Year: 1876

MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE.


The condition Of society in the Golden
State is not a satisfactory one to those
who can remember its usagcs in other
lands. There is a vast difference in the
views held by Californians upon certain |
moral questions, and these views are not
hidden hypocritically away, but carried
into the practice of every day life. The
present state of society is founded IN
many respects upon the condition of
affairs which obtained twenty five years
ago, and while some of its features are OBJ
jectionable, there are others which, found
ed in spirit of iberalty and progress,
have taken the form Of legal enactments
and received the sanction Of Legislative
authority. 1t is proper to premise that
these changes have not been worked
without awakening opposition of the
conservative elements, which help to
form society. There are some things in
life which we are taught by education by





custom to regard as sacred, and to look
with ill-favor upon any proposition look
ing to a radical change in them. One of
these things is the marriage tie. Marii-
age, we were taught, is God given in
sttution, q state in which we enter with
the hope, if not the belief, that the tie
tLon f,rr,od ,,;ll ha eovoro1 ,,nl,, bv 1ootb
And though society may pass laws in
which the sacredness Of this tic is not
recognized in which, in the eye of the
law it is put upon the same footing as
any business transaction, to be severed at
any time when it becomes oppressive to
either one of the contracting parties,
| they who avail themselves of its advan-
tages only in the legal sense, are not
| looked upon as people from whom society
at large can hope to gain anything. Yet
when we come to divest ourselves of the
innate prcjudices which arise from early
education, we have to acknowledge that
there is in reality no conflict between re-
ligion and law. There are too many
marriages contracted without the sane
ton of the one thing needful to happi-
ness, mutual love. Psychologists tell us
that neither m0n nor woman can tell
whether the love it is sincerely believed
is felt can endure. 1t is natural for either
sex, when in the presence OF the other, to
show off only those qualities most calcu-
lated to attract, and in this way parties
90 on until the time is past when discov-
cry could benefit, and they find them
selves bound together by chains not to be
lightly thrown aside. Too late they dis
cover that what they had believed to be
an end uring sentiment was but n caprice,
and from that time on they are doomed
to life Of misery if they remain together.
Often this knowledge, that the happiness
expected at home is denied them, causes
the coldness of feeling which eventually
eliminates in giving to one or the other
the legal grounds for an application for
divorce. And it is simply because peo
pie are not happily married that so many
divorces are sought where the marriage
contract is entered into with the true un.
Outstanding of its solemnites and respon-
sibilities, where in truth it is a God given
institution, the resorts to the coults for
legal separations are few and far between


The State Senate has passed bill
making radical changes in the divorce
law of this State. 1t limits the causes
for divorce TO two adultery, and extreme
cruelty. What extreme cruelty is the
best lawyers cannot determine. What
would be extreme cruelty in one case,
would be looked upon MS good usage in
another. To our idea there are reasons
in addition to these which should remain
as part Of the statutory grounds. When
II man becomes an hab;tual drunkard he
becomes nuisance to every one brought
in contact with him. Men avoid him,
women shrink from his presercc, and
children hasten to get out of his sight
when he is under the maddening inGu-
cnce of drink. But Senator Persons
bill would send him to vent his drunken
brutality upon his wife and family and
leave to them no hope Of escape. SO too,
in the event Of this bin becoming a law,
are descrtion, Abandonment, failure to
provide the necessaries of life, alike left
ont of the grounds on which proceedings
for divorce can be instituted. We sub
mt that the proposed measure makes
changes altogether to sweeping to be in
consonance with the spirit of the age.


The fault lies, not in the law of divorce,
itself, but in the fact that the marriage
stpte is entered into without that grave
consideration to which it is entitled. 1t
is noticeable that the large majority of
applications for divorce are instituted hy
woman, showing that to be the sex which
has borne the most of the evils of matri-
mony. Doubtless there are good reasons
tor limiting the ground for divorce appli-
cations, but so long as our statues re
gard marriage MS civil compact, it
would be paradoxical if it d,d not provide
means by which the compact could be
dissolved when it became source of mu-
tual unhappncss.


-z----.--.e.=z--z.-a-----


Pass Him ARoUND.-Mr. j. II. Reall
lives i'll Delaware. He WAS desirous of