What is the solution of the problem?
CHAPTER XIII
SOME OF THE CAUSES OF DIVORCE
Until our marriage laws are so adjusted that there are no unequal marriages, the question of divorce always will be eminent. The ever present agitation about uniform divorce laws and the divorce problem cannot be settled until there are more stringent marriage laws. Trying to settle the divorce question without first settling the marriage question is like trying to keep chickens in a small yard surrounded by enticing fields without first constructing an adequate fence.
Divorce is the concession of society to its inability to solve the marriage problem. Anyone can get married! Mere children can meet on a pleasure excursion and in a moment of fun or infatuation walk over to a justice of the peace and be married. In some states not even a license is necessary. A large proportion of the marriages in the world are consummated without a proper consideration on the part of either bride or groom as to the responsibilities of the marriage state. Many of the marriages are made simply as a matter of convenience—in order to inherit property, for social position or in a spirit of pique. Such marriages are not natural marriages and are in violation of the right spirit of the law of marriage. The much quoted saying, "What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder," surely does not apply to these marriages; for that very admission would be a condemnation of the wisdom of God. He surely never would give his sanction to many of the marriages contracted in a spirit of lust or of greed.
It is as impossible to keep mismated people together as it is to keep chemical incompatibles together. No chemist would try to keep chlorate of potash and sulphur together even if they did, by some accident, happen to be in the same locality. It is just as impossible to keep two incompatible people together and not expect an explosion. The law may keep such people legally bound, but it cannot keep them so mentally or physically. A prominent reformer is reported to have said that fully one-third of the married population of New York City is unfaithful to the physical obligation. And New York is not so very different from other parts of the country. Many who are not physically disloyal are mentally so. The no-divorce law will not prevent this condition of affairs. Whites and blacks cannot marry legally in the South and yet in some of the Southern states which have a no-divorce system a large proportion of the colored population is mulatto.
Nature's laws tend to provide an indissoluble union, but divorce represents the protest of the individual against the inharmonious relations he ignorantly or thoughtlessly has assumed.
Even those who are the loudest in their condemnation of divorce could not sanction marriage under certain conditions. I wonder if these people know that many of the divorces that are granted under the head of cruelty really are granted because one of the parties has contracted one of the loathsome black plagues. No humane person could condemn a woman for refusing to live with a man and take the almost certain risk of contracting a disease that would mean her death or mutilation, or for refusing to bear children that would come into the world an object of disgust and horror or which would die before being born. Some of these reformers say, "Let her live separately from him but not marry again." That would be condemning an innocent woman to a childless life because she had been so unfortunate as to become bound to a dissipated man.