The Beaver herald. [volume] (Beaver, O.T. [Okla.]) 1895-1923, 1907-01-31
EUils of Easy DiUorce.
Margaret Sangsfer's Opinion on One of the Most I'm.
poridnt Questions of The Day Children Suffer
When Family Ties Are Broken.

for suffering when they are forced
OF a sheltered home, and are too
early thrust under the lime-light OF
publicity. They are often reticent
and hide their real thought and con-
lectures from those around them, but
when they live in an atmosphere
teeming with suspicion and distrust,
when servants gossip mysteriously
within their hearing, and people
about them talk in hushed whispers,
they grow too early familiar with the
language of the scandal. The faint
of evil stains the purity of their souls.
1t wen seems at times as IL a curse
descended from mother to daughter
and father to son, when divorce on
foolish and capricious grounds is
granted in a family. There are In
stances on record and to be seer in
period, in which the mother, the
daughter and the granddaughter of a
single line have successfully discov-
cred chat permanence in marriage was
for them impossible, and have made
a wreck of their homes in conse
quence.
No matter on whom the blame may
rest, those who really bear the bur-
den and the shame, IL shame there
be, are the sons and daughters. Not
merely while they are in the nursery
and the schoolroom, but later, when
the youth is approaching manhood
and the girl in her beauty and sweet
ness begins her life in society, do
the shadows meet around them. No
sensitive girl can be entirely con-
tented and satisfied If her father and
mother are living apart, If she must
visit one by permission or by stealth,
or If she have the strange anomaly of
a stepfather or stepmother who has
taken the place of a living parent.
Where marriage is looked upon as
sacramento and the church refuses
It's sanction to the marriage of those
who are divorced, there is considera-
ton for the welfare of children un-
known when marriage is regarded
merely as a civil contract that may
be dissolved If sufficient pressure be
brought to bear on the situation.
The root meaning of sacrament is
fidelity to an oath, and people need
not be either religious or devout to
understand sacramental obligation to-
ward the family. If religious and de-
vout, it is difficult to see how they
can accept marriage except as IL
wears sacredness. partakes OF the ma
ture Of a covenant and is, in q word,
sacramento.
In Marion Crawford's recently pub
lished novel, "a Lady of Rome" there
is shown with consummate skill the
possibility of setting the solemnity and
the permanence Of marriage over pas
sion, d%issension and m~istrust. Peo-
pie may not be happy in marriage,
they may even, as in this noble story,
be extremely wretched. but they may
behave with courtesy, f~orbearance and
dignity, and they may set far in the
foreground the welfare and the fu.
ture successes in life of a child.
Children come into the world by no
v~olition of their own. No human be-
ing is consulted beforehand as to his
Willingness to accept the joys and sor-
rows of this chequered existence.
Once a child is here, the first duty of
the family is to the child. The real
sufferers in Easy divorce are not the
parents, but the children.
Copyright, 1906, by Joseph b. Bowles.)