The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1910-02-12
Divorce Destroying
- the American Home
BY REV. R. H. BENNETT D. D.

that Supreme Court Justice Knox in that city had estab
lished new record for rapidity in granting divorces
court had been 10 minutes and As seconds but he had
knocked off minutes and 80 seconds and bad heard II
cases and granted divorces to them In hours and AZ
minutes.
Even in Virginia at some Of our monthly terms of court
in cities of from 30 900 10000 population many
IA divorce heard. And several OF our
Virginia judges have publicly protested against our laws
forcing them to run divorce mill against their own
judgment and preference.
worth while for Americans to remember that during
the purity of Romes earlier days when she conquerng
the world, nothing sacred than her homes and
not single divorce granted for five hundred years.
while in the late days Of her swollen wealth and best,a
home existed only names without meaning Men and
divorced each other at will juvenal tells Of
prominent of Rome who boosted that she had had
eight husbands in five auumns and Martial Of who had
had ten husbands in thirty days No wonder reliable
gangrened" Read Gbbon to see how profound the
gangrene.
Lords Beacon Lights of History says Rome was but
rotng corpse The Reign of Terror in France, that
saturnaia of all abandon buchery and horror was pre-
ceded by law that marriage could be annulled merely
by an application The results were 2ee9e divorces in
France in one year. In the twelve months As GOO
outcast children carried to founding asyums and
foo new born babes taken out OF the and
other secret places of Paris.
Let us see what we think of our homes in America;
Of us. Carol d. Wright's e. s. Government Re-
port on Marriage and Divorce gives AZ grounds for divorce
in this country. Many of these ridiculous to
reflect upon the sanity Of the lawmakers who enacted them,
and many of the specifications give doubt the mental
balance OF court which would entertain them. In
addition to these AZ omnibus clause the abom
nation of folly, has crept into the law in States
giving the power to grant divorce for any cause he
deems sufficient when the parties cannot live happily
together. Some OF the specimen cited by MIR.
Wright enough to bring laugh from a brass statue
Think OF such comicaties being gravely pleaded and
put to record in dgnfied courts and entered upon
the ponderous pages OF t. s Government Reports But
it is laughter that bushes in sob for it is laughter at
deathbed the deathbed OF Americas priceless possession
the American home
"Defendent cut off plaintiffs bangs by force"
During my whole married life my husband has
taken me out riding This has been source Of great
mental suffering and injury"
DEPENDENT wouldn't talk to plaintiff causing her great
mental anguish"
Divorce granted because husband enlisted in the
navy
Cases of cruelty to husbands
hustle"
DEPENDENT would not walk with him on Sunday and
pulled out his hair Among the papers tuft of hair
marked, Exhibit "a"
"Defendent would not plaintiffs buttons
allow him to go to fires at night
Defendent pulled plaintiff out of bed by his whiskers
Divorces reported recently in Chicago for the fol-
lowing causes; Snoring, cold feet, eating with knife
insisting going bed with his overcoat and shoes
smoking cigarettes, failure a cook. "Our divorce
legislation presents says a learned essayist perhaps
the saddest experiment in the sphere of family laws which
free sell governing countries have tried"
One of our prominent Episcopal clergymen writes,
What ghfu spectacle is exhibited where the marriage
is lightly regarded and readily sundered by process OF law
No home is assured to remain permanent relation
ships are sacred; no affections wife,
mother may be courted by stranger though she
Maiden husband and father may seek win the love
OF other women than his wife, and plead the excuse that
the axy OF the laws suggests his rtatons and shelters
and ustfies his crimes when he has become perurer
or an aduerer in the sight of God Suspicion and evil
surmise the prolific progeny of such of things
every side Men and well in years and with
families around them in the daily intercourse Of life are
exposed to e criticism and the sanderous tongue
than the young and unmarried The air is full of pes
tilentia germs; moral miasma damp and dark hovers
like cloud over the dwellings of and the fair
beauty OF home and social circle Alildew and mould and
foul odors and the poison of spiritual death make men and
women mixed up hdeous of dslocation and re-
assortment, of marriage and divorce and adultero,s
reunions make them heous and disgusting and loath-
some
Gentlemen of the Legislature, the war for the home is
on IN this Southland And it the heaven of the South
that save this nation Protect the homes Of virginia
Lynchburg Va, Feb 18th.