The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1912-01-06

united"
This declaration has the Infanta's
warm approval. Let us study divorce
from the point of view of it's useful
ness she says, and continues:
Divorce has the advantage of not
being considered, like marriage, an
eternal chain, a crushing yoke, or a
prison deliberately entered into to
assure ones subsistence.
1t is just, indeed, not to keep tied
to each other people who cannot live
together, to put an end to moral
suffering that is often excessive, tc
do away with constant dangers which
sometimes go as far as murder, to
escape-in a word, from the sentimen-
tai and emotional consequences of
the indissolubility of marriage.
How many beings live together for
long years strangers in mind and
body! How many are the slaves of
marriage whose relations are hideous
with mutual hate! Why in the name
of a religious principle should one
make eternal the hell whose torments
are as varied as they are overwhelm-
ing? Why should not reason and
the right of the individual correct the
mistakes of chance, false calculations,
and hopes deceived?
why should a woman who does
not find in her husband the neces-
sary moral support suffer the tor
lures of a long agony in which she is
defenseless, of perpetual struggle
in which she is miserably conquered;
and, on the other hand, why should
the husband who does not find in his
wife the hoped-for companion or the
desired slave, find the road to happi.
ness forever closed to him?"
Marriage is based, she argues; on a
contract. A contract is certainly
something that may be dissolved with
readiness whenever it has become
clear hat It no longer operates for
the benefit of the persons interested
There must always be mutual con
sent in such arrangement, But this
view of marriage used not to be taken
at all, and the consequences were
often disastrous,
Before divorce was established
men and women who lived together
in misunderstanding suffered al
agony worse than that of the con
demned to death, for nothing can b.
compared, l repeat, to the torture o
being tied, body and soul, in hatred
or scorn, or even indifference.
On times past the strong, the in
dependent, those who did not fea
public opinion or who held social con
ventions cheap, went and lived i
separate houses, just as it happen
still in certain countries-in Spain
for instance, where divorce does no
, exist and where legal separation /
r not even recognized. But althoug
they lived separate, the marriage cor
, tract existed none the less, and tn
question of money became a gray
> problem to solve Did husband @
wife make debts, they were by tn
-, law mutually responsible, and
would happen that one of the coupl
who had not made the debts woul
. be Obliged to pay them. What en'
+ less complications, how many door
i, for dissention, how much piled-up Di
h terness.
n "But there is something even moi
n serious. In a household where thel
.. is no real union at all, where thei
r is daily strife, children look on
d scenes which shatter their illusion
q about married love- They are thu
n the victims of the lack of divorce
But, contends the essayist, this
Ell not all the evil. When men and woi
" en- separate, or when they no long
n. live happily together, inevitably q
III temptation is to turn to others
m consolation. In the case of the mi
r there is often little attempt to &C
70 ceal such relations, and by the DO
IL ness with which he may faunt I
st vices the wife and the institution
" marriage are alike insulted.
OF With the woman the case is u
er ally a little different, for she is
Mt to be more circumspect than the mi
Sc but circumstances cannot do eve
of thing, and almost invariably there
nv scandal and trouble and the stirrl
Sc, up of mud And always maria
". which should stand for all that