The Green Bag
276
There is no phenomenon of modern
times more interesting than the rapidly accelerating
rate
United States.
of
divorce
in
the
Without dwelling upon
the statistics of the recent reports of the Census Bureau, it is suificient to say that there is now one divorce for about every twelve marriages, and the
rate has been increasing year by year dur ing the past four years.
There is no prin
ciple of political economy more obvious than that which teaches that the laws
enacted and carried into efiect by a representative government must respond
to
popular
sentiment.
Otherwise,
though they may remain upon the statute book, they become obsolete. There have been divorce laws in
United States. While Protestant Christianity had given up the sacra mental view of marriage, it retained in practice the same respect, or rather
reverence, for marriage as all bodies of Christians had always entertained. And so the principle, which is funda mental in Christian society and dis tinguishes it from the highest civilization of Rome, that marriage is monogamous and life-long, has been practically ac cepted by all sociologists and legislators
up to very recent times,—and this notwithstanding the fact that Protestant Christianity interpreted the teachings of our Saviour so as to permit divorce in intolerable cases, such as adultery, cruelty and desertion, which were gradu
almost all of the states of the Union ally extended to conviction of crime since the adoption of the federal Con- > and other causes that need not be stitution, and during the colonial period divorces were by no means unknown,
especially in the New England colonies. The changed attitude towards marriage, brought into the religious belief of many European peoples by the leaders of the
religious revolt of the sixteenth century, bore fruit in divorce legislation. Since the opinion of the leaders of Puritan thought did not differ essentially from that of Milton, that marriage was entirely devoid of sacramental character,
enumerated. Within a generation, however, this portentous revolution in the attitude of men and women towards the most
important status of social life has been gathering force, and probably for the first time since Christianity came into general acceptance among civilized peoples, a school of sociological teachers has had the courage to come out frankly and ‘accept the logical conse quences of the proposition so often
divorce seemed under certain conditions
asserted in the past, that marriage is
entirely reasonable.
a civil contract only. While admitting its accidents are somewhat peculiar, none the less, according to this school.
There is no evidence, however, that there was at any time any element in attract notice that advocated divorce
there is no philosophical reason why it should not be treated like any other
on any ground excepting such as made
contract, and when either party com
society of sufiicient respectability to
the condition of the injured party intolerable. Such teaching as that the
mits a breach of its conditions it should
marriage contract differs in no respect from any other contract and the status may be terminated at the will of either of the parties whenever the burden
be dissolved. Such teaching has met acceptance and appears to be gaining ground, notwithstanding that many of its advocates have had the candor to admit that in order to sustain it the
becomes irksome, finds no support in the early history of divorce in the
forms must be cast aside.
sanction of Christianity in any of its
