Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1912-10-31
Only one DIVORCE
FOR CHURCH COERS
Divorce Proctor Of Kansas City
Finds Woman's Vanity
Largely To Blame.

Kansas City.-The churchless mar.
rage and women's vanity feed the d.
vorce mill of Kansas City. as OF every
other city, according TO w. W.. Wright,
divorce proctor for the circuit court.
after a year in Office. So satisfactory
has been the divorce proctor expert
ment that Mr.. Wright has been M de
a permanent officer of the court, and
no divorce case will be heard until he
or his volunteer assistants have fully
investigated all the circumstance in
the case.
And said Mr.. Wright" just az
soon as every married couple embraces
religion l will be out of a job. for in
my investigation of thousands of di-
vorces in the year that l have acted al
divorce proctor I la found only one
In which both husband and wife were
regular churchgoers. In that case the
divorce was asked because of a mental
weakness In one of the parties which
made it impossible for the marriage
contract to continue.
while a hundred or more causes are
given in petitions for divorce, every
one of them can be traced directly TIC
the fact that II OF both of the parties
is irreligious." Mr.. Wright says.
THE next great contributing cause
OF divorce is woman's vanity. "A godly
woman who has stood before the altar
and promised to take the man for bet
ter or for worse. TO cleave to him
through health II through sickness.
through prosperity and adversely, would
not seek he divorce courts a the
high cost of living had made it impos-
sible for him to buy her the gowns, the
hats, the housefurnishings or the theat-
err tickets she Graves.
II fouEd that fully one-half of ali
the couples i'm he divorce courts were
married lives there. That struck me
as strange. l looked into it. Woman's
vanity again. 1 found that in the great
majority of these cases the wife was
not content to live the humdrum life of
me village. The salary was too small
there. She desired more money with
which to dress and make a splurge. So
she dragged her husband to the city
and her vanity brought her at last to
the divorce court to get rid OF the
plain. plodding husband and be free to-
choose another, If he had not already
been chosen. In most Of such cases
the other one already had been Sc
lected.
Another curious fact disclosed by
my statistics was that the vast major
lty OF all divorce suits FLEE in this
5 doun.y were by by persons who lived
zone is also the church's zone. There
are very few separate houses suitable
for homes in that zone. The married
couple there board or live in furnished
LuoAlis una take their meals outside.
There was no han for cozy house
Keeping. The three things went togeth-
er--churchless zone, homeless zone. d.
vorce zone.
Very few divorces come from the
suburban district. where the churches
are and where nearly every couple own
their own home. with a porch, a back
yard, a garden n other pleasant sur
roundlngs-and children. There are
few babies in the divorce zone."
MIR. Wright out Of his experience
sums up with this advice to the mar
ried man:
Take your wife to a home where
You two may live alone until the chill
dren come. and be sure that the chill
dren do come.
by all means join a church at once.
The day o pick your house, pick
Your church. The one is as important
as the other. Any church will do SO
long as You live up to the fundamental
teachings and the 10 commandments.
a your wife to the theater. If
you go; go to the parks, go on little
excursions. and don't let a little thinc.
like the marriage ceremony break up
the love affair that existed before the
marriage.
Don't quit counting when the
honeymoon is over. I've had hundreds
OF wives tell me that their journey
to the divorce court began when the
husband forgot to use the endearine
words he used to use when they wer.
sweethearts."