Monday, March 2.
Divorces in the District.
Mr. Lewis, from the Committee on the District of Columbia, made the following report:
The Committee for the District of Columbia, to whom were referred the petitions of Jane Deakins, praying for a divorce from William Deakins, and of David Beck, praying for a divorce from Ellen, his wife, submit the following report:
The only object which the petitioners can have in view is to be enabled, respectively, to enter into new contracts of marriage. Were marriages only a civil institution, the courts of law would be open to all parties seeking the redress now prayed for, for alleged breach of the marriage contract: but it is something more; it is a divine ordinance, and has been pronounced such by the highest legal as well as spiritual authority. The competency of any human tribunal to dissolve its sacred obligations may well be doubted. The justice or policy, under any circumstances, of weakening the matrimonial institution, upon the purity of which depends the very fabric of society itself, may be boldly denied. Divorces are not merely the effect of corruption of manners; they are the cause also. They hold out temptations to crime which human infirmity cannot at all times resist. They hold out incentives to that adultery which they are called in to remedy. Extreme cases may indeed be put, but they are rare; both parties are generally in fault. Shall a very few individuals, who present themselves in a questionable shape, be debarred from contracting a second marriage, or shall the foundations of society be loosened for their special accommodation? Shall the heaviest public injury be encountered for the convenience of those, who, for the most part, have shown how little reliance is to be placed upon their virtue or discretion? Shall incentives to nuptial infidelity be presented to the great body of society for the personal gratification of a few unfortunate members, diffusing dissatisfaction and discontent, where, but for the deceitful hope of divorce, they had never been known?
The frequency of divorces may be taken as an unerring criterion of the depravity of morals. A respectable authority has declared, that "from the Reformation to the commencement of the eighteenth century, there had occurred only four instances of Parliamentary divorce; but, in the present reign, they had increased to the enormous number of one hundred and ninety-three." It is notorious that the crime which is made the groundwork of the divorce, is frequently committed with the most "deliberate and unblushing indifference," for the purpose of enabling the adulterer and adultress thereafter to intermarry. Your committee will not attempt to pursue the subject further. It is calculated to inspire the most solemn reflections. They are opposed to divorce upon principle, as tending to excite family discord; as bearing hard upon the weaker sex, whom it is especially incumbent upon us to protect and to cherish; above all, as weakening the matrimonial tie, upon the sanctity of which depend "all the charities of father, son, and brother." The committee will not enter into the question how far it may be wise or politic to hold forth to the world this District as an asylum for those who wish to obtain absolution from the marriage vow. They will content themselves with submitting the following resolution:
Resolved, That the prayer of the petitioners ought not to be granted.
Referred to a Committee of the Whole on Monday next.