The Council of Trent, called, in the throes of the mighty moral upheaval of the sixteenth century, to deal with the new state of things, again proclaimed to a believing and an unbelieving world the Catholic doctrine of the holiness, unity, and indissolubility of marriage, and the unlawfulness of divorce. The council declared no new dogmas: it simply reaffirmed the common teaching of the church for centuries. But some of the most hallowed attributes of marriage seemed to be objects of peculiar detestation to the new teachers, and their abolition was soon demanded. "The leaders in the changes of matrimonial law," writes Professor Woolsey, "were the Protestant reformers themselves, and that almost from the beginning of the movement.... The reformers, when they discarded the sacramental view of marriage and the celibacy of the clergy, had to make out a new doctrine of marriage and of divorce."* The "new doctrine of marriage and of divorce," pleasing as it was to the sensual man, was speedily learned and as speedily put in practice. The sacredness with which Christian marriage had been hedged around began to be more and more openly trespassed upon, and restive shoulders wearied more and more quickly of the marriage yoke when divorce promised freedom for newer joys.
To our own time the logical consequences of the "new doctrine" have come. To-day "abyss calls upon abyss," change calls for change, laxity calls for license. Divorce is now a recognized presence in high life and low; and polygamy, the first-born of divorce, sits shameless in palace and in hovel. Yet the teacher that feared not to speak the words of truth in bygone ages is not silent now. In no uncertain tones, the church proclaims to the world to-day the unchangeable law of the strict unity and absolute indissolubility of valid and consummated Christian marriage.
To the question then, "Can divorce from the bond of marriage ever be allowed?" the Catholic can only answer no.
* "Divorce and Divorce Legislation," by Theodore D. Woolsey,
2d Ed., p. 126.
And for this no, his first and last and best reason can be but this: "Thus saith the Lord."
As time goes on the wisdom of the church in absolutely forbidding divorce from the marriage bond grows more and more plain even to the many who deny to this prohibition a divine and authoritative sanction. And nowhere is this more true than in our own country. Yet our experience of the evils of divorce is but the experience of every people that has cherished this monster.
Let us take but a hasty view of the consequences of divorce in ancient times. Turn only to pagan Greece and Rome, two peoples that practised divorce most extensively. In both we find divorce weakening their primitive virtue and making their latter corruption more corrupt. Among the Greeks morality declined as material civilization advanced. Divorce grew easy and common, and purity and peace were banished from the family circle. Among the Romans divorce was not common until the latter days of the Republic. Then the flood-gates of immorality were opened, and, with divorce made easy, came rushing in corruption of morals among both sexes and in every walk of life. "Passion, interest, or caprice," Gibbon, the historian, tells us, "suggested daily motives for the dissolution of marriage; a word, a sign, a message, a letter, the mandate of a freedman, declared the separation; the most tender of human connections was degraded to a transient society of profit or pleasure."* Each succeeding generation witnessed moral corruption more general, moral degradation more profound; men and women were no longer ashamed of licentiousness; until at length the nation that became mighty because built on a pure family fell when its corner-stone crumbled away in rottenness.
* "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empiré," Milman's Ed., Vol.
III., p. 236.
Heedless of the lessons taught by history, modern nations, too, have made trial of divorce. In Europe, wherever the new gospel of marriage and divorce has had! notable influence, divorce has been legalized; and in due proportion to the extent of that influence causes for divorce have been multiplied, the bond of marriage more and more recklessly broken, and the obligations of that sacred state more and more shamelessly disregarded. In our own country the divorce evil has grown more rapidly than our growth and strengthened more rapidly than our strength. Mr. Carroll D. Wright, in a special report on the statistics of marriage and divorce made to Congress in February, 1889, places the number of divorces in the United States in 1867 at 9,937, and the number in 1886 at 25,535. These figures show an increase of the divorce evil much out of proportion to our increase in population. The knowledge that divorces can easily be procured encourages hasty marriages and equally hasty preparations. Legislators and judges in some States are encouraging inventive genius in the art of finding new causes for divorce. Frequently the most trivial and even ridiculous pretexts are recognized as sufficient for the rupture of the marriage bond; and in some States divorce can be obtained "without publicity," and even without the knowledge of the defendant—in such cases generally an innocent wife. Crime has sometimes been committed for the very purpose of bringing about a divorce, and cases are not rare in which plots have been laid to blacken the reputation of a virtuous spouse in order to obtain legal freedom for new nuptials. Sometimes, too, there is a collusion between the married parties to obtain divorce. One of them trumps up charges; the other does not oppose the suit; and judgment is entered for the plaintiff. Every daily newspaper tells us of divorces applied for or granted, and the public sense of decency is constantly being shocked by the disgusting recital of of divorce-court scandals.
We are filled with righteous indignation at Mormonism; we brand it as a national disgrace, and justly demand its suppression. Why? Because, forsooth, the Mormons are polygamists. Do we forget that there are two species of polygamy—simultaneous and successive? Mormons practise without legal recognition the first species; while among us the second species is indulged in, and with the sanction of law, by thousands in whose nostrils Mormonism is a stench and an abomination. The Christian press and pulpit of the land denounce the Mormons as "an adulterous generation," but too often deal very tenderly with Christian polygamists. Why? Is Christian polygamy less odious in the eyes of God than Mormon polygamy? Among us, *tis true, the one is looked upon as more respectable than the other. Yet we know that the Mormons as a class, care for their wives and children; while Christian polygamists but too often leave wretched wives to starve, slave, or sin, and leave miserable children a public charge. "O divorced and much-married Christian," says the polygamous dweller by Salt Lake, "pluck first the beam from thy own eye, and then shalt thou see to pluck the mote from the eye of thy much-married, but undivorced, Mormon brother." It follows logically from the Catholic doctrine of the unity and indissolubility of marriage, and the consequent prohibition of divorce from the marital bond, that no one, even though divorced a vinculo by the civil power, can be allowed by the church to take another consort during the lifetime of the true wife or husband, and such connection the church can but hold as sinful. It is written: "Whosoever shall put away his wife and marry another committeth adultery against her. And if the wife shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery."*