"Those who choose to marry, are united, as in other countries, by a priest or magistrate. Those who do not choose to marry, and who equally shrink from the mercenary embrace of prostitution, are (in the phraseology of the island) placés: that is, literally translated, placed.
"The difference between placement and marriage is, that the former is entered into without any prescribed form, the latter with the usual ceremonies: the former is dissoluble at a day's warning, the latter is indissoluble except by the vexatious and degrading formalities of divorce; the former is a tacit social compact, the latter a legal compulsory one; in the former the woman gives up her name and her property; in the latter, she retains both.
"Marriage and placement are, in Hayti, equally respectable, or, if there be a difference, it is in favour of placement; and in effect ten placements take place in the island for one marriage. Pétion, the Jefferson of Hayti, * sanctioned the custom by his approval and example. Boyer, his successor, the president, did the same; ** and by far the largest portion of the respectable inhabitants have imitated their presidents, and are placed, not married. The children of the placed have, in every particular, the same legal rights and the same standing as those born in wedlock.
* "It may suffice, in illustration of Pétion's character, to
quote the touching inscription found on his tomb—'Here lies
Pétion, who enjoyed for twelve years absolute power, and
during that period never caused one tear to flow.'"
** "Boyer's resolution in this matter is the more
remarkable, as he has been urged and pestered to submit to
the forms of marriage. Grégoire, archbishop of Blois, and
who is well known for the perseverance and benevolence with
which he has, for a long series of years, advocated the
cause of the African race, wrote to the president of Hayti
in the most urgent terms, pressing upon him the virtue—the
necessity, for his salvation—of conforming to the sacrament
of marriage. To such a degree did the good old archbishop
carry his intermeddling officiousness, that when Boyer
mildly but firmly declined availing himself of his grace's
advice, a rupture was the consequence, greatly to the sorrow
of the president, who had ever entertained the greatest
respect and affection for his ecclesiastical friend."
"I imagine I hear from the clerical supporters of orthodoxy one general burst of indignation at this sample of national profligacy; at this contemning of the laws of God and man; at this escape from the Church's ceremonies and the ecclesiastical blessing. I imagine I hear the question sneeringly put, how long these same respectable connections commonly last, and how many dozen times they are changed in the course of a year.
"Gently, my reverend friends! it is natural you should find it wrong that men and women dispense with your services and curtail your fees in this matter. But it is neither just nor proper, that because no prayers are said, and no fees paid, you should denounce the custom as a profligate one. Learn (as I did the other day from an intelligent French gentleman who had remained some time on the island)—learn, that although there are ten times as many placed as married, yet there are actually fewer separations among the former than divorces among the latter. If constancy, then, is to be the criterion of morality, these same profligate unions—that is, unions unprayed-for by the priest and unpaid for to him—are ten times as moral as the religion-sanctioned institution of marriage.
"But this is not all. It is a fact notorious in Hayti, that libertinism is far more common among the married than among the placed. The explanatory cause is easily found. A placement secures to the consenting couple no legal right over one another. They remain together, as it were, on good behaviour. Not only positive tyranny or downright viragoism, but petulant peevishness or selfish ill humour, are sufficient causes of separation. As such, they are avoided with sedulous care. The natural consequence is, that the unions are usually happy, and that each being comfortable at home, is not on the search for excitement abroad. In indissoluble marriage, on the contrary, if the parties should happen to disagree, their first jarrings are unchecked by considerations of consequences. A husband may be as tyrannical as to him seems good; he remains a lord and master still; a wife may be as pettish as she pleases; she does not thereby forfeit the rights and privileges of a wife. Thus, ill humour is encouraged by being legalized, and the natural results ensue, alienation of the heart, and sundering of the affections. The wife seeks relief in fashionable dissipation; the husband, perhaps, in the brutalities of a brothel.
"But, aside from all explanatory theories, the fact is, as I have stated it, viz.: that (taking the proportion of each into account) there are ten legal separations of the married, for one voluntary separation of the placed. If anyone doubts it, let him inquire for himself, and he will doubt no longer.
"What say you to that fact, my reverend friends? How consorts it with your favourite theory, that man is a profligate animal, a desperately wicked creature? that, but for your prayers and blessings, the earth would be a scene of licentiousness and excess? that human beings remain together, only because you have helped to tie them? that there is no medium between priestly marriage and unseemly prostitution?
"Does this fact open your eyes a little on the real state of things to which we heterodox spirits venture to look forward? Does it assist in explaining to you how it is that we are so much more willing than you to entrust the most sacred duties to moral rather than legal keeping?