DIVORCE LEGISLATION IN CONNECTICUT.
[Footnote 22]
[Footnote 22: Divorce legislation in Connecticut. By Rev. H. Loomis, Jr., North Manchester, Conn. article in the new England, for July, 1865.]
The deadly and destructive epidemic of divorce legislation has crept through our social system with such stealthy and noiseless advances, and the Catholic community is so completely free from its contagion, that we were startled at the facts displayed in the able article which has suggested our present comments. Connecticut, it appears, stands pre-eminent among the states for the facility and frequency of divorce. Mr. Loomis says "that the name of Connecticut has become a name of reproach among her sister states, with a shameful notoriety surpassed by only one state in the Union." Nevertheless, many, if not most of the other states, are entitled to a fair share in the same reproach, having admitted the same false and ruinous principle into their legislation. We confine our remarks therefore to Connecticut, merely because it is a sample of the state of things generally existing, and because we are furnished with the authentic statements which are our necessary data by the principal periodical published in that state.
These statements are, briefly, that divorces are granted by the Superior Courts, under the statutes of the Legislature, a vinculo matrimonii, leaving both parties free to marry again, for the following causes: 1. Adultery; 2. Desertion; 3. Habitual Intemperance; 4. Intolerable Cruelty; 5. Imprisonment for Life; 6. Infamous Crime; 7. "Any such misconduct as permanently destroys the happiness of the petitioner and defeats the purposes of the marriage relation." Moreover, that within the last fifteen years 4,000 divorces have been granted, of one for every twenty families. To this we add the further statement that, more than one-fifth of the population being Catholics, who never ask for these divorces, the proportion is increased to one married couple out of every sixteen Protestant families.
These are the demonstrated facts in the case. And, in addition, we have the testimony of Mr. Loomis, published with the sanction of the editor of the New Englander, that the courts despatch these divorce cases with the most shameful levity and haste, in many cases without any due notice having been given to the respondent, and without any close examination of witnesses.
Mr. Loomis says:
"It need hardly be matter of surprise, in these circumstances, if a citizen of the state of Connecticut, entitled to the protection of the law in his most sacred rights, should chance to return from a temporary absence on business in another state, and find that in the meanwhile he had been robbed of wife and children, and of all which, for him, constituted home, on evidence which would not be sufficient before any jury in the state to take from a man property to the amount of five dollars, or even the possession of a pig; and to find, moreover, that both wife and children have, by the authority of law, been placed beyond his own control, perhaps in the hands of one who has conspired and paid for his ruin. The case supposed is not wholly imaginary. There is no reason, so far as the administration of the law is concerned, why it should not be frequent! In many cases the absence of the respondent is assured by pecuniary inducements, and in a yet larger number it must be confessed there is no opposition, because there is a common desire to be free from a burdensome restraint.
"It is doubtless true that, in the main, our courts have held themselves bound at least by the letter of the law, though their decisions are often hurried and based upon [{102}] wholly unsifted evidence. And yet lax as are even the terms of the present law, it is difficult to conceive how some of the decrees of divorce which have been granted during the past five years can be brought within the language of the so-called 'omnibus clause.' What shall we say of such cases as these, for instance, in which, in the western part of the state, a man and woman came into court with the confession that they had entered into the bonds of matrimony at the mature age of threescore and ten, but that now, after three weeks' experience, having become convinced of their folly, they desired relief from the court; or in which, after having failed to prove legal desertion, the counsel simply stated his ability to prove that the husband, from whom divorce was sought had called his wife by an opprobrious epithet, too vile and vulgar to be repeated; or in which the soul plea made was that the parties themselves had agreed through their counsel that a divorce should be had. And yet in each one of these cases, we are credibly informed, a decree of divorce was actually granted. Would not all this tend to show that the administration of no long can be wholly trusted to a court which is private in its proceedings, unwatched in its purity, unguarded in its power, with no barriers against abuse, and in which suits are practically contested only when property or reputation are sufficiently at stake to induce, in one case in eleven, a defence?"
Comment on our part seems hardly necessary. This page in the history of one state which has its counterparts in those of many others, is too black to need or admit of any deepening tints. As Mr. Loomis well remarks, such a complete subversion of the essential nature of the marriage contract by legislation endangers the very institution of marriage itself, and tends to reduce it to legalized concubinage. An ostensible marriage contract, in which both or one of the parties intends to contract for a union which may be dissolved whenever there is ground for complaint or dissatisfaction, is not a marriage. So far, therefore, as the idea on which this infamous legislation is based becomes common, so as to underlie the matrimonial contracts which are entered into, those contracts are invalidated, and the institution of Christian marriage is abrogated. This is sapping the foundations not only of the Christian moral law, but of our civil institutions and social organization. The extent to which this cancer has already spread reveals a moral condition truly alarming. It indicates much more than the discontent of certain married persons with each other, which is only a symptom of moral depravation lying deeper and more widely spread in the community.
We are glad to see that some influential clergymen and laymen in Connecticut are endeavoring to stem and turn back this tide of moral evil, and to effect a reform in the divorce laws. What have they been thinking of during these past years, while this destructive work has been going on? Why have they not preached against these infamous laws, written against them, agitated against them—in a word, shown the zeal and energy in a matter which concerns so nearly the public and private well-being, the very existence of the community in which they live, which they have displayed concerning the reformation and improvement of mankind at large? It is useless to ask the question now, for the mischief is done. The only thing they can do in reparation for their supine neglect, is to work and agitate now for a correction of public sentiment which will produce a reformation in public law. They will have all the influence of the Catholic clergy on their side, and the support of the whole mass of Catholic voters in any political measure which may be necessary for restoring a sounder system of legislation.
The Catholic law, which denies all power to any tribunal, secular or ecclesiastical, to grant a divorce a vinculo matrimonii for any cause whatever, in the case of marriages validly contracted and consummated according to the institution of Christ, is manifestly the most perfect protection possible to the inviolability of marriage. Those who reject the authority of the church have no certain and indubitable basis on which to rest the doctrine that marriage is indissoluble. The author of the article we are noticing does not deny the right of the civil power to [{103}] dissolve the bond of matrimony in certain cases of grievous criminality. The civil power is consequently the judge of both the law and the fact, and the clergy cannot pretend to exercise any judgment whatever. They are left, therefore, to exert what influence they can on public sentiment, in view of the demoralizing and destructive effects of divorces upon society. If there is enough left of sound moral sentiment in the community to compel legislators to restrict the concession of divorces within the ancient limits, a great good can be effected in checking this gigantic evil. This is all that the Protestant clergy can accomplish, and their only means of doing it. They cannot impose their interpretation of Scripture or their ecclesiastical laws upon the state. Nor can we expect legislatures or judicial courts to take the New Testament as their code of laws, to interpret its meaning, or embody its principles in statutes and decisions. On Protestant principles, the doctrines of Christianity can be applied to legislation only as they are absorbed by public opinion, which sways the minds of those who make and execute the laws. Therefore there is no remedy in this case except the one we have indicated, namely, to form a public opinion on the deleterious effects of the divorce laws upon society, and, as far as this motive is still available, their contrariety to the spirit of Christianity. If a word of advice from a Catholic source can be received, we counsel the Protestant clergy of Connecticut to lose no time before putting all their energies at work to save their state from the moral desolation which threatens it; and the respectable lawyers to do something to wipe out the stigma which attaches to their profession on account of these infamous divorce laws.