The bureau of vital statistics has general charge of the state system of registration, under direction of the state board of health. The latter body consists of three "state commissioners of health," appointed by the governor with the advice and consent of the senate, and six other members, three nominated by the governor, and three serving ex officio. It appoints a secretary who is "superintendent of registration of vital statistics;" and it makes an annual report to the governor regarding "vital statistics and the sanitary condition and prospects of the state."[1527]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Homer, Odyssey, x, 58; xxii, 38. Cf. Meier-Schömann, Der attische Process, II, 510; Geffcken, Ehescheidung vor Gratian, 12; Glasson, Le mariage civil et le divorce, 151; Hruza, Polygamie und Pellikat, 64 n. 7.
[2] Geffcken, op. cit., 15.
[3] Thus Alcibiades "collected a band of men and dragged" his wife Hipparete from the archon, when she attempted to get a divorce on account of his licentiousness: Woolsey, Divorce and Divorce Legislation, 31. Cf. Geffcken, op. cit., 12, 13; and in general on the Grecian law of divorce see Meier-Schömann, Der attische Process, II, 510-13; Müller, Handbuch der Alterthumswissenschaft; Müller and Bauer's Die griech. Privat- und Kriegsalterthümer (1893), 152; Popp, Ehescheidung, 12-18; Tissot, Le mariage, 53 ff.; Glasson, Mariage civil et le divorce, 151-53; Woolsey, op. cit., 25-34. The unfavorable position of the Athenian woman is discussed by Hruza, Die Ehebegründung nach attischem Rechte, 21, 22; Gide, La femme, 63 ff., 74 ff.; Combier, Du divorce, 17 ff.; Tebbs, Essay, 44 ff.
[4] On Jewish divorce in general see Stubbe, Die Ehe im alten Testament, 31, 32; Fraenkel, Grundlinien des mosaisch-talmud. Eherechts, 42 ff.; Meyer, Die Rechte der Israeliten, Athener und Römer, II, 370 ff.; Duschak, Das mosaisch-talmud. Eherecht, 83 ff.; Michaelis, Ehegesetzen Mosis, 358, 359; Lichtschein, Die Ehe nach mosaisch-talmud. Auffassung, 85 ff.; Mielziner, The Jewish Law of Divorce, 115 ff.; Strippelmann, Ehescheidungsrecht, 8 ff.; Tissot, Le mariage, 44 ff.; Popp, Ehescheidung, 37 ff.; Glasson, Le mariage civil et le divorce, 145-50; Tebbs, Essay, 8 ff.; Gide, La femme, 56 ff.; Combier, Du divorce, 20 ff.; Woolsey, Divorce and Divorce Legislation, 10-34; Thwing, The Family, 40-44; Geffcken, Ehescheidung vor Gratian, 14, 16; and especially the admirable book of Amram, The Jewish Law of Divorce, 22 ff. Among controversial works see Luckock, History of Marriage, 16 ff.; Ap Richard, Marriage and Divorce, 54 ff., 62-72; Browne, Marriage of Divorced Persons in Church, 5 ff.
[5] Exod. 21:7-11; as interpreted by Amram, The Jewish Law of Divorce, 55 ff.; Milton's Prose Works, III, 185 ff., 322 ff.
[6] "When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her; then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife."—Deut. 24:1, 2. The Hebrew Ervath Dabar, here translated "uncleanness," literally "the nakedness of the matter," or "something unseemly," are the doubtful words. The school of Hillel, or the "broad constructionists of the Bible," held "that the husband need not assign any reason whatever for his divorce, and that he may, for instance, if he please, divorce his wife for spoiling his food." On the other hand, the school of Shammai, or the "strict constructionists," held that sexual immorality was the only scriptural ground of divorce: Amram, op. cit., 32 ff. Some writers who accept the view of the school of Shammai for the ancient law admit that, in consequence of moral degeneration, the broad constructionists were right for the days of Christ: see Duschak, op. cit., 83 ff.; Lichtschein, op. cit., 86; Mielziner, op. cit., 118-20. Cf. Geffcken, op. cit., 74; Woolsey, op. cit., 15 ff.; Tissot, op. cit., 49; Tebbs, op. cit., 28-30.
[7] Deut. 22:13-19, 28, 29: The case of the ravisher and that of the husband who falsely accuses the wife of ante-nuptial incontinence; in the latter instance he is not to "put her away all his days," which might be a trifle hard on the woman, unless indeed custom allowed her the right to free herself. See Amram, op. cit., 41 ff. By the Mishnah or oral law other restrictions are gradually imposed: ibid., 45.