Plain Facts for Old and Young

by John Harvey Kellogg

6. The argument that polygamy will cure the "social evil" is exactly equivalent to the argument that the removal of all restraint from the sale and manufacture of intoxicating drinks, thus making them cheap and common, is the best remedy for intemperance. An equally good argument might be made for the cure of theft, murder, and every other vice and crime, by a similar plan. Such reasoning is the veriest sophistry. None but a biased mind could produce such flimsy arguments.

But we forbear. We have already given this subject more attention than it is worthy of, though we have failed to characterize the vice of polygamy as it deserves. We leave this for the reader.

[Polyandry.]—Perhaps we should add a word or two respecting this custom, which seems to be a still greater outrage against nature than that of polygamy, being the possession of a plurality of husbands by one woman. This practice is in vogue in several countries at the present time, being very common in Thibet, where it is not an unusual thing for a woman in marrying the eldest of a family of brothers to include in the contract all of the other brothers as well. Polyandry was also common among the ancient Medes. Indeed, the Medes practiced both polygamy and polyandry. A man was not considered respectable unless he had at least seven wives; neither were women considered worthy of general esteem unless they had as many as five husbands. In that country, the fact that a woman was already married was in no degree a barrier to subsequent marriages, even while the husband was living, and without the trouble of a divorce. Those who maintain the propriety of polygamy would do well to consider the historic facts respecting the opposite practice. There appear to be as good grounds for believing one to have a basis in the human constitution as the other.

[Divorce.]—Another of the crying evils of the day, and one which menaces in a most alarming manner the most sacred interests of society, is the facility with which divorces may be obtained. In some States the laws regulating divorce are so notoriously loose that scores and even hundreds of people visit the States referred to every year with no other object than to obtain a dissolution of the bonds of matrimony. The effect of this looseness in the laws is to encourage hasty, inconsiderate marriages, and to make escape from an uncongenial partner so easy that the obligation to cultivate forbearance and to acquire mutual adaptation which may not at first exist, is wholly overlooked.

The Bible rule for divorce, laid down by the Great Teacher, is little regarded in these degenerate days. He made adultery the only legitimate cause for divorce; yet we now see married people breaking asunder their solemn marriage ties on the occurrence of the most trivial difficulties. If a couple become tired of each other and desire a change, all they have to do is to forward the fee to a New York or Chicago lawyer, and they will receive back in a short time the legal papers duly signed, granting them the desired annulment of their vows.

Although countenanced by human laws, there can be no doubt that this shameless trifling with a divine institution is regarded by High Heaven as the vilest abomination. In no direction is there greater need of reformatory legislation than in this. The marriage contract should be recognized in our laws as one which cannot be made and broken so lightly as it now is. It should be annulled only for the most serious offenses. The contrary course now pursued so frequently is most detrimental to morals. Our divorce laws virtually offer a premium for unchastity.

Not infrequently we see among the advertisements in the newspapers notices like the following: "The undersigned is prepared to furnish divorces to parties desiring the same at moderate rates, in short time, and without publicity. —— ——."

The animus of these advertisements is fraud. The parties so engaged are the vilest scoundrels; and that they are allowed to continue to ply their nefarious vocation is a foul blot upon the enlightened civilization of a so-called Christian country. A publisher who will insert such a notice in his journal, would advertise a brothel if he dared. While there is so much interest in the suppression of obscene literature, we would suggest that the proper authorities should direct their attention to the suppression of unlawful divorces, and the proper punishment of the villains engaged in forwarding this nefarious business.

[Who May not Marry.]—Many writers devote much space in laying down rules which are to be implicitly followed by those seeking life partners. We have attempted nothing of the sort, both from its impracticability, and from the fact that such rules are never followed; and if the attempt should be made to follow the prescribed rules, we are not sure that more good than harm would be the result. Hence, we shall content ourselves with calling attention to a few facts of great importance respecting the conditions which imperatively forbid marriage, and which cannot be violated without the certain entailment of great suffering.

1. Persons suffering with serious disease of a character communicable to others by contagion or by hereditary transmission.