The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1908-08-15
DIVORCE
The Rapidly With Which II ls De-
stroyina the American Homo.


written for the Irish standard)
| The number Of divorces in the Unit
| ed States has increased during the
past forty years three times as rapidly
as our population. No government re-
port has been made on the subject
| since 1885. Perhaps the government
has gotten ashamed of us during the
past two decades. Well, it has good
reason to feel shame, for the number
Of divorces has been estimated recent
ly at $4,000 annually. That means the
destruction of an American home ev
cry ten minutes: more than three
hundred men and women torn every
day from the sacred bonds of wedlock;
their duties to each other. to their
children, to society repudiated and vio-
lated; the children themselves made
more miserable than orphans. stray
ing with the stigma of parental un-
faithfulness upon them.
Whether we look upon divorce itself
as a disease or a remedy, we all agree
that the enormous number of divorces
show a diseased condition of society
q condition not only Shameful, dis
graceful, but alarming. For the home
is the basis Of all social organization.
The state must rest upon the home;
but this epidemic Of divorce indicates
a decay Of the American home. Home
ties have been weakened among our
people: parents have become less lev
ing and careful children less reverent.
less obedient, brothers and sisters less
loyal and tender, husbands and wives
less faithful more suspicious. Instead
oe numerous family circle, gathering
nightly in loving confidence about the
cheerful hearth to repeat the traditions
of their fathers and sing the grand
old songs that never die. we have the
dissolute clearinghouse gatherings,
clubs, hotels and saloons. The Bible
reading and family prayer has given
way to the theater, the dance-hall, or
the street corner harangue by the ir-
responsible lecturer or the stray no.
toriety seeker.
All this is indicated by our whole
sale divorce record. And not only in
dicated but encouraged, aided and
4betted. For divorce is more danger
GUS to the home than is the social
evil itself. The latter dwells apart in
dens and in darkness and shame, and
cries aloud, "Unclean, Unclean!'' But
divorce, robed in satin, enters the ex
elusive home of wealth and spreads
its disgraceful contamination with i'm
punity, because. forsooth, its leprosy
wears an official badge, its shameless
sensuality is protected by an official
stamp. However, we have no right
to blame the official stamp. 1t is
there because we permit it. II we,
the American people, were really and
truly ashamed Of this loathsome badge
/. would not long protect the shame
faced libertine. Our press, responding
to the call Of public opinion, would
fan the flame of indignation until alb
sclute social ostracism would be the
instant fate Of the divorce. and the
statute books Of our states would soon
be purged of their ridiculous divorce
legislation: The mask Of official vir-
tue WOULD be torn from the face Of the
licentious hypocrite. But we smile
with careless indulgence at divorce
and merely laugh at the laws author
izing it. We watch the growth Of the
vampire, insensible Of our danger. even
when it has begun to suck the stamina
from American manhood. Like a
Shiny serpent it crawls higher and
higher. creeping and coiling and twist
ing its hideous folds about the lax
American home, breathing all the while
its deadly poison into the very vitals
Of the nation.
Once the American people is reused
to sense Of its danger we will no
longer smile indifferently. We will all
he seeking causes and remedies.
Most Of our writer's on the subject
find the chief cause in the state leg
islation on marriage and divorce. In
consistent. contradictory. reckless. ro-
mantle, fanciful. nonsensical laws
have been blamed for the divorce evil.
And we grant that the state legisla-
lures have made mess Of their pre-
rosative in this department. Yet the