CHAPTER XVIII
THE CONDITIONS OF DIVORCE
A brief chapter must be devoted to the question of the conditions of divorce, which are really part of the conditions of marriage. Here, as in every other case, we must apply the universal and unchallengeable eugenic criterion: the conditions of divorce, like the conditions of marriage itself, must be such as best serve the future of the race. This will mean that, in the first place, in entering upon marriage—which of necessity means so much more to a woman than it does to a man—the woman must have the assurance that when the conditions of the contract are broken she will be liberated. The law must bear equally upon the two sexes. This condition of safety, once established, may determine toward marriage a certain number of women at present deterred by what they know of the manner in which our unjust laws now work.
Secondly, Divorce Law Reform in the right interests of women and the future must involve the complete protection of both from, for instance, the drunken husband. The male inebriate is on all grounds unfitted to be a father, and the laws of divorce must ensure that if he be married, his wife and therefore the future shall be protected from him. Those of us who believe in the movement for Women Suffrage will be grievously disappointed if, when that movement at last succeeds, such fundamental and urgent reforms as these are not promptly effected.
A Royal Commission is now sitting in England upon this subject of Divorce Law Reform, and I wish to repeat here with all the emphasis possible what has been already said in indirect contribution to the evidence laid before that Commission. It is that the first principle of judgment in all such matters is the Eugenic one. Primarily marriage is an invention for serving the future by buttressing motherhood with fatherhood. The judgment of all our methods of marriage and divorce lies with their products. "By their fruits ye shall know them." If there were any antagonism between the interests of the individual and those of the race we should indeed be in a quandary, but as I have shown a hundred times there is no such antagonism. The man or woman from whom a divorce ought to be obtained is ipso facto the man or woman who ought not to be a parent.
When it is a question of life or gold, we in England are consistent Mammon worshippers. Woe to the poacher, but the wife beater has only strained a right and may be leniently dealt with; woe to the destroyer of pheasants, but the destruction of peasants is a detail. Thus it is that the great fundamental questions which, because they determine the destiny of peoples, are the great Imperial questions, are unknown even by repute to our professed Imperialists. Every kind of industry except the culture of the racial life interests them profoundly—if there is money in it. The whole nation can go wild over a budget or the proposal to revive protection, but the conditions under which the race is recruited are the concern of but a few, who are looked upon as cranks. In the case of such a question as our Divorce Laws the public is substantially unaware that we are hundreds of years behind the rest of the civilized world; that our practice is utterly unthought out, and that the supposed compromise of Separation Orders is insane in principle and hideous in result. The present law bears very hardly upon both sexes in a thousand cases, but more especially upon women, toward whom it is grossly unjust. All honour is due to the Divorce Law Reform Union,[19] which for many years has devoted itself to this important subject, and has at last succeeded in obtaining the formation of a Royal Commission, the upshot of which, we may hope, will be to reform our law on moral, humane, and eugenic lines. The following is a striking quotation from a pamphlet written on behalf of this Union by Mr. E. S. P. Haynes, a distinguished expert.
"But our law of divorce is only one example among many of our hide-bound attachment to ancient abuses. It is of the utmost importance to realize that Divorce Law Reform will merely bring our jurisprudence up to the level of the modern enlightened State. It involves no revolutionary disturbance of anything but our crusted ignorance of how modern civilization works outside England. It sets out to place the family on a firmer basis, to regulate the marriage contract on equitable lines, and to improve the chances of the future generation in a country where deserted wives fill the work-houses and forty thousand illegitimate children are born every year."
In Germany, which we are always being asked to imitate in non-essentials by the more stupid kind of Imperialist—the kind which only very strong empires can survive—the law of divorce is vastly superior to ours. There is no such thing as judicial separation, which "is rightly condemned as being contrary to public policy." Further, as Mr. Haynes points out, "In Germany a male cannot marry under twenty-one or a female under eighteen, whether parental consent is available or not. In England a man may and not infrequently does cut his wife and family out of his will; in Germany the rights of wife and children are properly safeguarded by limiting this liberty of disposition. In England a father need not do more for his children than keep them out of the work-house unless he has brought himself under Divorce Jurisdiction; in Germany he is obliged to maintain them in a suitable manner. In England a spendthrift or dipsomaniac can only be controlled when he has spent all his money. In Germany such persons are protected from themselves by the family council. In England an illegitimate child can never be legitimated by the subsequent marriage of the parents. In Germany this humane and reasonable opportunity of making reparation to the child exists as a matter of course."
Here in England we have one law for the rich and another for the poor, for the average cost of a decree is about £100; and a case was recently reported in which a woman had saved up for twenty years in order to obtain a divorce. What an absolutely abominable scandal; how hideously beneath the level of practice amongst what we are pleased to call savage peoples. As everyone knows, the present law directly encourages immorality, pronouncing separation without the power of re-marriage—that is to say, the greater punishment, for lesser offences, and divorce with the power of re-marriage, that is to say, the lesser punishment, for greater offences.