The morning journal-courier., 1908-08-06
2 aIY0RCE IN HISTORY
.stoms That Have Marked Mating in the Past for
 Centuries.
IVES STOLEN AND BOUGHT
lese Were the Earliest Methods of Winning q Bride Among Our
 Ancestors.

Al Ancestors.
 Divorce, according to an official bull N tin of the United States Census Bu-
 au, Is steadily increasing. The all-im- ,rtant question of marriage and di- ,rce has in recent years received the N tention of the pulpit and the press, End has received additional interest by Jason of number of opinions and lggestions regarding the subject, ad-
 anced by well known men Tn public Eo$e and writers. says Rudolph dc Zapp M the Washington Herald.
 E Reasons why young and impecunious M rmy officers should not contract mar age and thereby save themselves and
 le government possible trouble and annoyance, and at the same tim. rem CT more efficient service formed an I nportant chapter in the annual report EH few years ago of the head of the ku lmericsr army to the secretary of war FI3 well Known English writer a few ', -ars age favored 0 marriage contract NiIovering a limited number If years Nhn'y as solution for the "alarn1insly K Growing divorce mania,' and Bishop N Potter and other prominent members If the clergy of various denominations Ere cxerting their influence to briiis Nlbout a change for the better.
 F u Naturally, the question of who E ,ihould and who should not marry has f osgitated the public mind almost ever E Ifince the institution of marriage. Dis t lfaeli, the English statesman and nov ! aslist, says that ma.rmony has often q rbeen considered a condition not well z Suited to the domestic life of genius: sIt Is accompanied by too many em- aharrassments for the head md the sheart.' Fuessli, the Swiss artist, con ,,tended that the married state was in- Compatible with a high cultivation of tthe fine arts Pedresc, the great French collector, refused marriage, convinced b that the cares of family are too ab- 4 +sorbing for the freedom necessary to Literary pursuits. and a sacrifice of fortune incompatible with his great de- {signs. Boyle, who would not suffer his istudiee to be interrupted by household affairs" lived as a boarder with his t sister, Lady Ranelagh. Bayle. Hobbes, Hume, Gibbon and Adam Smith decid- ed for celibacy.
 l Regarding the literary genius. Dis raeli says. If the literary man unites himself to a woman whose taste and 1 whose temper are adverse to his pur- suits, he must courageously prepare for a r1artyrdom" And thus the wife of Bishop Cooper. while her husband was employed on his Lexicon. one day consigned the volume of many years labor to the flames, and obliged that scholar to begin second seige of Troy in a second Lexicon. The wife of Whitelocke often destroyed his manu- scripts, and the marks of her nails have come down to posterity in the numerous lacerations still gaping in his Memorials.
 The learned Sir Henry saville. who devoted more than half of his life and nearly 10000 pounds to his magnificent edition of Saint Charysostom, led a very uneasy life between that Saint and Lady saville. Milton carried mo- thing of the greatness of his mind in the choice of his wives; his first wife was the object of sudden fancy. He left the metropolis, and unexpectedly returned a married man, united to { woman of such uncongenial disposition that the romp was frightened at the lit- erary habits of the great poet found his house solitary, beat his nephew and ran away after a single months
 residence. To this circumstance tho
 world owes his famous treatise on di. vorce, and party who were situated like Milton, calling themselves Milton
 fists. ,..;f
 Thomas Hollis, who, solely devoted
 to literature and republicanism, wal
 occupied in furnishing Europe and
 America with editions of his favorite authors. would not marry lest mar
 riage should interrupt the labors oi
 his platonic politics. Moliere married
 a girl from his own troop who made him experience all those bitter dis.
 gusts and ridiculous embarrassments
 which he himself played at the thea
 ter. Addison, Steele and Rousseau
 were similarly married to uncongen-
 ial partners who were the sources
 of much unhappiness to them.
 As to the marriage contract itself
 history records that in the earlies
 times of purchase. woman was bar.
 tered for useful goods or for services
 rendered to her father Tn the lattel
 way Jacob purchased Rachael and
 her sister Leah. This was ( marriage, where a man. as in Genesis
 leaves his father and his mother and
 cleaves unto his wife. and they be
 come one kin, the womans. Wher
 Augustine converted the Anglo-Saxon
 to Christianity, marriage by capture
 was dying out, and purchase had be
 come general. Nevertheless captur,
 was not extinguished in England un
 til centuries later, for Ethelbert, whil,
 enforcing the new law, also ratified
 the old one so that they ran concur
 rently. He recognized the right of
 captor to carry off woman by fore
 If he afterward paid fifty shillings t
 her owner as fine, and then bough
 her from him at reasonable price
 If she were a maid, the fine went l.
 her father; if a wife, then to the hus
 band but the captor had to buy tn
 defrauded husband another wife, an
 In each case he retained by law tn
 woman whom he had stolen
 The transition from capture L
 purchase in England was very grad
 ual, and both methods existed for
 time together Even the princesse
 hAr rr,t t,, 1rtv Vvyt<t a n