Arizona sentinel and Yuma weekly examiner., 1914-07-30

thing now from what it was five hun-
 dred years ago, or even fifty. So is
 being divorced.
 All the old theories of divorce were based on the ideas of marriage as the legal expression of the husbands own ership over his wife.
 It is significant, in this connection,
 that the present hue-and-cry for harsh CT divorce laws comes almost exclu- sively from men. It is flare-up of the males primitive instinct to pre- serve his property rights in his female chattel.
 | The new theories of divorce are based on the conception of marriage as an equal partnership between the man and the woman for the purposes of their mutual life enhancement. Here again it is significant that women--to whom love- life and family life mean far more than they do to men-are not clamoring for a more difficult escape from marriage bonds.
 Here in America our ideas about divorce are ahead of our technique for dealing with it.
 The dissolution of marriage is not l a misdemeanor to be tried before an inexperienced young judge between the case of pickpocket- and one of assault and battery.
 It is a surgical operation to be diag- nosed carefully by experts.
 This is the theory of the Court of Domestic Relations lately established in certain states. Such courts should become universal. nat ta l Closely connected with their estab- ishment should be legislation to put the divorce lawyer out of business. No single measure would so increase the stability of the home as the aboli- ! tion of laws strictly, enforced of any trafficking in divorce for any financial consideration by any lawyer of any grade. or standing. high or low. 4e Any reform in the interest of bet ter divorce technique should be the elimination nnfa of publicity, While the final decree of the, Court of Domestic Relations should be as public as a weather report, the processes of the divorce should be as private as those of the surgical operation to which it already has been compared.
 As for the grounds for divorce 2 concerning which various divorce con gresses indulge in much solemn wig wagging, it is a matter of common knowledge that any formal setting forth of legal causes has little validity when opposed by a railroad ticket to Reno. Moreover, the real causes are often concealed, 'desertion'' or mon support being assigned by wives as subterfuge for unspeakable causes. No isolated act can be a true ground for divorce unless the marriage is a failure, in which case the quiver of an eyelash is cause enough. S3 s acr
 It should be the work of the men and women who form the Court of Do nestle Relations to diagnose the trou- ble and prescribe the properoremedy.s They should give wise counsel in the business of living together. That these courts already established understand their responsibilities is showne by the fact fac that they have mended almost, asi ,!T1 many any marriages as they have sdis, solved. oants m, ,, This should be a speciaIb cause e of , rejoicing in most cases where children are to be considered, though of lall5 oiyerbllown ? Z 9a}lowyn iterations there lis thnone more ore empty than the saying that chilt dren are reason for holding a war ring ing couple together even when there is no other reason. defeats ta , Often a wise judge in NGourt ofI , Domestic Dfg Relations will decree that a ON~PAO ohOuiu UO separated IT only for the sake of the children.
 D., We are growing more sensitive on the subject of fair play for children We are feeling ever more deeply that children who have received the gift of life from their parents have a right to demand from these parents l. the most fit conditions to prepare them for that life
 Undoubtedly those most fit condi- tions" are offered by home where father and mother are living to- gether in love and kindness; but condf- tons are most unfit for child held within the compass of chain at which two opposite people are tug 1 gllng with hate in their hearts. Many a, child has, kept father and mother together to his own lasting detriment. 0"'
 The The thing pn that the Court of Domestic RoldtlOnS must in eVprv ooco doo;do