Diary in America, Series Two

by Frederick Marryat

In the United States, divorces are obtained without expense, and without it being necessary to commit crime, as in England. The party pleads in formâ pauperis, to the State Legislation, and a divorce is granted upon any grounds which may be considered as just and reasonable.

Miss Martineau mentions a divorce having been granted to a wife, upon the plea of her husband being a gambler; and I was myself told of an instance in which a divorce was granted upon the plea of the husband being such an “awful swearer;” and really, if any one heard the swearing in some parts of the Western country, he would not be surprised at a religious woman requesting to be separated. I was once on board of a steam-boat on the Mississippi, when a man let off such a volley of execrations, that it was quite painful to hear him. An American who stood by me, as soon as the man had finished, observed, “Well, I’m glad that fellow has nothing to do with the engines: I reckon he’d burst the biler.”

Miss Martineau observes, “In no country I believe are the marriage laws so iniquitous as in England, and the conjugal relation, in consequence, so impaired. Whatever may be thought of the principles which are to enter into laws of divorce, whether it be held that pleas for divorce should be one, (as narrow interpreters of the New Testament would have it;) or two, (as the law of England has it;) or several, (as the Continental and United States’ laws in many instances allow,) nobody, I believe, defends the arrangement by which, in England, divorce is obtainable only by the very rich. The barbarism of granting that as a privilege to the extremely wealthy, to which money bears no relation whatever, and in which all married persons whatever have an equal interest, needs no exposure beyond the mere statement of the fact. It will be seen at a glance how such an arrangement tends to vitiate marriage: how it offers impunity to adventurers, and encouragement to every kind of mercenary marriages; how absolute is its oppression of the injured party; and how, by vitiating marriage, it originates and aggravates licentiousness to an incalculable extent. To England alone belongs the disgrace of such a method of legislation. I believe that, while there is little to be said for the legislation of any part of the world on this head, it is nowhere so vicious as in England.”

I am afraid that these remarks are but too true; and it is the more singular, as not only in the United States, but in every other Protestant community that I have ever heard of, divorce can be obtained upon what are considered just and legitimate grounds. It has been supposed, that should the marriage tie be loosened, that divorces without number would take place. It was considered so, and so argued, at the time that Zurich (the only Protestant canton in Switzerland that did not permit divorce, except for adultery alone,) passed laws similar to those of the other cantons; but so far from such being the case, only one divorce took place, within a year after the laws were amended. What is the reason of this? It can, in my opinion, only be ascribed to the chain being worn more lightly, when you know that if it oppresses you, it may be removed. Men are naturally tyrants, and they bear down upon the woman who cannot escape from their thraldom; but, with the knowledge that she can appeal against them, they soften their rigour. On the other hand, the woman, when unable to escape, frets with the feeling that she must submit, and that there is no help or hope in prospect; but once aware that she has her rights, and an appeal, she bears with more, and feels less than otherwise she would. You may bind, and from assuetude and time, (putting the better feelings out of the question,) the ties are worn without complaint; but if you bind too tight, you cut into the flesh, and after a time the pain becomes insupportable. In Switzerland, Germany, and I believe all the Protestant communities of the old world, the grounds upon which divorce is admissible are as follows:— adultery, condemnation of either party to punishment considered as infamous, madness, contagious chronic diseases, desertion, and incompatibility of temper.

The last will be considered by most people as no ground for divorce. Whether it is or not, I shall not pretend to decide, but this is certain, that it is the cause of the most unhappiness, and ultimately of the most crime.

All the great errors, all the various schisms in the Christian church, have arisen from not taking the holy writings as a great moral code, (as I should imagine they were intended to be,) which legislates upon broad principles, but selecting particular passages from them upon which to pin your faith. And it certainly appears to me to be reasonable to suppose that those laws by which the imperfection of our natures were fairly met, and which tended to diminish the aggregate of crime, must be more acceptable to our Divine Master than any which, however they might be in spirit more rigidly conformable to his precepts, were found in their working not to succeed. And here I cannot help observing, that the heads of the Church of England appear not to have duly weighed this matter, when an attempt was lately made to legislate upon it. Do the English bishops mean to assert, that they know better than the heads of all the other Protestant communities in the world—that they are more accurate expounders of the gospel, and have a more intimate knowledge of God’s will? Did it never occur to them, that when so many good and virtuous ecclesiastics of the same persuasion in other countries have decided upon the propriety of divorce, so as to leave them in a very small minority, that it might be possible that they might be wrong, or do they intend to set up and claim the infallibility of the Papistical hierarchy?

Any legislation to prevent crime, which produces more crime, must be bad and unsound, whatever may be its basis: witness the bastardy clause, in the New Poor Law Bill. That the former arrangements were defective is undeniable, for by them there was a premium for illegitimate children. This required amendment: but the remedy has proved infinitely worse than the disease. For what has been the result? That there have been many thousands fewer illegitimate children born, it is true; but, has the progress of immorality been checked? On the contrary, crime has increased, for to the former crime has been added one much greater, that of infanticide, or producing abortion. Such has been the effect of attempting to legislate for the affections; for in most cases a woman falls a sacrifice to her better feelings, not to her appetite.

In every point connected with marriage, has this injurious plan been persevered in; the marriage ceremony is a remarkable instance of this, for, beautiful as it is as a service, it is certainly liable to this objection, that of making people vow before God that which it is not in human nature to control. The woman vows to love, and to honour, and to cherish; the man to love and cherish, until death doth them part.

Is it right that this vow should be made? A man deserts his wife for another, treats her cruelly, separates her from her children. Can a woman love, or honour, or cherish such a man—nevertheless, she has vowed before God that she will. Take the reverse of the picture when the fault is on the woman’s side, and the evil is the same; can either party control their affections? surely not, and therefore it would be better that such vows should not be demanded.

There is another evil arising from one crime being the only allowable cause of divorce, which is that the possession of one negative virtue on the part of the woman, is occasionally made an excuse for the practice of vice, and a total disregard of her duties as a wife. I say negative virtue, for chastity very often proceeds from temperament, and as often from not being tempted.