Carolina. The public
will almost unanimously approve his
conclusion though there will no doubt
be some who will think that some
limit should be put upon curtain lee
lures, but, if so, where should that
limit be put and who should be en-
powered to place it? Those trouble
some questions Judge Brown avoided
by the declaration that "a great many
of us have to listen to curtain lectures
all our lives" What Mrs. Brown will
say about that judicial deliverance it
is not for us to inquire, but if the
learned Judge didn't hear another
curtain lecture because of that state
ment, the majority of married men
will be greatly surprised.
1t is we'll to have it settled judicially,
however, that no amount of curtain
featuring, even if it extends through
out the entire married life, is sufficient
cause for a divorce. No appeal was
taken from that ruling and it is now
| the law, judicially declared, until
some easy divorce legislator trots out
a little bill to make curtain lecturing
| for more than three years a cause for
divorce" There are causes now on
the statute books as far from the
Bible authority as such a statute.
Judge Brown evidently holds with
Bishop Potter, who not long ago de-
clared:
81 am not so certais1 that the man
who bears patiently with q soolding
wife, is not a greater hero than the
| man who rushes in front of a train to
| rescue a child
If Mr. Carnegie looks at such for
bearance in the same light, all the
| husbands who bear patiently with a
scolding wife can be pensioned
| through the five million dollar hero
fund. How long would it last?
While Judge Brown is undoubtedly
] right in his decision, did he stop to
consider that his ruling may increase
| the curtain lecturing habit? 1t has
gone on for generations now without
| judicial sanction or approval. Now
that wives inclined to deliver
curtain lectures find they are up
held by the law, will they not be
tempted to indulge in that diversion
more than heretofore? In the past,
| a husband might get little respite
| by threatening a divorce. When that
| threat is taken from him, is anything
| left to him to do when it gets unbear-
able but to feign deafness or enlist in
the Philippine army?
In this connection, those husbands,
who may be inclined to dissent from
Judge Browns decision, would do well
to read the views of the late Rev.
Charles F. Deems, d. D., on How to
Manage a Wife" A New York paper
published a symposium of opinions
from many eminent men on How To
Manage A Wife," The committee de-
cided that the following by DR.. Deems
was the best of the hundred of an
swers received:
4 MANAGE w nat Is that IpONo IL
| mean to control? We manage horse
| We use our superior human intellect
to control and guide his superior
physical strength so as to obtain the
| best results. But a wife is not
| horse. When two persons are well
| married the wife is as superior to
her husband in many respects as he is
! superior to her in others. If happ-
! ness is to be the result of the union,
| the first business of the husband is
to manage himself so as to keep him.
self always the wifes respectful friend,
/, always, her tenddr lover. always her
| equal partner, always her superior
protector. This will necessarily stimu-
| late his wife to be always his admir-
| ing friend. always his affectonate
| sweetheart, always his thrifty house
| wife, always his confiding ward. And
| this will so react upon the husband
| that his love for his wife will grow
/ so as to make it easy for him, with
all his faults, to bear with all the in
| firmities of his lone and only wife"
| CUM GRANO SAILS.
! If will no we'll n with manu-