Without troubling to go and settle in Utah, an American may set up a seraglio of legitimate wives. Each lawful spouse might be a concubine outside the State she was married in; but by carefully studying the laws of the different States, Jonathan could, if he pleased, indulge in polygamy without fear of being prosecuted for it.
I have read in American papers divorce cases that were really very comic.
When a will has to be administered, matters often become very mixed up, as you may easily imagine. Who are the legitimate children? which are the bastards?
Of course all these confusions make work for the men of law, who naturally think American legislation the finest in the world.
The city of Chicago alone possesses seventeen hundred and sixty-eight lawyers, all thriving.
What a capital subject for an opera-bouffe might be got from some of those Chicago divorce cases! What merry quid pro quos! What amusing scenes! Choruses of lawyers; choruses of lawful wives, with the refrain:
"We are Mrs. Jonathan, tra la!"
The facility of marriage and divorce is comic, but it has its tragic side too.
There exist scoundrels, in America, who make a speculation of marriage.