The Hawaiian gazette., 1910-12-09
DIVORCE WILL KEEP
PACE WITH MARRIAGE
Missouri Professors Statistics
Show Practise Is Ever on
the Increase.

COLUMBIA, Missouri, November %.
! Charles A. Elwood, professor of SO.
GEOLOGY at the University of Missouri,
figures that at the present rate of in.
crease of divorces before the end of the
century one out of every two marriages
will result in divorce. He has the
figures to show the rapid increase that
has been made. In 1885 American
courts granted $4,000 divorces, as
against 24,OOO for all the rest of the
civilized world. In 1906 American
courts granted 10000, as against 10000
for the rest of the world. In forty,
years, therefore, the divorce increase
has been three times as great as the
population increase.
The. ratio of divorce and marriage
in America now, he says, is one to
twelve, In FRANCE it is one to every
twenty-five, in Germany one to every
forty, and in England one to every5400.
In Missouri, according to the pro-
fessor 3 statistics, one divorce is
| granted to every eight marriages. In
the State of Washington there is one
| divorce to every -four marriages. " In
Colorado and Montana the ratios is
one to five, and in Texas, Oklahoma
and Indiana 1T is one, to six,
Professor Ellwood! IprophesieS ire
mendoiB 4upheaval ina America unless
something is done to preserve the
family ties. 'Free DIVORCE he says,
His Just the same as free love. 1t Is
Just a swapping of families, and the
free love advocates are much moro
dangerous to society than are ran-
arehists. - fN} ga 8. 3atSl.
GyHe IS not without ehope, however.
bIms an address he shid:d hind Fftr3a 80
| '-tfI believe the family is'in "a period
| of, transition'in America i believe we
are passing from the Did! to, a new
and higher type of family--a family
in which there won It be coercion, or
authority, or consideration of property,
in, marrying. A plane will be reached
where love will govern Hll, The family
will be- ethical, will be democratic, The
! equal@rights of every member will be
.liregarded and preserved. -y.r-t
4 IS g And in this the child will, be. taken
i.meIe, jhto consideration than it. is. now.
The family of the future must rest on
1.-The rights of the child.
I 80 Divorce seems to be, not essentially
but mateFiallys AMERICAN sinstitntiop,
More native born; Americans get :, di-
,vorces than there are Foreigners orff8teF-
\ national couples; more Protestants than
Catholics or Jews, more thihless fam
lilies obtain them than families where
i There are children and more city than
rural residents. ,.,,
i 'fThe cause for. this, TbeheVe, is that
people are growing to look at marriage
as personal convenience Industrial
conditions and city life are. much to
blame, also. Formerly, before there
was such a thing as a factory all the
work was done at home The family
was kept together There was no, need
for separation during the day. ,t7'{
"Now with our great manufactures
spouting streams of smoke on every
side, with the father working one place
the son another, the daughter still
another, and perhaps the mother in
another, the. family is lost track of.
'tChillless marriages are. another
cause. The number of childless mar
riages has increased from per cent
to; 90 per cent since the beginning Of
the nineteenth century"