that will control everything from Sandy Hook to Golden Horn. That will put an end to brokerages in marriage. That will send divorce lawyers into a decent business. That will set people agitated for many years on the question of how shall they get away from each other to planning how they can adjust themselves to the more or less unfavorable circumstances.
More difficult divorce will put an estoppal to a great extent upon marriage as a financial speculation. There are men who go into the relation just as they go into Wall Street to purchase shares. The female to be invited into the partnership of wedlock is utterly unattractive, and in disposition a suppressed Vesuvius. Everybody knows it, but this masculine candidate for matrimonial orders, through the commercial agency or through the county records, finds out how much estate is to be inherited, and he calculates it. He thinks out how long it will be before the old man will die, and whether he can stand the refractory temper until he does die, and then he enters the relation; for he says, "If I cannot stand it, then through the divorce law I'll back out." That process is going on all the time, and men enter the relation without any moral principle, without any affection, and it is as much a matter of stock speculation as anything that transpired yesterday in Union Pacific, Wabash, and Delaware and Lackawanna.
Now, suppose a man understood, as he ought to understand, that if he goes into that relation there is no possibility of his getting out, or no probability, he would be more slow to put his neck in the yoke. He should say to himself, "Rather than a Caribbean whirlwind with a whole fleet of shipping in its arms, give me a zephyr off fields of sunshine and gardens of peace."
Rigorous divorce law will also hinder women from
THE FATAL MISTAKE
of marrying men to reform them. If a young man by twenty-five years of age or thirty years of age has the habit of strong drink fixed on him, he is as certainly bound for a drunkard's grave as that a train starting out from Grand Central Depot at 8 o'clock to-morrow morning is bound for Albany. The train may not reach Albany, for it may be thrown from the track. The young man may not reach a drunkard's grave, for something may throw him off the iron track of evil habit; but the probability is that the train that starts to-morrow morning at 8 o'clock for Albany will get there and the probability is that the young man who has the habit of strong drink fixed on him before twenty-five or thirty years of age will arrive at a drunkard's grave. She knows he drinks, although he tries to hide it by chewing cloves. Everybody knows he drinks. Parents warn, neighbors and friends warn. She will marry him, she will reform him.
If she is unsuccessful in the experiment, why then the divorce law will emancipate her, because habitual drunkenness is a cause for divorce in Indiana, Kentucky, Florida, Connecticut, and nearly all the States. So the poor thing goes to the altar of sacrifice. If you will show me the poverty-struck streets in any city I will show you the homes of the women who married men to reform them. In one case out of ten thousand it may be a successful experiment. I never saw the successful experiment. But have a rigorous divorce law, and that woman will say, "If I am affianced to that man it is for life; and if now in the ardor of his young love, and I am the prize to be won, he will not give up his cups, when he has won the prize, surely he will not give up his cups." And so that woman will say to the man, "No, sir, you are already married to the club, and you are married to that evil habit, and so you are married twice, and you are a bigamist. Go!"
A rigorous divorce law will also do much to hinder hasty and
INCONSIDERATE MARRIAGES.
Under the impression that one can be easily released people enter the relation without inquiry and without reflection. Romance and impulse rule the day. Perhaps the only ground for the marriage compact is that she likes his looks and he admires the graceful way she passes around the ice cream at the picnic! It is all they know about each other. It is all the preparation for life. A man not able to pay his own board bill, with not a dollar in his possession, will stand at the altar and take the loving hand, and say, "With all my worldly goods I thee endow!" A woman that could not make a loaf of bread to save her life will swear to cherish and obey. A Christian will marry an atheist, and that always makes conjoined wretchedness; for if a man does not believe there is a God, he is neither to be trusted with a dollar nor with your lifelong happiness.