Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1920-07-22
Astounding Divorce Increases.


number of petitions filed in the courts Tor
divorces this year. Her advance over last
year will be 100 per cent, while her mar
riage licenses have increased but little
more than six per cent. Phlladelphlans
and Baltimoreans are close in the scramble
to get out of matrimony. each city making
such gains year by year, in the last three
years, ms to show that the divorce evil IS
assuming tremendous proportions In
Philadelphia there have been |, $40 appll-.
cations filed in the six elapsed months
of the year; 1861 in Boston and 1,395
in Baltimore. The increase of the divorce
habit in these cities last year was from
so to 60 per cent.
Estimated on the-basis that about so
per cent of the petitions meet the approva
of the courts, it is seen that the humber
of grass" widows and widowers is in
creasing with alarming rapidity.
There were ola divorces obtained from
the Boston courts last year and there were
9,343 marriage licenses granted, showing
that the separations have grown TO one
in every ten marriages. In Philadelphia
in the last six months there was divorce
to every eight marriage licenses issued,
and there is a similar ratio shown by
statistics of much of the country. At the
present rate Of increase in the dcnand. for
divorces we may find that within
half century there will be divorce for
almost every wedding.
To go still further the figures show that
last year there were 2,25O suits filed in
Baltimore; 1889 in Boston, and 2,96o
in Philadelphia, and while only 50per cent
of these were granted, the remaining 80
percent of the applicants doubtless sepa-
rated irrespective of the courts refusal
to legally unite their knots. In these
three cities, therefore, there were 5000
homes broken up and 1898 husbands
and wives separated. Were tins ratio
maintained in the other cities OF our
country it would not be far arniss to set
the petitions for divorce at 10000 IN
1919, and the number of people trying
to escape from the Calling bonds at
quarter of million.
In our own community the divorces
have multiplied quite as rapidly as they
have in other cities. The increased per-
centage is much larger in Wilmington than
the percentage of our population increase
No one seems to be able to offer any ex-
PLANTATION of this unfortunate condition,
but it exists and every one may draw hls
own conclusions. 1t is argued that
marriage is made too easy, or that people
mistake infatuation for love, or that
there are matches in order to better the
condition of the one or the other Of the
parties, or again that there are marriages
for convenience. But none of these
reasons fully explain the cause. It also
has been argued that the woman finding
her new freedom and the right 10 live her
own life without the restraining inter
ference of her sterner half is largely
accountable for the increase of the di-
vorce peril. 1t is certain that almost 20
percent of the petitioners are women,
and that in most of the applications
moral shortcomings Of the one or the
other is indicated. And, too it may be
noted in the list Of local divorce applicants
that more than a majority of them bear
foreign names, aliens who find perhars
the exhileration of the new world up
settingto their moral poise.
The churches may rail and ptOtest at
the spread of the evil; they may bar
their communion to divorced persons, or
may wholly communicate them, but
this seems to matter not the least for no
one probably stops to consider what
penalty the religious bodies may impose
for these breaches of discipline, and men
and women are turning to the courts by
the tens of thousands when the marriage
tie becomes burdensome.
Perhaps we can blame much Of this
dissatisfaction to the unrest and the
malign influences of the war and the
period following when the mad lust for
money, for pleasure, and the rejection OF
curbing influence may have sown dis
cOrUaDI SfeCS IN many liIbci W hAPPy
homes.
The love of money, we are told, Is the
root of all evil; money and what it is sup
posed to stand for may be the chief reason
for the breaking asunder of so many home
ties upon which the greatness of our
nation depends and which was regarded
as sacred. Not only in this country, but
throughout the world has spread the
wave of discomfort with things that are,
and upset the existing order of things.
When we find Boston, the centre of
culture and refnernent-the home of the
real highbrow-the chief offender we
must pause and wonder if the moral and
religious education of the people of today
is lax and responsible for this national or
international delinquency.