body seems to indicate that they were primally destined to a number of contemporaneous or succeeding relations. There will however, always be numerous cases in which nothing can prevent the outbreak of a new passion, not the friendship which accompanies love, nor the gratitude which it leaves behind it, nor habit, nor riper years, nor the bonds of the parental share and interest in the existence of the children; in these cases the obligation of fidelity should be removed and the marriage cease in form as well as in spirit. Society concedes the possibility of such cases and has introduced the institution of divorce in the most progressive countries. But nature has not yet attained her rights by its aid. The hypocritical prejudices which cling still so closely to the theory of strict monogamy, pursue the divorced parties and cast a shadow of disgrace upon them, which stigmatizes them as no longer perfectly respectable people. This causes timid and weak natures to prefer the lie to the truth, to choose infidelity to the marriage contract rather than an honorable dissolution of it, and to avoid the social destiny of divorces by continuing to seek shelter in the defiled and guilty wedlock. Society must learn to consider a divorced couple as exceptionally courageous and truth-loving natures who would not condescend to a compromise with their conscience but broke the form with decision as soon as the substance had ceased to exist and their natural feelings rebelled against it. Not until this view of the matter becomes generally accepted will the human heart get its rights, marriage become once more a true and sacred institution, wantonness and fickleness be deprived of their pretext of love, and conjugal infidelity become a disgusting crime which only the most vulgar and depraved natures will commit.
The problem that we have last been investigating is
