New-York tribune., 1922-07-20
.AnericanHOl1le
In Chaos, Says
Church Report
Episcopalians Hold Marriage
Has Been Degraded to
sLegalized Concubinage'
and Race Is Threatened
See No Hope in Laws
Assail Birth Control but
Would Stop Criminals
and Unfit Having Children

American home life is declared to
be in a state of chaos in report on
the American family to be made public
to-day by the National Council of the
Protestant Episcopal Church. The re-
port will be presented formally in
September at the forty-seventh trien-
nial general convention of the Protes-
tant Episcopal Church in Portland,
Ore.
The document enlarges on "the dis
cordant home life of the American
people," the frightful dissolution of
the marriage tie going on in America
and its inevitable concomitant of
race suicide. There are references to
increasing throngs in the divorce
courts, weeping women, unhappy men,
orphaned orphaned not by
Gods will but by the selfshness of
parents"
'Legalized Concubinage"
"Prostituted as it is in the United
States to a mere means for physical
union, a legalized form Of concubinage,
it will produce the result of increasing
sterility. as it always has done in the
past"
The destructive effect of industrial
development is deplored and the i'm
pairment of the social and moral
standards of Christian living and the
loss of sufficient leisure for mental,
moral and spiritual culture due to the
speeding up Of the industrial pace. The
report recommends that "the criminal,
feeble-minded and morally vicious
ought to be prevented from propagat-
ing their kind" and also urges "an in
sistence on health certificates as an
antecedent to marriage"
Continuing, the report says:
where family life is dishonored,
wedding unfaithfulness lightly regard
ed, parental responsibility neglected,
tilial respect and obedience sighted,
there, we may be sure, society is rot
ten at the core. We tremble for the
future of state or nation where lax
theories concerning domestic life gain
ground. Even laxer practice will GER
tainly prevail.
Can't Be Cured by Laws
"The remedy for the frightful disso
luton of the marriage tie going on in
America and its inevitable conse-
quences Of race suicide is to be found
in Christian training alone. Remedial
legislation, while imposing difficulties
in the way of easy annulm ent, does not
go to the root of the evil. 1t attacks
o,rfx wi ,,+o 80
and is of undoubted value, but it does
not destroy the germ of the evil or
cure it at it's source.
Boys and girls must be taught as
early as possible that the chief pur-
pose of marriage is the perpetuation
Of the race, involving the begetting and
education of children for the work of
the world. Marriage is a high and
holy vocation, because the married
pair are cooperating with the Crea-
tor in the continuance of the human
race.
The commission also indorses a warn
ing uttered by the Lambeth Conference
of Bishops in London in 1920 against
the practice of means for avoiding con-
ception as "involving great dangers to
physical health as we'll as to moral in
nocence and threatening the future of
the human race"
Pay Tribute to Youth of To-day
The report adds:
"We believe, however, that the young
men and women of to-day are more
amenable to strong, virile leadership
than those of any previous epoch.
Keen, alert, quick to differentiate be-
tween the real and the spurious, accus-
toned to think for themselves, they will
respond readily to reasoned and reason
able presentation of serious truths
which will appeal to the best and
strongest that is in them"
The joint commission which prepared
this report included the Bishop of Sac
ramento as chairman; the Bishop Suf-
fragan of Western New York, the Bish-
op of Western Missouri, the Bishop of
Oregon, the Bishop Coadjutor of Cen
tral New York, the Bishop of Erie and