Facts and Fictions of Life

by Helen H. Gardener

There is an argument frequently put forward that divorce is wrong and unfair to the children of those so separated in case the divorced parties remarry and other children are added to the family. One great Prelate asked in his article on this subject: "Can we look with anything short of horror upon such a condition of things? Here is a family, we will say, composed of the children of three divorced fathers—all by one mother."

This is an extreme and not a pleasing case, we may admit; but suppose the divorce were by death would the distinguished Prelate be so shocked? Is it especially uncommon, indeed, for the most devout men and women to marry three times? Are "half" brothers and sisters and "step" children a subject of moral shock to the most rigid religionists? Jesus appeared to approve of a woman marrying seven times. How about a mixed family there? Does the distinguished Prelate take issue with his Lord? No, the whole question hinges on the continuance of the life of the parties separated or divorced. If one of them dies the mixed family relation is not counted either a sin or a shame. If they live and the divorce is granted by law instead of by nature it is pronounced both.

In whose interest is this distinction maintained? We have seen that it is not for the honor of the wife that a loathsome marriage relation be indissoluble, that it can lend neither dignity nor happiness to the husband, that it is one of the fruitful causes of diseased and criminal childhood and that it is, therefore, necessarily, a menace to society.

Legally, morally, economically, then, it is a mistake, and it is productive of great misery. Who then is benefited? Why is the attempt so strongly made to revise the laws and check the growing liberality in divorce legislation?

Who are the movers in that direction and upon what do they base their arguments? What is the final appeal of these combatants? I shall answer the two last questions first. The orthodox clergy and their followers, basing their arguments on the Bible as the final appeal, demand that this reform go backward. Why?

Because their creeds and tenets have always claimed that marriage is a sacrament and not a legal contract, that it is or should be under the control of the clergy, and that the Bible and St. Paul say so and so about it. The Catholic Church has, by keeping control of the marriage of its believers, made sure of the children—their education—and therefore insured to itself their future adherence. It has perpetuated itself and its power by this means. It is, therefore, not difficult to see why that church so warmly opposes any movement which can only result in disaster to its growth and power. Her communicants are taught that it is their duty to increase and multiply, and this in spite of the fact that poverty and crime, want and ignorance stare in the face a large per cent, of the very class which it is thus sought to swell. The Catholics are the most prolific and furnish by far the largest per cent, of both paupers and criminals of any other class of the community. With them marriage is a sacrament; divorce is not allowed, or if allowed, remarriage is prohibited. Children are born with astounding frequency of subject mothers to brutal fathers. They are bred in a constant atmosphere of contention, bickering, and in short, warfare. The result is inevitable. Contest—war—brings out all the worst elements and passions in human nature. This fact is well understood where war is conducted between large bodies of men; but in such case there is supposed to be a motive—some patriotic principle involved to stir and call out, also, some of the better nature; but in the petty warfare of the wretched household there is nothing to redeem life from the basest.

But suppose all this is true, say the advocates of the forced continuance of the marriage relation; the Bible—our creeds—teach us to refuse the relief of divorce, and we are bound at any cost to sustain the indissolubility of the marriage bond. True, for those who accept these creeds or the Bible as a finality; but to those who do not, the State owes a duty. Church and State are separated in America, it is claimed. A magistrate can marry a man and woman, just as he can draw up another contract. When the State went that far it told the people that it did not hold marriage as a sacrament. It then and there took the ground that it was a legal contract, and had no necessary connection with religious belief or observance. It logically follows, then, that if the State deals with marriage as a thing not touched by religious belief or Biblical injunction, that the question of divorce—the terms of the contract—are also quite outside of the province of the clergy. This being the case, it appears as futile and as foolish to discuss this question—making of it a religious one—from the basis of the creeds or the Bible, as it would be to discuss the rate of interest on money or the wages per day for labor, from the same outlook.

Believers in the finality of Biblical teaching are at liberty to hold their marriages as indissoluble, but have no right to insist upon forcing their religious dogmas upon others, nor to attempt to crystalize them into law for those who believe otherwise. No doubt the Bible gave the best light of the Jews, in the day in which it was written, on these and other subjects. We are quite willing to suppose that the various creeds and usages of the churches did the same, for the people whom they represented, but the creeds and the Bible have nothing whatever to do with the social and economic problems of our day, nor with the legal questions of our time.

The more they are dragged into places where they do not belong, the more it is discovered that "revision" is necessary. The old creeds and the Bible are fast undergoing revision and are recut to fit the people and the present. It is quite impossible to revise and recut the people and the present to fit the old creeds and the literature of the Jews.

Let us have done with such trifling with the serious problems of the day. It is not at all a question of whether St. Paul said or thought this or that about divorce. It is not at all important what some dead and gone Potentate said; the question before us is: What is best for society as it is now? Indeed it appears to me futile to discuss this subject at all if it is to be done from a theological basis. Every fairly intelligent person knows what the church teaches in the matter. One paragraph and a half dozen Biblical references with a notable name appended is all the space necessary to consume. We all know that in substance the Catholic church's answer to the question "Is Divorce wrong?" is emphatically, "Yes."