The experiment of forbidding what cannot be prevented and of refusing legal sanction to what human nature demands has been given centuries of trial with no success.
Marriage is among the last of the institutions to have the daylight let in and the windows thrown open. For the home is no more threatened by liberty than the State is, and that pair which is kept together only by the shackles of the law is already divorced; its cohabitation is a scandal. Free love in the promiscuous sense is no uglier than coupled loathing. The social life of that community where divorce is least free is no purer than that where divorce is not difficult. Otherwise South Carolina, which alone of the States permits no divorce on any ground, should be an incomparable Eden of marital innocence. Is it? And New York, which has only one ground, and that the scriptural, should be the next most innocent. Is it?
Meanwhile the mismated of our day who are struggling through the transition period between the despotism of matrimony and its republic can be sure that the righteous will omit no abuse that they can inflict. Those who would free Russias must face Siberias.
The worst phase of it is that some of those who are determined to be free and cannot otherwise get free will not hesitate to destroy innocent persons who may be useful to their escape.
Mrs. Kedzie Dyckman had her heart set on releasing herself from the husband she had in order that she might try another who promised her more happiness, more love, and more prestige. The husband she had would have been willing enough to set her free, both because he liked to give her whatever she wanted and because he was not in love with their marriage himself.
But the law of New York State says that married couples shall not uncouple amicably and intelligently. If they will part it must be with bitterness and laceration. One of the two must be driven out through the ugly gate of adultery. They must part as enemies and they must sacrifice some third person as a blood-offering on the altar.
It is a strange thing that the lamb, which is the symbol of innocence and harmlessness, should have always been the favorite for sacrifice.
Charity Coe had happened along at the convenient moment.