The Western States, practically all of them west of the Mississippi River, have seen the perfidy and injustice resulting from such narrow exactions. These modern, progressive ideas have crystallized into the form of wise legislation, the statutes of many of the States being almost identical with that of the State of Nevada.
In South Carolina no divorce is permitted on any ground. New York is but little better since the only cause recognized is adultery.
New York's rigidity in this respect has annually led thousands of people to resort to revolting and immoral acts and join in collusion, in order to obtain relief from wretched and unbearable marriage bonds. Such laws are unjust. Such laws wreck valuable lives. With strong characters they lead only to unhappiness; with the weak, they result in immoral living.
The question then: "Is divorce ever right?" must be answered in the affirmative.
Why should two persons, who find after reasonable trial that they have made a mistake, and that they are wholly unsuited for each other, physically, morally and intellectually, be compelled to live together? What is at first mutual indifference, ripens gradually into loathing and hatred. Such conditions bring into the world innocent children, begotten not of love, as marriage presupposes, but of disgust, hatred, lust and incompatibility. Is it not a fact, established by the most reliable medical authorities and celebrated criminologists, that crime is fostered in the minds of children begotten of inharmonious relationship?
We can never fathom the depth of untold sorrow brought about by unfortunate marriages, where there is no way to annul them. This burden upon mankind has resulted in countless desertions, felonies, drunkenness, murders and suicides.
"In the daytime when she moved about me,
In the night, when she was sleeping at my side,—
I was wearied, I was wearied of her presence.
Day by day and night by night I grew to hate her—
Would God that she or I had died!"
—Kipling.
There is no stronger plea for divorce than hatred; all things mentally, morally and physically bad originate from hatred.
I clipped the following from the Pall Mall Gazette of London, England, of May 2oth, 1920: