It is a common saying among lawyers that a woman divorced from her husband, on no matter how slight cause, is pretty sure to go to the bad thereafter. This is not necessarily an indication, so the lawyers say, that the woman is at fault, but that the mental strain to which she has been subjected, the strain upon her self-respect, is greater than poor humanity is equal to. What the subsequent results are upon her in society we all know. The present ruler of England has decided that no divorced woman, no matter in what country her divorce was obtained, shall ever appear at court. The rule seems cruel, but social results certainly appear to justify it.
If there are children in the case, as usually there are—for somehow people without children seldom appear in the divorce courts—if there are children, the results upon them are worse than upon either the complainant or defendant. The principal good influence children are subject to is that of home. A disagreement between father and mother naturally interrupts this. An absolute break between the parents cannot fail to immediately have the worst possible effects upon the children. All children—except yours and mine—are at times brutes. There are no worse tale-tellers, no worse back-biters, no worse sayers of cruel things, than little children. It is not that they are unusually wicked or savage by nature, but insufficient training, lack of self-restraint, lack of adult sense of propriety, causes the tongue to say whatever is in the heart; and any adult who is obliged to keep a watch upon his own tongue should be able through sympathy to imagine the savagery which will be inflicted upon the children of divorced or divorcing people by their associates. However disobedient or irreverent children may be to their parents, the filial instinct exists in all of them, and a stab at either parent is felt most keenly by the children.
The ordinary consolations of a person wounded through the heart of another are denied the child. It has neither religion nor philosophy, nor even stoicism, to support it. It must suffer keenly, and when it looks for consolation or desires consolation, where is it to go, when the two authors of its being, whom it has been taught to regard with equal respect, are at difference, and each is ready to accuse the other and belittle the other? The child of a divorced person is a marked object of curiosity in the society of children, whether in neighborhood parties or at school or Sunday-school, or even in church. The slightest quarrel brings the inevitable taunt that “your mother ran away from your father,” or “your father is in love with somebody else’s mother,” or “you haven’t any father now,” or something of the kind. Only a short time ago the newspapers of the United States recorded the suicide of a child of nine years, who had sought death to avoid the torment of being twitted with the separation of its parents.
Four lines of one of Pope’s poems, which probably are familiar to every one, indicate the general effect of divorced persons upon society:
“Vice is a monster of such hideous mien
That to be hated needs but to be seen;
But seen too oft, familiar with its face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”
The report that any person has obtained a divorce for any cause but the most serious generally sends a shudder through any American social circle which calls itself respectable. Even husbands and wives whose own marital experiences have not been as joyous as was expected, are shocked by the legal disruption of a family—the spectacle of the wifeless husband whose wife really lives, or the woman without mate or protector whose husband nevertheless is not yet dead. But the force of the shock gradually weakens through frequent meetings with either party. The faults of the absent member are recalled, the good points of the alleged culprit are also recalled, and little by little excuses are made, until the change is regarded as coolly as the dissolution of a business copartnership. Unfortunately, too, the parties to a divorce are often brilliant members of the society in which they have moved, for the liveliest persons are generally the most discontented. The unrest of some phases of social life, the desire to be less confined at home, and to be more in general and congenial company, has a great deal to do with bringing about divorce, much though the guilty parties may deny it, and the persons who most frequently appear in the divorce courts are those who have been the most popular in their respective social sets.
This is bad enough, but it is only the beginning of the evil. What man has done man—or woman—may do, is as true of evil as of good. If Mr. A or Mrs. B has escaped a lot of apparent marital trouble by divorce, why should not Mr. and Mrs. C do likewise? They meant well—this is an admission which most people sooner or later make in favor of everybody not absolutely fiendish—they failed. Why should they not try again? Then besides, they once more have their freedom, and the longing to be free is strong enough in the animal portion of any one’s nature to rise and trample down everything else, if it is at all encouraged. Little by little, yet very rapidly, contemplation of the problem of divorce discourages efforts towards self-improvement and the perfection of marital life. It is a benumber and deadener of every honorable conjugal impulse. To endeavor to decide between two evils is an experience which is demoralizing to any one; to decide between evil and good, when the good seems no more desirable than the evil, is a great deal worse. Yet this is the mental and moral condition of every one still married who contemplates divorce as a possible release from relations which are unsatisfactory, yet which might be made all that they should be.
The effect of association with divorced people—and there is no grade of society which does not contain them—is especially deplorable upon young people of marriageable age. The veriest heathen who has studied the influences of marriage will admit that the rising generation needs greater seriousness in contemplating wedlock. But what can be expected of any good-natured, well-meaning, thoughtless, careless, pleasure-loving, selfish young man or girl—and nearly all young people are fairly described by these adjectives—who, while wondering whether or no to propose to, or accept, some attractive person of the opposite sex, is continually reminded by certain facts and incidents that if the bond becomes irksome it may be broken at will?
Some husbands and wives fight like cats and dogs, but in spite of it all, thank God, they still dearly love their children. What man or woman within the pale of decency would give a daughter in marriage with the thought that she might be put away by her husband at some time for some cause recognized by the courts of Utah, or Chicago, or Indiana, as sufficient for divorce? What parent will allow a son to mate with a girl who might possibly weary of him, release herself through legal measures and become the wife of some other man?
Physicians and spiritual directors agree that persistent thought upon the lower developments and interests of the marriage relation are extremely injurious to human character. What other phases of married life can be much dwelt upon by the mind of any one who thinks at all of the possibility of divorce for any cause but the most serious? The relationship thus regarded is so nearly that of the animals that love, so far as it has existed, must be brought down to the level of passion, and passion afterward to that of lust, and lust in turn down to appetite, until beings, who once had hopes and aspirations and longings which, in spite of being unfortified by knowledge and principle, were noble in themselves, place themselves practically on the level of the beasts. According to managers and chaplains of great prisons there is hope of reform for almost any criminal whose offences were committed only through what are called the selfish instincts, by which is generally meant destructiveness and theft. But these same experts in crime are utterly hopeless of the reformation of any one whose sexual instincts have become depraved or even inverted. Yet it is difficult for any one to go through a divorce case, or to think steadily upon the possibility of divorce, without such a deterioration of sexual feeling, impulse, and aspiration. What hope can there be that such persons will occupy a respectable position in society in the future?