Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1909-01-31

rights in regard to divorce. 1t is only
for a comparatively short time that in
France a husband could not act as he
pleased in this attitude toward women.
In some parts of Germany, however,
the laws have been for years exceed
ingly liberal; in other sections severe.
In some German colonies they allow
divorce by mutual consent. And so 1T
runs, down to the Hindus and the
Chinese, who still show in their laws
little regard for wives.
No Unity in America
Nowhere is there such a, diversity in
divorce laws as in the United States,
where no two commemorative have eX-
actly the same statutes in this respect.
Be it said also in this connection that
in no other nation famong civilized
powers is divorce so prevalent, statis-
tics proving that in twenty years more
than $4,000 absolute divorces were
granted in this country. Still, those
who criticiSe US most must admit that
easy laws are better than laws which
give to the man what the woman can
not obtain.
Florence Roberts is to present a play
at the Majestic theater this week that
is peculiarly pertinent to the subject in
hand. 1.-The House of Bondage" is the
work of Seymour Obermer, an Ameri-
can, who, from force of circumstances,
has spent most of his life abroad, and
who wrote this play as a protest
against the discrimination against
woman that still stains the English
statutes.
In Behalf of British Women
The cause which Obermer espouses in
''The House of Bondage is the case
of many British wives. The central
figure is the wife of an English peer,
the latter man of intellect and innate
refinement, who recognizes and respects
the goodness of his lady, but who has
little regard for his own morals. He is
in love with another woman and takes
scant pains to conceal it from his wife,
in fact, readily admitting when put to
task that he has carried on a ialsOn
for years. This man ridicules the Vir-
tue of the woman who bears his name,
and by such ''gentlemanly fortunes
renders her life extremely unhappy.
Eventually she, in turn, falls in love
with another man, and it is the struggle
between the spirit and the flesh that
these two undergo that forms the basic
motive Of the play.
Fate places the life of the peer in
the hands of the man who loves and is
loved by the wife, and the honorable
manner in which the latter meets the
long slumbering sympathy and his
promise of freedom to her, providing
his powerful influence can bring about
such an amendment of the divorce law
which may make such an event pos
sible. AS the play is supposed to
transpire at the present time the right
minded auditor will hope and assume
that he is successful in his endeavors,
for the woman, goaded to the limit, de-
oil that 1IOIacS 10 does so she will
take the law into her own hands and
live openly with the man she loves.
The lesson that 1.-THE House of Bon
dage' teaches is not confined to the
divorce question. 1t teaches, according
to those familiar with its lines, the alb
surdity of laws which offer relief for
the inf1iction of mere physical pain
while the imposition of mental cruelty
must be suffered without redress. 1t is
a message worth thought and consider
alton; direct appeal to the Golden
Rule, they declare.