CHAPTER VII.
THE DEMON OF DIVORCE.
IN one of the older theological periods, yet not so very old, there was a theory that Satan was a necessary part of the godhead. At present there seems to be a theory like unto it. It is that divorce is a necessary feature of the marriage system.
This notion is working fully as much mischief in morals and manners as Satan could do if he were part of Omnipotence.
Divorce is popular with certain classes, because married life—not marriage—is sometimes a failure, but the fault is not with the institution, but the individual. When Mrs. Mona Caird’s low-toned essay, “Is Marriage a Failure?” was being talked of a few months ago, Rev. David Swing, of Chicago, said the question should have been, “Is Good Sense a Failure?” Dr. Swing then struck at the root of the trouble by saying, “Ill comes not because men and women are married, but because they are fools.” Yet this is almost the only class for whom our divorce laws are made, and the more liberal the laws, the more foolish the fools can afford to be.
Were divorce popular only for the sake of getting rid of undesirable partners it would be bad enough. Really it is a thousand times worse because its principal purpose is to help husband or wife to a new partner. This cause never is assigned in a petition for divorce; it doesn’t need to be; the community has learned to assume it, as a matter of course.
The case was well put a short time ago by Rabbi Silverman, at the great Temple Emanu-El, in New York, when he said, “The real cause for divorce is that there is nothing behind the civil contract that cements the marriage union and so welds it that nothing can tear it asunder. The real cause for divorce is that the marriage was a failure because it was not a marriage in fact, but merely in name. It was not a union of hearts for mutual happiness, but merely a partnership for vain pleasure and profit.” So long as we allow divorce to be easy, do we not encourage such marriages?
Any divorce except for the one cause recognized by the founder of Christianity is more injurious to society at large than any other crime, murder not excepted. Most crimes may have a good reflex influence by persuading men to be more watchful of their own impulses and lives, but the men or women who obtain divorces for any but the gravest cause are sure, aside from the effect upon themselves, to increase the discontent of acquaintances whose married life is not all that had been hoped or wished.
One condition absolutely necessary to a pure and happy married life is the belief from the beginning that wedlock is to last as long as life itself. Without the stimulus of this tremendous sense of responsibility no person will unmake and remake himself so as to be the fit companion of another. Even with this impulse the effort often fails, as all of us know from observation of our own acquaintances. To admit the possibility of a cessation of relations or, worse still, a change of marital relations, is to relax effort and to become a selfish time-server—to become a confidence man instead of a partner.
The effect of a divorce suit upon the plaintiff is something which does not require theorizing. It can be ascertained by personal observation in almost any American court which grants divorces, for such cases are becoming more and more frequent. Whether the plaintiff be man or woman, whether the cause be drunkenness, or desertion, or incompatibility of temper, or insanity, or improvidence, or any of the various causes for which divorces are granted in some States, the plaintiff or complainant, if closely watched from day to day during the proceedings, will be seen, even by his dearest friends, to show marks of mental deterioration. To tear two lives apart is a serious thing at best. Two friends bound only by ordinary ties have seldom separated without bad effects being visible upon both. Where the friendship is of a nature that has affected every portion of the life of each, as must have been the case even with wedded couples who have married at haste and have not even begun to repent at leisure, the effect is so marked that a person seeking divorce almost always loses some of his adherents, who previously had been his warmest friends, before the case is decided. Where love was, hatred is excited though it may not even have existed in the first place. The contest upon points of fact, upon recollections of difficulties and differences, the depressing literalness and materialism of proof such as is demanded in courts, the entire materialism, heartlessness, callousness, of all the proceedings, as they must be conducted under forms of law, are such as to debase any nature but the noblest—but noble natures do not seek divorce.
Bad as may be the condition of the complainant and the effect upon his own manner and conduct, it is not as deplorable as that visible upon the defendant. To face any direct charge in a court of law before witness, even if these be only officers of the law who are supposed to be impartial and judicial in their opinions and actions, the violation of privacy in regard to interests and relations, which above all others—except perhaps those of a human being toward his God—are sacred even to the rudest minds, cannot help have its effect upon any nature but the strongest. The life of the defendant in a divorce suit, unless the complaint is utterly groundless and unfair, is from the first likely to be blasted. The more at fault the more the defendant must suffer, not only in his own self-respect, but in the regard of those about him. The curious gaze of the spectators, the intent look of the jurors, the disgust of the judge upon the bench, the flippancy of the witness on the stand, all have influences which would make many innocent people show signs of guilt. Upon any one really at fault all these influences must be still more depressing.