The Black Hills union and western stock review. [volume] (Rapid City, S.D.) 1904-19??, 1910-09-23
WOMEN AND DIVORCE.

-0S"0
the Outlook, Mrs. Newell Dwight
Hills, wife of the well-known Brook
Ign minister, commenting on the fact
that tw%o-thirds of the divorce suits
are brought by women, concludes
that the ideal ow womanhood is fall
ing. The reason for this she finds in
the abundant prosperity of the last
decade, all tending to relieve women
of Homework. Thus, she believes,
the women of the country have come
to look upon Injuries as their right,
to leisure as their natural property.
The boys, she points out, expect to
begin their work from the bottom,
but girls of the same family insist
upon beginning the duties Of wife
and mother without the training of
actual work in the home. The
"busy-idle" woman of wealthy socie-
ty, Mrs. Hills thinks, is the most fire.
quent petitioner for divorce.
Any such academic and arbitrary
explanation of the whole subject of
divorce, is of course, a mere hazard
of opinion. For example, Mrs. Hills
latest conclusion is one that could
not be established save by a thor
ough investigation and classification
of divorces. Mrs. Hills, no doubt,
reaches her conclusion that the most
frequent petitioner for divorce is the
idle woman of society, because she
reads of more of these divorces in
the newspapers. But this is mislead-
ing. The woman who is unknown
and who has a plain, uninteresting
tale of abuse and desertion, is given
no attention by the newspapers. In
the twenty yearse from 1887 to 1906
there were 29,165 divorces in New
York, the home of a large number Of
rich society women; while the plain
agricultural state Of Iowa in the
same period issued 34,S74 divorces
and Michigan 1871. The whole
North Atlantic division of states, in
Guiding New England, New York,
and Pennsylvania, the homo of far
the most wealth in the United States,
recorded 1920 divorces in this
period; while the north central
states, including all from Ohio on
the east to Nebraska on the west,
allowed 4s4,476 divorces, or three
times the number in the North At
lantic division. Further, the ratio
of divorce to population in the North
Central division is 90 to 1000, while
in the North Atlantic section the
ratio was SO to 1000. These figures
hardly bear out Mrs. Hills conc1u-
sion that the most frequent petition.
er for divorce IL the idle society w,
men. A great deal is said of these
women but their number is compare
lively small. A larger percentage of
that class may employ the divorce
courts, but they fall far short of sup
plying the largest number of suits.
The feminine sex, no doubt, has
been made more whimsical with
prosperity and so there may be some
thing in Mrs. Hills theory that the
ideal Of womanhood is falling. On
one hand we are urged to educate
our girls, to cultivate their minds, to
give them culture that they may be-
come graceful, agreeable and inteli-
gent wives. On the other hand we
are urged to put them in the kitchen,
where practical schooling must be
obtained and where the normal ply
steal life Of bodily work telds to
keep the girls IN normal mental
health. It 10 hsrA to give oas girl
the two kinds Of training and yet the
ideal woman will have both Of then
and will on that assouat bsssas Z
more helpful, synpatAete wife.