3oi: 
 
 D O C=IOE=D O C 
 
 30I 
 
 LET'S CIVILIZE . . . . 
 THE MARRIAGE LAWS 
 
 By RICHARD D. KATHRENS 
 
 U c 
 
 3on 
 
 D O C=IOI=) O C 
 
 30C 
 
 
 
 The Message of 
 A Man Who Does Not Mince. 
 
 I 
 
 O contribute something to the sum of hu- 
 man happiness, is my controlhng ana con- 
 suming desire. ■ • ■ • To take the hap- 
 J hazard out of Marriage; to remove the 
 ^igma attaching to Divorce; to secure to 
 vs'omen the enjoyment of certain special rights in the 
 marriage relation; to invest the w^ife with final power in 
 all Divorce actions; and to encourage the discussion of 
 these great questions upon their merit — in the hght of 
 this civilization— and apart from the confusing theories 
 of the church, are among my most cherished hopes. 
 
 HOC 
 
 3 
 
 O C 
 
 30I 
 
"DIVORCE IS THE SAFETY-VALVE 
 OF SOCIETY. IT IS THE DEVICE OF 
 THE L^W THAT RELIEVES THE 
 BURSTING TENSION OF OVER- 
 WROUGHT TEMPERAMENTS, AND 
 MAKES IT POSSIBLE TO BRING 
 PEACE AND QUIET OUT OF RAN- 
 COR AND REBELLION. • • • • IT IS 
 THE SAVING ALTERNATIVE. WHEN 
 HUMAN ENDURANCE AND MAG- 
 NANIMITY AND HEROIC SACRIFICE 
 CAN NO LONGER AVAIL." 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924094620386 
 

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Let's Civilize 
 
 The 
 
 Marriage Laws 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD 
 
 D. 
 
 K ATHRENS 
 
 BROADWAY PUBLISHING COMPANY. 
 
 835 Broadway New York 
 
 1913 
 
COl-l- 
 
 S3H 
 
 Copyright, 1913, 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD D. KATHRENS 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
DEDICATORY STATEMENT. 
 
 This little volume is offered in earn- 
 est protest against existing Divorce 
 latvs, in force throughout the United 
 States; and, it is dedicated in a special 
 manner to those unfortunate married, 
 whose magnetic forces have ceased to 
 blend — who do not love, yet will not hate 
 — but of whose unhappy plight the law 
 takes no concern. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 EVERY mortal desires to be happy. Above 
 all else, man seeks happiness ; and what is 
 this envied goal for which all strive? It 
 is a condition in which all things are nicely and 
 evenly adjusted; a state of peace, of freedom 
 from strife and turmoil, of contentment without 
 friction, hindrance or restraint. Anything less 
 than this is not happiness, but something ap- 
 proximating happiness perhaps. 
 
 When man becomes natural, he will be free; 
 he will be at peace with himself and his neigh- 
 bor — ^he will be happy. And, it follows axiom- 
 atically that the secret of man's happiness lies 
 in a proper recognition by him of the law back 
 of all his activities. 
 
 It has taken many centuries of pain and pri- 
 vation, of want and worry, of restlessness and 
 revolt and revolution, to bring about the com- 
 parative freedom he now enjoys. And the 
 struggle all along the bloody course has been to 
 
 7 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE TEE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 displace the fraudulent and the artificial with 
 the real and the natural. Probably the greatest 
 obstruction to man's advance along real moral 
 lines — that might insure his perfect freedom, 
 and a near approach to the millennium for which 
 he has yearned — has been the sham and pre- 
 tense and hypocrisy that have characterized all 
 the dealings of the ruling classes, and the blind 
 following, stupid obedience and superstitious 
 credulity of the masses. 
 
 A supine and servile submission to arro- 
 gated authority, and a senseless adherence to 
 precept and precedent have served to check 
 initiative, to hamper ambition, to suppress emo- 
 tions, to throttle budding genius, and to kill 
 aborning the highest hopes of the human heart. 
 Until within the last few golden decades, man 
 has been required to measure his conduct, to 
 control his desires, to stifle his impulses, in 
 accordance with the arbitrary notions and theo- 
 ries and customs of his ancestors. And, this 
 ancestral worship which he has unconsciously 
 practiced — this dependence upon dead men and 
 dead philosophies — has held him out of his 
 rightful estate, and retarded the progress of 
 the world a thousand years. 
 
 Now every man has a right to his opinion, 
 and he may give expression to it without respect 
 
 8 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 to the notions or beliefs of those in authority. 
 Indeed, among the many privileges the present 
 era accords to every man is the right to think, 
 and to publicly proclaim just what he thinks, 
 although his opinions and conjectures contro- 
 vert the theories and over-turn the accepted 
 hypotheses of centuries. 
 
 As a result of this new order, there have 
 arisen from the ranks, from among the common 
 people — born out of the purple and the church 
 — the men of real force in the world's advance; 
 and these normal, fuU-statured men are recast- 
 ing the moral conceptions of Society, and are 
 thus working out the salvation of the race. 
 
 Among the great reforms being agitated, 
 by which it is hoped to secure the freedom and 
 to increase the well being of. mankind, is the 
 world-wide movement to reconstruct the Mar- 
 riage Laws. The present marriage system, 
 established upon ecclesiastic ideals, has been 
 found to be defective and deficient, and not only 
 inadequate to meet the demands and require- 
 ments of this age, but conducive to social un- 
 rest, and destructive in many instances of the 
 home and family which it was supposed to 
 conserve. 
 
 It is seriously contended by the author of 
 this volume that i3ractically all the ills of society 
 
 9 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 might be remedied, and possibly entirely over- 
 come, if our marriage laws were reformed so as 
 to conform them to natural laws. This declara- 
 tion of belief is not made flippantly, but after a 
 painstaking investigation and a thoughtful 
 study of all the conditions surrounding the 
 meeting and mating of those who marry; and 
 this book wiirbe devoted to an elaboration and 
 a defense of the position here announced. 
 
 It will be urged, as the first concern of 
 those who would re-write the Marriage laws, 
 that they shall strive to protect and conserve 
 all those natural forces and conditions that wiU 
 insure the advent of welcome children. For, 
 after aU, the Marriage question — including the 
 problem of Divorce — ^is a race question, and its 
 solution will be found in a complete harmoniz- 
 ing of the legal requirements of the statute 
 with the great eternal laws of our being. 
 
 To contribute something to the sum of hu- 
 man happiness, if only by way of suggestion, 
 is the writer's controlling and consuming de- 
 sire. To take the hap-hazard out of marriage ; 
 to remove the stigma attaching to Divorce ; to 
 secure to woman the enjoyment of certain 
 special rights in the marriage relation ; to invest 
 the wife with final power in all divorce 
 actions ; and to encourage the discussion of these 
 
 10' 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 great questions, upon their merit — ^in the light 
 of this civilization — and apart from the con- 
 fusing theories of the church, are among his 
 most cherished hopes. 
 
 R. D. K. 
 
 11 
 
A PRELIMINARY STATEMENT 
 
 A DISCUSSION of the Marriage laws neces- 
 sarily involves to some extent a discus- 
 sion of the relation of the Church to, 
 and its attitude towards, the institution of 
 Matrimony. 
 
 It is quite impossible to deal with the whole 
 subject and to ignore the Church, and it is 
 equally impossible for the impartial student of 
 the situation to examine into the purpose and 
 activity of the Church in resisting, on Scrip- 
 tural grounds, all rational effort to modify the 
 marriage laws, and fail to trace responsibility 
 for a large share of the world's misery to the 
 very door of the Church. 
 
 I want to say here, at the outset, in the 
 clearest terms of which I am capable, that the 
 ecclesiastic scheme with reference to the mar- 
 riage bond, is in direct conflict with the high- 
 est law of our being, and hence the disastrous 
 consequences that well nigh over-burden the 
 
 13 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 world, that devastate the hearts and homes of 
 men, and make a mockery of our civilization. 
 
 In the course of this little volume, I hope 
 to show — at least inferentially— that poverty, 
 disease and crime are the legitimate, and un- 
 avoidable products of a system of morals, that 
 tolerates a condition, which permits the enforc- 
 ed marital relation of mismated and magneti- 
 cally repellent natures. The full force of this 
 somewhat startling statement may not be fully 
 appreciated at once, but its significance will 
 develop as our inquiry is prosecuted. 
 
 No surpliced or cassocked crusader, in all 
 the two thousand years that the Church has 
 influenced and dominated the minds of men, 
 has ever lifted his voice or penned a line in 
 support of any sane movement for the pre- 
 vention of these deplorable and calamitous 
 conditions of society that seem to thrive most 
 luxuriantly, so to speak, in those sections of the 
 earth where the Church enjoys the largest 
 measure of temporal power. 
 
 This is radical, I know; revolutionary, I 
 own; inflammable, to be sure, and I have some 
 appreciation of the delicate and difficult posi- 
 tion of the man who presumes to criticise or to 
 bring into question the wisdom or sufficiency 
 of the Scriptures, or any interpretation of them 
 
 14 
 
A PRELIMINARY STATEMENT. 
 
 which the Church has officially recognized and 
 authoritatively stamped "Imprimatur." 
 
 In the opinion of many thousands of good 
 people, a man can do no graver thing than to 
 support an issue declared to be inconsistent with 
 the "divine word." There is rarely any pro- 
 cess of reason employed in reaching this con- 
 viction, and judgment is usually rendered 
 without any investigation of the possible merit 
 of the facts. It is deemed quite sufficient for 
 condemnation if it appears that the new idea, 
 plan or system does not accord with the canonic 
 teaching of the Church: in other words, if the 
 proposed new order is found to conflict with 
 the cruel injunction of the Scriptures, with 
 reference to the life-duration of the marriage 
 contract, it is declared bad, ipso facto, and its 
 author, or the spokesman of the heretical view 
 is regarded as a menace to public morals, and 
 placed in the false position of one who has a 
 quarrel with his God. 
 
 But, what is the militant thinker to do? 
 
 He cannot be swerved from his mission by 
 personal considerations; he cannot color and 
 distort facts, just to curry favor, or to get the 
 applause of cravens, and, he cannot remain 
 silent and live at peace with his own conscience. 
 So, there seems to be no honorable escape for 
 
 15 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 'him, and he must be willing to receive upon his 
 own head the full measure of public favor or 
 condemnation. 
 
 After thoughtful study of the subject, I am 
 convinced that no real progress can be made, 
 towards a solution of this great problem which 
 now engages the thought of the scientific world, 
 until men learn to put behind them the unwise, 
 immoral and barbarous marriage theory of the 
 Church which is urged and defended upon bibli- 
 cal warrant. 
 
 There is a probability that no man less 
 courageous than I, or less foolhardy than I, 
 would deliberately undertake such a contention, 
 but be that as it may— whether it be courage 
 or downright imbecility that prompts me — I 
 propose to venture on my course, and to fol- 
 low the light that I see. 
 
 E. D. Katheens. 
 
 16 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Old way and Old philosophy, versus New way and New 
 philosophy — No longer a blind following among men — 
 All authority questioned — Science demands Proof of 
 Revelation — Truth now more important than defense 
 of Teistamental ignorance — World Striving to make up 
 for misdirected activity — No limit upon inventive 
 genius — Modern methods that have rnnarveled and 
 moved the world. 
 
 23 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 New Dispensation at hand — Deslr^ed results follow only 
 properly directed Industry — Nature's methods being 
 scrutinized with view to Betterment — If Science could 
 only direct the Moulding of a man — Better Babies es- 
 sential step towards bettetr Men — Marital Legislation 
 miust be Reformed and Civilized — Human experiencte 
 and Demands of Society must govern — Who arle Joined 
 of God — Sex ignorance involves Self-ignoirance. 
 
 39 
 17 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE TEE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Taking oursfelves too seriously — Man Is not a Special crea- 
 tion — The Monkey and the Monarch the same thing — 
 All forms of Life equally precious — Theory of Man's 
 ITrete Agency fallacious — Neither Church nor State 
 properly concerned in Marriage contracts — Love alone 
 the determining factor- Thinking evil, makes evil 
 
 55 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 Many radical Refornjs of the Marriage laws being agitated 
 throughout Europe — In England, only the Rich can 
 afford the luxury of Divorce— Liberal Laws of Hun- 
 gary and Germany — "Trial nuarriages" urged in 
 France — ^Marital unrest in United States — ^General 
 revolt against present Marriage system — ^The Church 
 opposed *o any change — A Bishop's constricted view 
 — A Cardinal would discriminate against Woman. 
 
 69 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Dlvorc,e, a factor in Moral up-lift of Society — ^the Dakota 
 "Omnibus Clause" — The "Model" IDSvorce Bill framed 
 by the Philadelphia Congress, not a Remedy but an 
 Irritant — Attitude of State indefensible — Thie Sane and 
 Moral may not hope for Relief under the proposed 
 Statute — Popes and Priests not final Authority. 
 
 85 
 18 
 
CONTENTS 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Fixed beliefs give way before ttte awakening Conscience — 
 An example of the Crude moral notions of some of 
 our God-fearing proglenitors — Divorce, the Safety valve 
 of Society — Heedless Reformers fail to note elemtent of 
 Chance In all Human affairs — Thte Law and the Gospel 
 demand of the Unhappily married that they shall Hate 
 each other — The Law of Compensation. 
 
 101 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 'I>ivorQ,e a prerogative solely of the "Wife — The Husband 
 entitled to Divorce only when his Wife approves the 
 petition — ^A Wife should have Divorce on her demand 
 — The desire of a Wife to marry another man, a rea- 
 sonable ground for Divorce — There should be no es- 
 cape for the Husband from Civil obligations of Mar- 
 riage contract — The payment of Alimony Inoperative 
 and peremptory. 
 
 123 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Alimony a valid claim, in nature of Punitive damage — 
 Husband never justified in assailing Good name of 
 Wife — Custody of Children in Divorqe actions — Moth- 
 er's place cannot be filled by an artificial Mother — 
 TIhe first rlgbt of every Child — "Science must make 
 Woman Mistress of Herself" — State should provide 
 Course preparatory to Matrimony — Sbx ignorance in- 
 excusable. 
 
 139 
 19 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 Why Woman is subject to Man — The sohjeme of Creation 
 prohably devised to servte political end — Biblical war- 
 rant for all manneir of indignities practiced against 
 woman — Brutal attitude of New Testament and the 
 early Christian Fathers towards Mtothers and Wivjes — 
 Free Men ndw working out Freedom of Women — 
 Honor thy Mother — Science will Civilize the Marriage 
 Laws. 
 
 159 
 
 20 
 
THE PASSING OF 
 THE OLD ORDER 
 
The world is about ready to part com- 
 pany with superstition in every form, 
 to forsake error and falsity under what- 
 ever guise, and to accept the truth — by 
 whomever uttered— provided only that 
 it can be demonstrated. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 Old way and Old philosophy, versus New way and New 
 philosophy — No longer a blind following among men — 
 All authority questioned — ^Sciencse demands Proof of 
 Revelation — Truth now more important than defense 
 of Testamental ignorance — World striving to m|aKe up 
 for misdirected activity — No limit upon Inventive 
 genius-^Modem methods that have marveled and 
 moved the world. 
 
 CHANGE, is the order of the universe. This 
 is not the announcement of a new discov- 
 ery. It has always been so ; this transient 
 quality inherent in all things has been con- 
 stantly manifesting itself through all the ages, 
 only it has been less apparent to the minds of 
 men. 
 
 Within the last hundred years men, gen- 
 erally, have awakened to a new sort of con- 
 sciousness, and as a result the history of the 
 world during that period has been a history 
 of human progress — human achievement. Man 
 no longer clings, as he formerly did — with the 
 tenacity of death — to the old way, the old phil- 
 osophy, the old religion, but he is surrendering 
 
 23 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE TEE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 his ancient conceptions of things, as rapidly 
 as they are proved to be erroneous, or inade- 
 quate to his needs, and he is adopting the new 
 and better way, the new and better philosophy, 
 the new and better religion. 
 
 There is no longer a blind following on 
 the part of any great numbers of people. 
 Everywhere, men are thinking for themselves; 
 everywhere, men are insisting upon the evi- 
 dence, demanding demonstration, seeking to 
 know; everywhere, men are asking questions, 
 concerning those things about which, a few 
 years ago, the man of so-called average intel- 
 ligence did not dare to entertain a notion, if 
 that notion happened not to accord with the 
 "inspired" opinion of some ecclesiastical 
 authority. 
 
 The right to ask questions is working out 
 the real salvation of the world. 
 
 The right to ask questions, implies the 
 right to doubt, and the right to doubt means 
 the right to grow in mental and moral excel- 
 lence. 
 
 During the past fifty years the general 
 fund of knowledge has immensely increased, 
 and as a consequence the intellectual status of 
 the average man has materially advanced. 
 Learning is no longer monopolized by any par- 
 
 24 
 
THE PASSING OF THE OLD ORDER. 
 
 ticular class, sect or organization. Profound 
 minds are now common in almost every walk, 
 from the highest to the lowest. 
 
 The masses are thinking; and a majority 
 of mankind are now possessed of notions of 
 their own concerning all the great problems 
 of Hfe. 
 
 Vast numbers of earnest and studious 
 minds are now constantly trained on the vexed 
 questions of the hour, in an effort to solve them, 
 and this concentration of the mental activities 
 of multitudes of people upon doing or desiring 
 the same thing, insures the ultimate realiza- 
 tion of that thing. There is a subtle law back 
 of this phenomenon. We do not understand 
 it: we cannot explain it. It is yet a secret of 
 the great hidden forces of Nature, like elec- 
 tricity, which is possibly another expression of 
 the same law. 
 
 "We cannot explain electricity, or trace the 
 source of its mysterious energy, but we know 
 that it is. We know it by its effects ; we know 
 that it does things, and that it always responds 
 in the same way under like conditions. Since 
 we found out the little that we know about 
 electricity, civilization has bounded forward 
 and the usefulness and productiveness of man 
 has been increased several fold. 
 
 25 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 And we are just now beginning to touch 
 the border of the great Psychic field — the un- 
 explored realm of the soul — and are bringing 
 to bear upon our physical activities the mar- 
 velous potencies that belong to the mental 
 plane. 
 
 By the employment of these occult agen- 
 cies, every thinking being on the globe is aiding 
 — though all unconsciously perhaps — every 
 other thinking beting in bringing about a reali- 
 zation of all the good and desirable things for 
 which each one hopes and yearns. The enlist- 
 ing of these practically new forces of 
 surpassing energy presage marvelous accom- 
 plishments, that will transform and literally 
 make over the face of the earth, in another 
 century. 
 
 Indeed we are living in a rapid age. 
 
 The world is moving at a tremendous pace. 
 
 The span of a single life now compasses 
 a thousand reforms that took the old world 
 centuries to bring about. 
 
 In all the useful arts, in politics, in re- 
 ligion, in mechanics, in medicine and in the 
 social sciences, reformation and change are the 
 order. Every department of human endeavor 
 and every field in which men and women labor 
 
 26 
 
THE PASSING OF THE OLD ORDER. 
 
 for the advancement and perfection of the race, 
 are likewise experiencing a new awakening. 
 
 Thousands of toilers in laboratories are 
 tirelessly pursuing their dreams of conquest. 
 Gradually and laboriously, Science — "the real 
 savior of mankind" — ^is forcing the frontier of 
 the known and the demonstrated into the il- 
 limitable spaces of the unknown. With 
 crucible and retort and telescope, man is read- 
 ing the riddle of the universe in trees, and 
 rocks, and stars. 
 
 Nothing is taken for granted or accepted 
 as true upon the unsupported claim of Divine 
 right, intervention, or command. 
 
 All authority is questioned, and must sub- 
 mit its credentials to the alert reason and the 
 awakened conscience of the Twentieth Century. 
 
 Tablets of Stone, nor Plates of Gold will 
 alone be accepted as evidence of Divine origin 
 or warrant. Science demands proof of revela- 
 tion — something more than unreasoning faith, 
 and the hearsay testimony of unknown and 
 irresponsible parties. 
 
 The cause of things is being ferreted out. 
 
 To know is becoming a ruling passion 
 among men. 
 
 Blind, credulous faith no longer controls 
 the judgments of men. No thinking man, in 
 
 27 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 this age, fears the wrath of an angry Grod, or 
 hopes to be rewarded for believing without 
 evidence. The natural and inescapable con- 
 sequence of his own acts, is the only thing that 
 any man need contemplate with gladness or 
 apprehension. 
 
 Church affiliation is no longer an asset, 
 upon which one may trade. Faith in a par- 
 ticular creed counts for nothing in the business 
 relations, and can neither add to nor detract 
 from one's social position. No one cares much, 
 now, whether a man is a Baptist or Methodist, 
 or Catholic. The important question, if any 
 is raised: does he bear a reputation for fair 
 dealing; is he on the square? 
 
 The thinking world now know that am- 
 ulets and scapulars and incantations and med- 
 als and pictures of saints, and beads and 
 prayers, can have no force in themselves for 
 good or ill; that benedictions and anathemas 
 are empty forms and harmless gesticulations 
 that no longer inspire or terrify; that the 
 Swastika of the Pagan, the Cross of the Chris- 
 tian and the Crescent of the Mohammedan are 
 essentially the same, and that each is sym- 
 bolical of a superstition that has held benighted 
 millions in slavery. 
 
 This is distinctly an age of investigation. 
 28 
 
THE PASSING OF THE OLD ORDER. 
 
 Nothing is exempt from inquiry. Human 
 happiness here is the goal. 
 
 The barriers of superstition and fear that 
 have so long obstructed the path of progress 
 are being swept away. 
 
 The cassocked pretender is no longer a 
 leader of men. 
 
 "Thus far shalt thou go and no farther" 
 cannot now deter the man with an honest doubt. 
 
 Nothing is so sacred, so holy that it can 
 claim immunity from the scrutiny of rational 
 investigation. 
 
 "Reason holds aloft her inextinguishable 
 torch," and in that holy light every fact is 
 bared, every claim is tested, and every title must 
 stand or fall. 
 
 The vast possibilities of the human mind, 
 dependent upon itself, and free from the hopes 
 and fears that have kept men in darkness and 
 slavery, are probably best exemplified by the 
 audacious and astonishing results achieved in 
 almost every department of human activity in 
 these later, unfettered years. It does not mat- 
 ter now if the story of Joshua, or the fable of the 
 Ark, or the delusion of Eden are endangered by 
 discoveries which afford a clearer insight into 
 the cause of things. 
 
 And let's pause here a moment and if pos- 
 29 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 sible get the full significance of this glorious 
 fact, which in itself constitutes one of the great- 
 est boons of this civilization. 
 
 It means that Mitred and Sceptered wrong 
 have forever lost their destructive dominion ; it 
 means that the tyrants of superstition and the 
 despots of ignorance have been forced to abdi- 
 cate ; and it presages the complete emancipation 
 of a church-cursed humanity, and the establish- 
 ment throughout the world of the permanent 
 reign of Reason. 
 
 Heretofore the thinker was constantly be- 
 set by the fear that he might discover error or 
 inconsistency in the "divine word," and such a 
 revelation might forfeit his life or liberty. So 
 certain and swift was the punishment of her- 
 etics that comparatively few had the courage 
 and the heroic hardihood to defy the vengeance 
 of the "nrfiversal church," and, necessarily, real 
 intellectual progress was made slowly. For 
 centuries, Science wore this fearful handicap, 
 and mankind groped in the shadow of the cross. 
 
 But now, all the barriers are down. No 
 limitations or restrictions are placed upon the 
 mental activities of men. The idealist, the 
 dreamer, the altruist, the seeker after know- 
 ledge may now, without thought of the Inquisi- 
 tor and without fear of the rack or wheel, pros- 
 
 30 
 
THE PASSING OF THE OLD ORDER. 
 
 ecute Ms inquiries into the most "sacred" pre- 
 cincts, and question the very face of God. And 
 he need not any longer concern himself about 
 the soundness or the sophistry of any Bible 
 story. The truth is now generally conceded of 
 greater consequence and of vastly more impor- 
 tance to the "welfare of mankind, than is a 
 defense of Testamental ignorance. 
 
 Men no longer entertain the stultifying fear 
 that they may become too wise, and, possibly, 
 by their knowledge, be lead to usurp, or unduly 
 trespass the province of God. If God has any 
 ways He would have men not to know. He will 
 have to exercise increasing vigilance as the 
 years go by. 
 
 To disclose the hidden, to solve the myster- 
 ious, to explain the unknown, and to find the 
 law back of all phenomena, is the special and 
 fascinating quest of the best and the wisest of 
 the earth. 
 
 Inventive genius now has the widest lati- 
 tude and the sincerest encouragement; no limit 
 is set to the scope or bounds of its inquiry. 
 
 The restraining handicaps are now lifted; 
 the obstructing bars are down, and an awak- 
 ened world is striving, as it were, to make-up 
 for the centuries of misdirected activity. The 
 tendency of the time is to "modernize" — to 
 
 31 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE TEE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 bring "up-to-date," and the demand of the 
 hour is to go ahead, to do, to achieve! 
 
 As quickly as scientific knowledge is accu- 
 mulated it is being applied to human needs, hu- 
 man comfort and human developement, and old 
 forms and systems are being relegated. Only 
 the highest possible efficiency, in everything 
 that touches or enters into human affairs will 
 satisfy the alert and progressive spirit of this 
 age. In every department of thought and labor, 
 from the turning of the soil to the mapping of 
 stars, the struggle is to save time, to conserve 
 energy, to eliminate waste, to improve quality, 
 to excel! 
 
 Find out! is the sole and imperative injunc- 
 tion of a waiting world — the illimitable space, 
 the field of thy research : everything that is, the 
 subject of thy inquiry; wisdom, and still more 
 wisdom, thy quenchless desire; ultimate perfec- 
 tion—the attainment of the ideal — thy aim and 
 end! 
 
 Many of the hoped-for but improbable 
 things of a few years ago are now conmion and 
 almost unnoticed in our daily life. The wants 
 of yesterday are the realities of today, and no 
 imagination, however visionary or fanciful, 
 may anticipate or unduly overstate the possi- 
 bilities of tomorrow. 
 
 32 
 
THE PASSING OF THE OLD ORDER. 
 
 A decade back, the motor carriage was a 
 wild experiment; twenty years ago, it was as 
 vague and unreal as is the stuff out of which 
 dreams are woven. To-day it is a permanent 
 part of our civilization. 
 
 The electric trolley car, which is now a com- 
 mon means of transportation in every city, on 
 the globe, was as uncertain, and impracticable 
 of commercial application twenty-five years 
 ago, as is the Airship today. But, how could 
 we dispense with the benefits derived from the 
 trolley-car? 
 
 The perfected Flying machine is on the 
 way, and almost before we know it, so to speak, 
 men will vie with the birds in the grace and 
 swiftness of their flight. A few years hence, 
 we will have frequent occasion to wonder how 
 we managed to get along so well on the earth. 
 
 It is a fact worthy of note, that almost 
 simultaneously with the successful flight of the 
 first dirigible balloon, came the announcement 
 of most important advances in the science of 
 Sub-marine navigation. 
 
 Here are new worlds to conquer; and al- 
 ready a vast army has been recruited and are in 
 training for the invasion. 
 
 These unique discoveries bring us to the 
 verge of another great epoch in the world's 
 
 33 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 history. It is but reasonable to expect that 
 within this generation, men will move at will, 
 and with comparative ease and safety, into the 
 darkest depths of the ocean, and out into hith- 
 erto unknown regions of the air. 
 
 These excursions will furnish the alert 
 Scientist with new revelations of a weird and 
 wondrous life, and of elements and forces and 
 principles undreamed of, and in their train will 
 flow a stream of priceless treasures for the 
 permanent enrichment of mankind. 
 
 The solution of the problems of Aerial and 
 Sub-marine navigation will bring with them the 
 easy disentanglement of other now vexed ques- 
 tions, and at the same time will awaken re- 
 search in a comparatively new realm, thrust- 
 ing to the fore still other questions to be cleared 
 up. Thus the ceaseless evolvement will go on, 
 but with steadily increasing rapidity, and al- 
 ways on a higher and an ascending plane. 
 
 Quite as astounding as are these discov- 
 eries, in themselves, is the alacrity with which 
 the people ' ' take ' ' to them. One of the hopeful 
 and distinguishing signs of the period is the 
 speedy recognition given to new or simplified 
 methods. This is true, not only in mercantile 
 and mechanical fields, but it is equally true 
 in every department of thought and activity 
 
 34 
 
THE PASSING OF THE OLh ORDER. 
 
 throughout the whole reahn of secular inves- 
 tigation. Along with the improved methods 
 of doing things, has come a broader view of 
 things in general, and a more universal desire 
 for advancement in every direction. 
 
 It will serve a good purpose, even at the ex- 
 pense of unnecessary amplification, to call at- 
 tention in a special manner to one or two of the 
 signal accomplishments of recent years which 
 have so materially advanced human conditions 
 and give promise of the transcendent achieve- 
 ments that will glorify this generation of men. 
 
 "Within the past thirty- five years the discov- 
 eries in electrical science, alone, have revolu- 
 tionized the means of transportation and com- 
 munication throughout the earth. The genius 
 of man has harnessed Jehovah's threatening 
 lightnings and appropriated their potent ener- 
 gies to his own needs and purposes. Electric- 
 ity is now employed in a hundred different ways 
 in the household, as well as in the factory. It 
 ministers in some manner to the necessity or 
 pleasure or convenience of nearly every human 
 being living in the civilized sections of the 
 globe. 
 
 One of the most general applications of elec- 
 trical energy to the purposes and advantages of 
 our every-day life, is the telephone. Every- 
 
 35 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 body is familiar with the telephone. Most of 
 us have occasion daily to employ this agency of 
 quick and satisfactory communication, but how 
 rarely do we think seriously about it? How few 
 understand anything, in the remotest way, 
 about its mechanism? How many can explain 
 the scientific principle of its operation? May- 
 be it is just as well that we do not bother our 
 heads about such things. In any event, tech- 
 nical knowledge of the instrument is not neces- 
 sary to a full enjoyment of its benefits, and that 
 probably accounts for our failure to know 
 much about it. But the telephone has been a 
 great civilizer, and deserves to be classed a- 
 mong the epoch markers in the history of man- 
 kind. It has influenced the course of human 
 events, and immensely increased the productive 
 capacity and the earning power of men. The 
 telephone has annihilated, so to speak, both 
 time and space. With the aid of this now 
 indispensable adjunct of commercial life, a man 
 is enabeld to be in two places at the same time 
 and to give personal direction in both places, 
 although hunderds of miles apart. It is only a 
 matter of time and desire and determination, 
 when the remotest sections of the earth will be 
 brought instantly within the range of the 
 human voice. In the near future the world 
 
 36 
 
TEE PASSING OF THE OLD ORDER. 
 
 will have become so reduced, by perfected iele- 
 phony, that a whisper uttered in New York will 
 be audible in Buenos Ayres or Bangkok. 
 
 The process by which signs and signals 
 may be communicated between distant stations, 
 without the aid of any mechanical connection 
 whatever, is another of the marvelous achieve- 
 ments of this marvelous period. 
 
 The genius of Marconi has ehorded the 
 etheric waves of the sky, and set the very air 
 to music. 
 
 The lay mind can have, at best, only a 
 vague conception of the real importance and 
 significance of the Wireless Telegraph, which 
 has come in answer to patient and persistent 
 researches into the unknown. 
 
 Less than fifteen years have elapsed since 
 radiography passed the theoretical and experi- 
 mental stage and became an accomplished fact 
 — no longer a mere scientific sensation, borrow- 
 ed from some border land of mystery — but al- 
 ready a fixed and indispensable part of the busi- 
 ness life of the world. It would be difficult to 
 measure in dollars the commercial value of the 
 Wireless Telegraph, and as a life-saver, alone, 
 its worth is incalculable. 
 
 The whole world experienced a certain con- 
 sciousness of relief, when the now famous mes- 
 
 37 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 sages of despair went out over storm swept 
 seas in search for stout hearts and willing 
 hands, and found them. The deep has lost much 
 of its terror and its solitude. "C. Q. D." and 
 "S. O. S." have robbed Ocean travel of its 
 gravest danger; and our fears and anxieties 
 for the safety of those who must sail the seas, 
 are now quieted by this blessed new assurance 
 of their comparative security. 
 
 Complete isolation is becoming impossible. 
 However far we may rove or wander, an intan- 
 gible and mystical cord binds us to those at 
 home; and although we pass from sight and 
 out of mind, it may now be truthfully asserted 
 that we are never entirely out of touch. With 
 this wonderful medium of communication, we 
 put aside redundant materiality and draw a 
 pace nearer to the astral and the spiritual. 
 
 Who will limit, or attempt to measure or 
 anticipate the possibilities of human accomp- 
 lishment in this field that Marconi has opened 
 to the inventive genius of free men! 
 
 The next few years will bring other dis- 
 coveries equally astounding, and revolutionary 
 of present methods and systems, that are un- 
 dreamed of today. 
 
 38 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 New Dispensation at hand — Deslned results follow only 
 properly directed' Industry — ^Nature's methods being 
 scrutinized with view to Betterment — If Science could 
 only direct the Moulding of a man — Better Babies es- 
 sential step towards bette<r Men — Marital Legislation 
 B^ust ibe Reformed and Civilized — Human experieno|e 
 and Demands of Society must govern — Who aije Joined 
 of God — Sex ignorance Involves Self-ignorance. 
 
 THE world has arisen from its knees, and 
 is on the march! 
 
 The forces of freedom are everywhere in 
 the ascendent., Eeason now dominates the 
 dynamic thought of mankind. False and fana- 
 tical philosophies that have shackled and 
 thralled the minds of men are now sufficiently 
 exposed or disproved, as to no longer menace 
 the progress of civilization. 
 
 The old world is now facing a mighty re- 
 formation. , 
 
 A new dispensation is at hand. 
 The prophets of a new revelation are 
 abroad, and every phase and condition of social 
 life is in a state of unrest. Portentous changes 
 
 39 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE TEE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 are taking place. Eadical reforms are being 
 agitated. The shortness of life is realized, and 
 because of that fact, the necessity for aggres- 
 siveness, along certain lines which do not in- 
 fringe the natural rights of others, is all the 
 more emphasized. Nothing may be left safely 
 to luck or fortuitous circumstance. Desired re- 
 sults follow only wisely and properly directed 
 industry. If we are to find happiness here, 
 we must be active in pursuit of it. With this 
 great fact fully recognized, modern science is 
 unwilling to "let well enough alone." 
 
 Nature's methods, which have served 
 through all the ages are being closely scrutinized 
 with a view to betterment and larger results. 
 The restless spirit of the twentieth century is 
 not content to wait the measured movement of 
 the planets or the tedious passing of the sea- 
 sons, but insists that now is the accepted time. 
 In many instances, Nature has been found to 
 be too slow, too deliberate in her processes, and 
 men of genius have set about to devise means 
 by which many of her ancient ways may be im- 
 proved. Already marvelous results have fol- 
 lowed intelligent experimentation in the ani- 
 mal kingdom and in the vegetable world. It 
 has been demonstrated conclusively that Na- 
 ture can be coaxed, and pushed and forced, 
 
 40 
 
THE PASSING OF THE OLD ORDER. 
 
 and made to yield better quality and in quicker 
 time. 
 
 The discoveries and actual demonstrations 
 of Luther Burbank, the botanist and naturalist, 
 have made his name famous throughout the 
 world. The feats of this horticultural wizard, 
 in the development and perfection of plant life, 
 have opened up to the inquiring mind a vast 
 new field for research and speculation. This 
 Californian scientist has produced not only big- 
 ger, better and more luscious fruits, but he has 
 been able to bring into existence many new va- 
 rieties, heretofore unknown in Nature. 
 
 With the Burbank and other similar reve- 
 lations, now a definite part of the knowledge 
 of mankind, a conspicuous French savant ob- 
 serves : ' ' That it is only as a logical result of all 
 these marvelous discoveries that the scientific 
 mind should turn now to the human race. 
 There can be no doubt that the principles 
 which have been found to apply so satisfactor- 
 ily to plants and fancy stock, will also apply to 
 our own kind for, physically, we are only ani- 
 mals." 
 
 When the new science of Eugenics shall 
 have become generally understood and its prin- 
 
 41 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE TEE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 ciples intelligently employed, the world will wit- 
 ness a vast increase of human happiness; and 
 countless blessings will flow from the enlarged 
 capabilities for the enjoyment of life that will 
 be brought about through a knowledge of this 
 science. The splendid triumphs to come as a 
 result of improved conditions in the relations 
 of the sexes will reduce to insignificant impor- 
 tance, in comparison, all the superb achieve- 
 ments about which we marvel today. 
 
 To prolong human life, and to increase the 
 opportunity and capacity for its enjoyment; to 
 strip old age of its infirmities and disabilities ; 
 to stamp out disease and crime and poverty ; to 
 teach how to breed constitutionally stronger 
 and more perfect children, and to bring about 
 the full, but even and simultaneous development 
 of the mental, moral and physical in the men 
 and women of to-morrow, are among the tre- 
 mendously interesting and important objects 
 of this new science of right generation. 
 
 '^b^ 
 
 Men, conspicuous in the public eye — phil- 
 osophers, occultists, alienists, physicists, psy- 
 chologists, students of criminology and various 
 other leaders of advanced thought are urging 
 that some more intelligent control or oversight 
 
 42 
 
THE PASSING OF THE OLD ORDER. 
 
 should be exercised in the procreating and en- 
 vironing of the human species. 
 
 A cultured and pampered prudery, and a 
 false conception of man's economic position in 
 the universe, resulting largely from the incul- 
 cation of erroneous theories concerning God 
 and his special providence with regard to man, 
 have had the effect of committing the future of 
 the race almost entirely to chance. 
 
 But during the past decade, thinking men 
 who have witnessed the magical change wrought 
 in plant life and the marvelous results accom- 
 plished in the intelligent breeding of fancy 
 stock, have dreamed of the miracle possibilities 
 of the human race, if Science could only direct 
 the moulding of a mem. 
 
 As a result, the best thought of the earth 
 is now tardily addressing itself to the greatest 
 problem of the ages — the perfection of the 
 human animal. 
 
 The begetting and homing of better babies 
 is conceived to be the first and essential step 
 towards the scientific development of better 
 men and women. But, just how the well estab- 
 lished laws of pro-creative development may be 
 best employed to aid in the structural and in- 
 tellectual improvement of human beings, is the 
 
 43 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE TEE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 most tremendous problem that is now pressing 
 for solution. This is a question of unusual 
 importance because of its grave and far reach- 
 ing consequences. It involves not only the fu- 
 ture of the race, but it means the overturning, 
 of theories and the discarding of customs 
 which have acquired, through centuries of us- 
 age, a fixed position and a sacred significance 
 not rightfully belonging to them. 
 
 A proper and comprehensive study of the 
 all important subject of scientific reproduction, 
 with reference to human progeny, must of ne- 
 cessity require a serious and thoughtful in- 
 vestigation of all the conditions that surround 
 the meeting and mating of those who marry. 
 
 In the opinion of the most eminent sociolo- 
 gists of this period — men qualified by years of 
 observation and devoted study — the time has 
 come to take up, intelligently, the work of re- 
 forming and civilizing the entire marital legis- 
 lation. 
 
 The experience of society demonstrates 
 not only the deficiencies and incongruities of 
 the laws touching the marriage relation, but it 
 makes plain the great need for a radical change 
 in the prevailing conception of the matrimon- 
 
 44 
 
THE PASSING OF THE OLD ORDER. 
 
 ial agreement, and the obligations it imposes 
 upon the contracting parties. 
 
 But how shall this be done! 
 
 Where shall the start be made! 
 
 Who will lead in this important reform? 
 
 To whom may we refer, with safety and as- 
 surance, the direction of our changing course! 
 
 Who is qualified to undertake the extraor- 
 dinary work of recasting the customs of a peo- 
 ple? 
 
 Who will suggest the rule ; who will frame 
 the ordinance, and who will promulgate the de- 
 cree which shall regulate and govern the re- 
 claiming and the rebuilding of a race? 
 
 The disposition to view the marriage con- 
 tract through the smoked glasses prepared by 
 theologians and religious zealots must be over- 
 come. All preconceived ideas as to the divine 
 origin of the institution of matrimony or the 
 relation of the church to that fact, if true, must 
 be set aside. We must also abandon all con- 
 fusing and unsettling theories which have come 
 as a result of our willingness to accept without 
 question or protest and as a final mandate, the 
 crudities and barbarities of the Scriptures upon 
 this subject. The problem must be approached 
 with calm and impartial mind, and its various 
 
 45 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 aspects examined and studied and passed upon 
 in the light of human experience and the de- 
 mands of human society. 
 
 But, here new complications arise, and 
 there is foreshadowed a renewal of the age-old 
 conflict between the forces of the church, on the 
 one hand and the liberal spokesman of the peo- 
 ple on the other — one loudly proclaiming the 
 eternal sufficiency of the Scriptures, and the 
 other insisting upon a rational adjustment of 
 the laws to prevailing conditions, and demand- 
 ing the permanent retirement of the church 
 from all affairs of civil or secular concern. 
 
 In the past, the prelate and the politician 
 have supervised this important legislation. 
 They have drafted and interpreted the law — 
 always in accordance with biblical precedent; 
 and as the politician has rarely been a secular- 
 ist, the church has dominated the situation and 
 exercised, without serious opposition, the right 
 to dictate the marriage laws. 
 
 The average legislator, who attains to his 
 distinction by the grace of the party "boss," the 
 favor of the "machine," or through the cor- 
 rupt influence of money interests, is not always 
 a paragon of intellectuality and his capacity to 
 
 46 
 
THE PASSING OF THE OLD ORDER. 
 
 decide such momentous matters may be right- 
 fully questioned. 
 
 The ecclesiastic is disqualified by his pro- 
 fession. 
 
 His time has been so engrossed by study of 
 the conditions that are supposed to obtain in 
 that vague, fantastic country beyond this mani- 
 fest and palpitant realm that he has neglected 
 to acquaint himself with the concernments of 
 this inconsequential sphere. 
 
 The priest is never a safe guide in the af- 
 fairs of this world. He is permitted to think 
 only along certain lines and within defined limi- 
 tations, and hence can never rise above his 
 creed. 
 
 The predisposition of the churchman, or 
 the religionist, to do no violence to the precepts 
 of his particular faith, renders him incompe- 
 tent to determine the true import of material or 
 secular things, and, therefore, incapable to con- 
 struct equitable laws for their regulation and 
 control. It is little less than criminal to con- 
 tinue to commit the most sacred rights of soc- 
 iety to the keeping of fanatical men, or men 
 not fully equipped by broad, liberal education 
 and scientific training, to administer such a 
 trust. 
 
 47 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE TEE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 The religious zealot, whether in or out of 
 a pulpit, is able to take only one view of the 
 great question of Divorce, and that is one of 
 unalterable opposition. His position is not 
 grounded upon the indisputable facts of his- 
 tory, the investigations of science, or the expe- 
 rience of society, but solely upon his faith in 
 the unerring wisdom of the Scriptures, and his 
 belief in their divine inspiration. Such men 
 cannot be capable le'aders in secular matters.. 
 
 For many years and many generations, the 
 priest, because of his calling, was regarded as 
 a man endowed with a special and superior qual- 
 ity of intelligence, whose opinions and judg- 
 ments were divinely guided, so that a sort of in- 
 fallibii-ty attached to his utterances. This is 
 now all changed. The modern estimate of the 
 minister of the gospel and of his force in the 
 world, is aptly expressed in the following lang- 
 uage of a now famous Agnostic who once occu- 
 pied a prominent orthodox Christian pulpit: 
 
 "In the good old times of blessed tradi- 
 tion, if not of memory, the preacher was suppos- 
 ed to possess most of the piety and all of the 
 learning of the parish. He was regarded as a 
 superior being living in the world as a conde- 
 scension to ordinary mortals. It would have 
 
 48 
 
TEE PASSING OF THE OLD ORDER. 
 
 created little surprise if a chariot of fire had 
 come for him almost any day, and carried him 
 to heaven as it did Elijah. Whatever he said 
 was said not on his own authority but as the ac- 
 credited agent of the skies. Neither himself 
 nor the people would have dared to contradict 
 or question the message which he had no re- 
 sponsibility for, nor in, except to deliver. Such 
 a strange condition of affairs grew out of the 
 belief in a distant God who must needs have his 
 agents and representatives to declare His will 
 and utter warnings, and administer what few 
 spiritual affairs there were in a very secular 
 and unregenerate world. All this has changed 
 in these later years. The pulpit has no mono- 
 poly of the learning nor of the piety. The agen- 
 cies that have promoted general intelligence 
 have toned down this presumption of the pul- 
 pit. In fact there are many people who believe 
 that, barring technical knowledge of church 
 history and creeds and dead languages, the av- 
 erage preacher is not as well posted about this 
 live world and what is going on in it, as the 
 average business man or the lawyer or the 
 physician. ' ' 
 
 No man whose mind is controlled by a 
 49 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 hobby or a creed is qualified to decide in mat- 
 ters of vital human interest. 
 
 The average church authority is necessar- 
 ily a partisan. In the nature of things he be- 
 lieves his church — that is, the particular faith 
 to which he subscribes — to be the one and only 
 true church, otherwise he must admit his insin- 
 cerity and confess himself a hypocrite. He be- 
 lieves, or he thinks he believes, that what God 
 ■:Jias joined together no man may put asunder. 
 While this may be true, there still remains a 
 question as to what things are joined of God, 
 and how these unions are brought about? 
 There is no evidence that God has joined those 
 who desire to be separated- — the facts would 
 seem to prove the contrary ; but as this may be, 
 the church gentleman arrives at his position by 
 a very different mental process than that em- 
 ployed by the thoughtful layman. His Emi- 
 nence, or his Grace reasons that there can be no 
 question about God's participation in the Mar- 
 riage ceremony, because the "holy church" 
 has given its sanction to the contract. The 
 church being God's institution, its ordinances 
 and functions and ceremonies are His, and what 
 it does. He does. So in the last analysis this 
 must be the churchman's view: "Whatsoever 
 
 50 
 
THE PASSING OF THE OLD ORDER. 
 
 the church joins by its ceremony is joined of 
 God, and, therefore, let no man put it asunder. ' ' 
 But, this philosophy is barbarous. It is cruel 
 because it is false, and it is immoral because 
 it is unreasonable and because it does not ac- 
 cord with the natural order of things. 
 
 If we are to benefit by the experience of 
 the past, we must abandon the false Prophets 
 and take no counsel of religious zealots Or 
 Bible enthusiasts, in the great work of re-writ- 
 ing the laws relating to Marriage and Divorce. 
 The reformist should be, first of all, sane, and 
 his soundness of mind should be an established 
 fact — at least one susceptible of easy demon- 
 stration. Then, as a further qualification, he 
 should be a man of mental power, moral cour- 
 age and at all times the uncompromising dis- 
 ciple of truth — uninfluenced by superstition 
 and free from all religious bias, pious pretense 
 or pedantic prudery. 
 
 Counsel should be taken only of the 
 world's recognized best thoiight. The discov- 
 eries of science, the deductions of himian reason 
 and the experience of history should outweigh 
 all traditional customs and beliefs, and all ar- 
 bitrary dictum based upon the theory of divine 
 intervention, revelation or special inspiration. 
 
 51 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 The practical wisdom of mankind stands 
 arrayed in opposition to the delusive hopes, 
 the befogging theories and the confusing hypo- 
 theses upon which our monogamic system has 
 been constructed. Science has demonstrated 
 that the inexplicable attraction which takes 
 place between particles of bodies and unites 
 them to form chemical compounds, ;exists 
 throughout all nature, animate as well as in- 
 animate. It is now known that forms and 
 ceremonies and rituals have little to do with 
 the enduring marriage ; that no power, in Scrip- 
 ture or sky can avail to make tolerable or de- 
 sirable a union where love is not ; that men and 
 women involuntarily and unconsciously — ^but in 
 obedience to the law of affinities — seek each 
 other just as the metals combine and harmonize 
 their atoms — just as the pollen of the flower 
 finds its kind. 
 
 It is contended that society has a vital in- 
 terest in the sex relation; that sex ignorance 
 involves self ignorance, and leads inevitably 
 to the reproduction of the unfit; and that 
 scientific enlightenment in sexual matters is the 
 only remedy for the social evils that threaten 
 the destruction of homes and the degeneracy 
 of the race. Also, that the higher development 
 
 m 
 
THE PASSING OF THE OLD ORDER. 
 
 of men and women physically, intellectually 
 and morally is of vastly greater importance 
 than the perpetuation or the passing of any or- 
 dinance, creed or institution. 
 
 The conditions under which men are born 
 have much to do with their lives, their useful- 
 ness in the world and their influence for good 
 or ill. The position of the church has always 
 been one of indifference in these matters. The 
 church has always considered it of greater im- 
 portance that children should be brought up 
 Catholic or Presbyterian or Baptist, than that 
 they should be conceived under normal condi- 
 tions and be properly born. But, an awakened 
 and enlightened civilization will demand that 
 future legislation affecting the marriage rela- 
 tion shall be weighed and determined in the 
 light of the Twentieth Century, and not hamp- 
 ered nor restricted by the cramped moral stan- 
 dards and dogmatic pronunciamentos of the 
 long ago. 
 
 All human laws will succeed only in the de- 
 gree that they do not conflict with natural 
 laws, and the law of natural selection must 
 have full and free operation if marriage is to 
 remcAn a desirable institution of society. 
 
 53 
 
CHAPTEE III. 
 
 Taking ourselves too seriously — Man is not a Special crea- 
 tion — The Monltey and the Monarch the same thing — 
 All forms of Life equally precious — Theory of Man's 
 Frete Agency fallacious — Neither Church nor State 
 properly concerned In Marriage contracts — ^Love alone 
 the determining factor — Thdnlilng evil, makes evil 
 
 SOMETIME in the future— perhaps not far 
 distant — ^we will find our proper place in 
 the world, and learn something of our 
 economic relation to each other. 
 
 We will then be freed from a sort of forced 
 allegiance to many of the doctrinal notions 
 and theological teachings that have kept the 
 world in fear and darkness. 
 
 We will disabuse our minds of the belief 
 that we are the creatures of a special provi- 
 dence, and that "the earth and the fullness 
 thereof" was made solely with a view to man's 
 needs, and for his use and comfort. 
 
 We will no longer credit the puerile story 
 — of ante-telescope days — that the sun and the 
 
 55 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE TEE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 moon and the stars were hung in the heavens 
 to please the sight of man, and, incidentally, to 
 light his way over the earth. 
 
 Much of our trouble has come from our 
 habit or inclination to view life through a 
 colored glass, which distorts the facts — to be 
 bound by theories and philosophies that had 
 their birth in ignorance and superstition. 
 
 We have been— all of us — taking ourselves 
 too seriously. A large part of our trouble lies 
 in that fact. Our fancied dominion over the 
 earth, coupled with the assurance of a divine 
 guardianship of our interests, and the heritage 
 of Heaven as a reward for our faith, has quite 
 turned our heads. Out of this baseless doctrine 
 we have developed an extravagant notion of our 
 own importance in the world ; and for centuries 
 this wholly unwarranted theory has lead us 
 away from the truth, and has greatly inter- 
 fered with our real mental and moral growth. 
 
 We are just beginning to find out that 
 man is not a special creation, but that he is the 
 product of countless evolutions — that he is yet 
 in the making — that he has been on the way 
 through all the dreary past, 9,nd that he will 
 journey on through all the brightening future. 
 
 Eesearch in biology and in geology, has 
 56 
 
THE PASSING OF THE OLD ORDER, 
 
 forced the conclusion that the earth and the 
 fullness thereof was not made for man any 
 more than that man was made for the earth, etc. 
 Dogs were not made that fleas might prey 
 upon them: neither were fleas contrived be- 
 cause dogs were out of favor with the Fates. 
 But we have always reasoned that way. 
 
 We have made ourselves believe all other 
 forms of life were less precious than our own, 
 and that we had a sort of divine right to slay 
 beast or bird with impunity, and without the 
 slightest compunction of conscience. 
 
 Every man who ever went forth, with mur- 
 der in his heart, and plunged a cruel blade of 
 steel into the throat of an unoffending lamb, 
 or who with bloody bullet robbed the air of its 
 beauty and its song — has always absolved him- 
 self with this mistaken and egotistical assur- 
 ance of his own importance and superior worth. 
 He has deceived himself with the destroying 
 belief that these creatures were made for his 
 use and comfort. 
 
 In the economy of the Universe, all things 
 are equal. The man is of no greater conse- 
 quence than the monad: the monkey and the 
 monarch are just a little more, or a little less 
 of the same tiling — ^time and environment and 
 
 57 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 the impelling law explain the apparent differ- 
 ence. 
 
 There is a probability that the world will 
 presently be forced to abandon — at least in 
 large part — the much vaunted and Scripturally 
 bolstered theory of man's free agency, upon 
 which hypothesis has been built all prevailing 
 moral systems. 
 
 Man \& not & free moral agent, but only ap- 
 pears to be, and thinks he is. 
 
 This means that he is not individually or 
 personally — that is in himself or of himself — 
 fully accountable for what he does or thinks. 
 Vicious or virtuous tendencies may present 
 themselves in any person, just as measles, or 
 whooping cough, or hay-fever enter the physi- 
 cal organism, and the responsibility rightly 
 runs against the conditions surrounding the in- 
 dividual rather than against the individual 
 himself. 
 
 As we become more truly enlightened, we 
 will not be so ready to blame and censure : we 
 will develop a better consistency of judgment; 
 and the knowledge we will acquire of our own 
 share in our neighbor's so-called wrong doing 
 will fill us with a feeling of tenderness and 
 
 58 
 
THE PASSING OF THE OLD ORDER. 
 
 compassion rather than with a desire to con- 
 demn and to punish. 
 
 A further pursuit of this question will load 
 too far from the purpose and scope of the sub- 
 ject in hand so it will be dismissed with just 
 another thought : Why should a man be charg- 
 ed with responsibility for his act, when he is 
 not the author of his own being, and is not 
 accountable for his presence here? 
 
 It is quite apparent that we — each of us — 
 are not only dependent upon the things about 
 us, but that we are dependent upon the least 
 thing about us. In other words, everything that 
 is, is necessary — aye, is essential to the exis- 
 tence of every other thing that is. It is now a 
 well established fact, whatever may be the no- 
 tions of some of us to the contrary, that we are 
 held and circled and ruled by conditions over 
 which we are powerless to exercise the slight- 
 est control — that our destiny is shaped by these 
 conditions, and we go forward or backward, not 
 as we wish or as we ivill, but as ive must. 
 
 Where it appears that we do things of 
 ourselves — of our own choice or volition — upon 
 examination it is made quite clear that the 
 initial impulse — the prompting back of the act 
 — ^is in obedience to a force not resident within 
 us. The seemingly voluntary judgments of 
 
 59 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE TEE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 the mind, which determine the preference or 
 choice of the individual to do, or not to do, are 
 dependent upon pre-existent forces and condi- 
 tions not subject to his pleasure and which, so 
 far as he is concerned, operate involuntarily. 
 For instance; the physical functioning of the 
 brain, which must necessarily precede any 
 judgment of the mind, is contingent upon the 
 circulation of the blood, and this mysterious 
 movement of the blood through the vascular 
 system of our bodies, which we call the circu- 
 lation, is one of the involuntary activities of 
 each individual. So, instead of free agency or 
 independence upon our part, with reference to 
 the acts of our will, there is a probability that 
 we simply automatically adjust ourselves to 
 changing conditions ; and these conditions which 
 lie beyond our power to regulate or direct, are 
 responsible for our responding action. 
 
 Some day we will be able to better trace 
 the source of our desires ; the ocdasion for our 
 emotions ; the cause of our propensities, and we 
 will seek to find the law back of our acts and 
 moods and tendencies, and we will then strive 
 to harmonize with it, our rules of conduct and 
 our notions of right and wrong. 
 
 As we grow in larger knowledge of our- 
 selves, and our true economic kinship, we will 
 
 60 
 
THE PASSING OF THE OLD ORDER. 
 
 discover that many of the difficulties we en- 
 counter — the obstacles that lie in our path — 
 are the certain and unavoidable out-growth of 
 our own obstinate adherence to false and mis- 
 leading ideals. 
 
 For some reason that cannot be easily ex- 
 plained, we nearly always contend against the 
 very thing that we later approve and adopt. 
 This may be called a human weakness. We 
 have not yet learned the wisdom of submitting 
 gracefully to the inevitable, but we maintain 
 a constant warfare with Fate. 
 
 And, in our social relations, we defy the 
 very law of our being — ^we set at naught the 
 natural impulses of the heart, and we wonder 
 at the mckedness and perversity of the world, 
 while we condemn and ostracise those who have 
 the hardihood to spurn our conventionalities, 
 and to follow the natural bent and yearing of 
 their souls. 
 
 Neither the Church nor the State are 
 properly or rightfully concerned in the person- 
 al agreements or partnerships entered into by 
 men and women; and have no warrant in 
 principle to attempt to regulate or to fix or lim- 
 it the duration of such contracts. The relation 
 of the State is the same as in that affecting 
 property rights, and its office is simply to act 
 
 61 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 as custodian of the facts submitted for record; 
 and the ceremony of the Church is purely per- 
 functory, and, aside from its show and social 
 color, is without force or significance. 
 
 When a boy and a girl, under natural con- 
 ditions, avow their love for each other, they 
 immediately become qualified by that fact to 
 perpetuate the race, and without the necessi- 
 ty of a public declaration, the recital of pre- 
 scribed formulas, or other meaningless cere- 
 mony, they are then to all intents and purposes 
 married. This confession of reciprocal love, 
 alone, constitutes the real marriage; all else is 
 foreign, non-essential— pretty, but empty for- 
 mality. 
 
 Under a sane hymeneal regime, this simple 
 yet sublime interchange of the secrets of their 
 hearts would forthwith clothe the wooers with 
 every right that could possibly be conferred by 
 minister or magistrate. "No mumbling priest 
 nor wedding feast" can add anything to the 
 solemn compact, already complete, when two 
 confiding hearts confess their love. 
 
 Nature, working through her children, is 
 seeking constantly to give physical utterance 
 to the ideal— to produce the perfect — and this 
 voluntary, spontaneous declaration of love by 
 
 62 
 
THE PASSING OF THE OLD ORDER. 
 
 the maiden and the man is the expression of 
 Nature's desire. 
 
 The statute should be made to conform to 
 and not to interdict, or interfere with, or render 
 inoperative the apparent design and intention 
 of Nature in this respect. If it were not nat- 
 ural, it would not be so, and being natural, it 
 is right! It is only a perversion of the moral 
 sense that prompts a stifling of the natural im- 
 pulse, or a prevention of the proper consumma- 
 tion of a normal love. 
 
 This may all sound extremely shocking to 
 the hyper-sensitive, or to those self-sufficient 
 mortals whose mental machinery remains sta- 
 tionary, and whose only criterion of propriety, 
 is a much colored notion of themselves, but the 
 fact remains, however much we combat it with 
 a decadent philosophy. 
 
 This announcement is intended to afford a 
 scientific perspective of the question, and it is 
 not to be lightly considered, or rashly con- 
 strued as an attempted justification of the lewd 
 or licentious. Some minds are so constituted 
 that they are given to promptly condemning, 
 without fair analysis, all deductions that fail to 
 harmonize with their own preconceived opinions 
 — to all such the progressive soul has but one 
 observation to make, namely: 
 
 63 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 It is an awful thing to think about, if you 
 think about it as an awful thing. 
 
 Our way of thinking needs reforming some- 
 times quite as much as our way of acting, in- 
 deed, if we think rightly our actions cannot 
 fail to accord, for our deeds are but the con- 
 crete expression of our thoughts. 
 
 Our mental attitude towards the facts of 
 life, accounts for much of the so-called evil in 
 the world, and fortunately this mental attitude 
 is not a fi(rp.d condition with any of us, but is 
 a thing subject to change. This variable and 
 instable quality of the human mind is the 
 distinguishing feature that differentiates man 
 from all other animals, and gives him his su- 
 premacy. If he had not changed his mind, if 
 he had not reasoned out the better way, and 
 put behind him the "good enough" methods of 
 Ms ancestors, he would still be living in a cave, 
 and all the world would be a wilderness. 
 
 Man's moral view of life will continue to 
 broaden, in the future as it has in the past, 
 until by a gradual and subtle process that 
 which was considered ivrong, will become right. 
 Thus will evil disappear from the earth; not 
 the thing itself, but our mental attitude to- 
 wards it will undergo a radical change. This 
 will not be accomplished without a struggle. 
 
 64 
 
THE PASSING OF THE OLD ORDER. 
 
 The "forces of purity," the self appointed con- 
 servators of public morals, will ever contend 
 against the "powers of evil," but in the nat- 
 ural order of things this wonderful and seem- 
 ingly impossible ethical metamorphosis will 
 come to pass. The world will constantly grow 
 better, and man will advance morally in the de- 
 gree that he succeeds in harmonizing his rules 
 of conduct with the natural desires of his being. 
 When we have mastered the lesson, all 
 marriages will be made in heavep- Jor then in- 
 deed the Kingdom of Heaven will have come 
 among men. 
 
 65 
 
SOME SUGGESTED 
 REFORMS 
 
And what is -wedlock forced, but a 
 hell, an age of discord and continual 
 strife. — Shakespeare. 
 
GHAPTEE IV. 
 
 Many radical Reform!! of tbe Marriage laws being agitated 
 throughout Europe — In England, only the Rich can 
 afford the luxury of Divorce — Liberal Laws of HTin- 
 gary and Crermany — "Trial marriages" urged In 
 Marital unrest in United Statjtea — General revolt against 
 present Marriage system — The Church opposed to any 
 change — ^A Bishop's constricted view — ^A Cardinal 
 would discriminate against "Woman. 
 
 SINCE the dawn of the Twentieth Century 
 law makers throughout the civilized 
 
 world have been agitating radical re- 
 forms in marital legislation. 
 
 In England, a few years ago, a bill was 
 introduced in the Parliament favoring the 
 "terminable marriage" — a temporary con- 
 tract for two, three, five or ten years, with 
 privilege of renewing at the expiration of the 
 term at the pleasure of the contracting parties. 
 Later, "trial marriages" were proposed. Un- 
 der this plan those who contemplated matri- 
 mony would agree upon a trial period, preced- 
 ing the date of the formal marriage announce- 
 ment, during which time — under the sanction 
 
 69 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 of the law — they would live together as man and 
 wife. 
 
 If at the end of this period they found 
 themselves temperamentally in accord and sex- 
 ually reciprocal, the minister or magistrate 
 would be called in to formally complete the 
 union. If, on the contrary, they .discovered 
 that their ardor for each other had cooled and 
 that they were not any longer essential to each 
 other's happiness, they would simply bid adieu 
 and go their different ways, and in the light of 
 the law, they would stand absolved of any 
 wrong doing. 
 
 Both of these proposed reforms failed and 
 rightfully so. They fell far short of their pur- 
 pose, in fact they did not touch the evil they 
 were designed to combat. But, notwithstand- 
 ing the crudity and dangerous deficiencies of 
 these plans and the loose and low estimate they 
 placed upon the institution of matrimony, they 
 were earnestly championed by a strong follow- 
 ing and abandoned only after a prolonged and 
 bitter contest. As a result of this discussion, 
 a somewhat modified reform of the marriage 
 laws was accomplished. Divorce is not only 
 recognized under the new act but is regulated 
 more in accordance with the liberal ideas of 
 the time; however, in the British Isles the 
 
 70 
 
SOME SUGGESTED REFORMS. 
 
 grounds for absolute divorce are much more 
 limited than in the States of the Union, or in 
 many of the countries of continental Europe. 
 
 As yet the law affords only small comfort 
 to the poor, in England, who chance to be un- 
 happily mated. The cost required to set in 
 motion the ponderous machinery of the British 
 Court, would bankrupt a petitioner of orcji- 
 nary means. 
 
 Only the rich have the hardihood and the 
 cash to withstand the strain of the lubricating 
 process. So, absolute divorce in England is 
 one of the luxuries — ^beyond the reach of the 
 poor, and which only "gentlemen" may enjoy. 
 
 The laws of Hungary, in this respect, may 
 be cited as a fair example of the most liberal 
 in so-called Christian Europe. Besides the 
 several causes which are generally recognized 
 as grounds for divorce the trial judge in Hun- 
 gary is given an unusual latitude in deciding 
 such actions. He is permitted, in his discretion, 
 to grant divorce for any violation of the mar- 
 riage obligatioti that in his opinion has so se- 
 riously disturbed the marriage relation as to 
 render its continuance unbearable to the party 
 bringing the action. 
 
 The wide powers given to the court, under 
 71 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 the Hungarian regulation, might afford inspira- 
 tion to our statute-builders if the wisdom, 
 character, temperament and impartiality of 
 judges could always be relied upon ; but such a 
 system opens the way for favoritism, bribery 
 and extortion. There is a probability that the 
 ends of justice would be better served if the law 
 in all such cases were mandatory on the court, 
 and his personal opinion or discretion not per- 
 mitted to intrude. 
 
 It may be readily appreciated what a havoc 
 of hearts might be worked by a severe or a sym- 
 pathetic judge, or one whose own life had been 
 imbittered by some marital misfortune. The 
 competency of a bachelor judge might be prop- 
 erly questioned: and with equal right the 
 petitioner at court might inquire into the quali- 
 fication of a judge who himself had been, so to 
 speak, too much married. But, so much for the 
 good and the bad of the Hungarian plan. 
 
 In Germany, it is the custom of courts to 
 condone many offenses against the marriage 
 laws on the ground of public expediency. Com- 
 mon law marriages are recognized in several of 
 the States of the Empire and parties to such 
 matrimonial alliances seldom, on that account, 
 suffer social discredit. 
 
 An interesting anomaly of the German law 
 72 
 
SOME SUGGESTED REFORMS. 
 
 is found in that section of the code respecting 
 the important question of alimony. This is the 
 language of the statute: "If the husband alone 
 is declared guilty, he must support the wife in 
 a manner suited to her station," etc. She is 
 not required to labor for her support, unless 
 she was a breadwinner before the divorce. "If 
 the wife alone is declared guilty, she must sup- 
 port the husband in a manner suited to his rank, 
 in so far as he is not in a condition to support 
 himself," etc. The obligation to furnish sup- 
 port ceases with the re-marriage of the party, 
 having the right to such support. 
 
 Prior to the Revolution, marriage in France 
 was considered a sacrament and was regulated 
 by the Canon law. Since then it has been con- 
 sidered a civil contract and has been regulated 
 by the State. 
 
 As the people came more and more under 
 the influence of the Eoman Church, divorce 
 became less common. The Church never favor- 
 ed divorce, and tolerated it only to the husband 
 for the adultery of his wife. From the Twelfth 
 Century the Church taught that a marriage 
 consummated in fact could not be broken save 
 by death. This became a part of the Canon 
 law, and the civil law was made to conform to 
 its requirements. 
 
 73 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 But, under the influence of the spirit of 
 freedom, which swept over France during the, 
 Eevolution, the view that marriage is only a 
 civil contract came to be more or less generally- 
 accepted. The National Assembly yielded to 
 this demand and enacted a law September 20; 
 1792, establishing the right of absolute divorce. 
 It was on this memorable occasion that the 
 French Assembly, by practically a unanimous 
 vote, repudiated the marriage doctrine of the 
 Scriptures and announced to the world that; 
 "an indissoluble marriage meant the death of 
 individual liberty. ' ' This law, however, was dis- 
 placed by the Code Napoleon in 1803, which 
 with but few modifications continued in effect 
 until 1884. 
 
 During the opening years of the present 
 century, the agitation throughout France for a 
 further modification of the laws respecting 
 marriage and divorce became so general and so 
 insistent that the government was forced to in- 
 stitute an inquiry as a basis upon which to 
 formulate remedial legislation. 
 
 Acting under the instruction of the House 
 of Deputies, the Minister of Justice appointed 
 a Commission of wise and able men to investi- 
 gate the various aspects of the marriage ques- 
 
 74 
 
SOME SUGGESTED REFORMS. 
 
 tion, and to make recommendations for a 
 rational revision of the marriage laws. 
 
 After an exhaustive inquiry into the causes 
 of divorce and the effect upon society of such 
 legal separations the Commission reported 
 in favor, not only of the existing law but recom- 
 mended even greater liberality in respect to the 
 grounds for which divorce may be granted. 
 
 The report is a formidable document of 
 several hundred pages, and is one of the most 
 valuable compilations of Marriage facts and 
 figures in existence. Before the formal dis- 
 cussion of the report, by the House of Deputies, 
 many of the most radical of its suggested inno- 
 vations were from time to time printed in leaf- 
 let form and distributed generally among the 
 people. This piece-meal presentation of the 
 findings and conclusions of the Commission 
 was designed to sound public sentiment upon 
 one issue at a time. The plan was distinctively 
 French. It proved both wise and effective, 
 and awakened widespread interest and contro- 
 versy throughout the Republic. It operated to 
 "break the news gently," so to speak, and at 
 the same time afforded a perfect line on the 
 temper of the people. 
 
 Among the many unique and advanced 
 positions taken by the Commission, may be 
 
 75 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 mentioned a declaration in favor of ' ' trial mar- 
 riage," in this much that it proposed a law 
 permitting divorce after a trial period of two 
 or three years, by mutual consent, or on the 
 ground of "incompatibility." The perfect 
 equality before the law of women with men 
 is urged with great force and wisdom. Adul- 
 tery is recognized as a cause for divorce for 
 the wife on the same conditions as for the hus- 
 band; and, furthermore, it is proposed to give 
 to the married woman complete control of her 
 own property. This is certainly an immense 
 step forward, and presages the dawn of the 
 day when woman will stand truly emancipated, 
 and come into her rightful estate. Another ad- 
 vance step worthy of note here is the special 
 indorsement which was given to that section of 
 the existing French law which prohibits, under 
 penalty of fine, the reporting of the details of 
 divorce trials in the public press. 
 
 There are many sound objections to the 
 "trial" or "optional" marriage plan of the 
 learned Commission, which, no doubt, defeated 
 its adoption by the people. Agreeing, in ad- 
 vance, to divorce if everything failed to go 
 merrily, was too much like buying goods under 
 a guarantee of service, "or money back," to 
 
 76 
 
SOME SUGGESTED REFORMS. 
 
 find permanent favor with the sensitive and 
 sentimental French. It smacked too much of 
 commercialism, and then there was an objection 
 purely psychologic — that was successfully 
 urged against it, viz: The plan carried with 
 it a subtle and fatal suggestion that could not 
 fail to distulrb and unsettle every marriage 
 contracted under its provisions. 
 
 Such bargains are not consistent with the 
 highest moral conceptions, or the best mar- 
 riage ideals, and could not be prompted by an 
 absorbing desire for a home and family, which 
 alone is the impelling cause of marriage under 
 natural conditions. Where love rules the hearts 
 and minds of those who seek each other in mar- 
 riage, the contemplation of divorce is one of the 
 impossible things. 
 
 The question of Divorce, and its complex 
 ramifications, has not failed to engage the in- 
 terest of thinkers and writers throughout the 
 United States. The fact that upwards of seven- 
 ty thousand divorces are annually granted in 
 this country, has awakened widespread appre- 
 hension among those who see in this condition 
 a menace to the nation. 
 
 It has been seriously and ceremoniously 
 announced by the census department of our 
 Government, that one in every twelve mamages 
 
 77 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 in the United States is, or will be dissolved by- 
 Divorce. 
 
 That means that over eight per cent of all 
 the marriages, celebrated under the existing 
 system, prove such insufferable failures that 
 the unfortunate victims are willing to undergo 
 the hxuniliation and the disgrace of a public 
 renunciation of their vows, rather than contin- 
 ue longer to privately endure their cross. 
 
 It is safe to figure that this eight per cent 
 represents less than twenty per cent of those 
 who would divorce, if it were not for the unnat- 
 ural and unreasonable bars that a short-sighted 
 public policy has established. In other words, 
 between 8 and 9 out of every hundred, is just 
 about one-fifth of the number that want divorce, 
 and need and should divorce, but who are re- 
 strained by the iron hand of custom and conven- 
 tionality. 
 
 These figures afford only a hint of the 
 growing unrest that underlies our whole mari- 
 tal system — the faintest odor of smoke arising 
 from the smoldering fire which must sooner or 
 later burst into flame. 
 
 It takes generations of suffering and sor- 
 row to usher in a useful reform. 
 
 When human endurance reaches the ex- 
 78 
 
SOME SUGGESTED REFORMS. 
 
 treme limit— when it can not longer bear up 
 under tlie burden— it just drops the load; faces 
 about, and starts anew. 
 
 The history of human progress is marked 
 all along the trail by this process of loading 
 and unloading of senseless and destructive sys- 
 tems; of submission and revolt. This is true 
 in every field of serious endeavor. The back 
 is bent to the breaking point before a protest is 
 made effective. The people are always in 
 slavery, and the kings enthroned, before the 
 fight for freedom is taken up in earnest. 
 
 This unrest is the umnistakable evidence of 
 a general revolt that is forming against a mar- 
 riage system that is defective and bad; and 
 while it portends disaster to the system, it does 
 not in any degree menace free institutions, or 
 the real moral advance of the people. 
 
 There is no occasion for serious alarm, al- 
 though a surface view of the situation is not 
 reassuring. 
 
 At first glance, it would appear that seven- 
 ty thousand homes are being destroyed by law 
 in this country every year. If true, this indeed 
 is an appalling state of affairs and may well 
 excite alarm, but upon closer investigation, a 
 very different condition is found to exist. 
 
 In a vast majority of these cases, the 
 79 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 divorce, instead of working the destruction of a 
 home, has been the essential step in the direction 
 of making a home. Discordant and warring 
 natures have been separated and permitted to 
 seek more congenial and harmonious surround- 
 ings and associations. Innocent children have 
 been rescued from the poisonous and dwarfing 
 influence of quarreling parents. Shadowed and 
 desponding lives have been flooded with light 
 and hope; dead hearts have been quickened 
 back to life, and the sum of human happiness 
 has been increased. 
 
 An advanced thinker and an interesting 
 writer on this subject, declares that: "We can 
 see about us so many instances of the relief 
 from intolerable conditions which is afforded 
 by divorce that we are compelled to recognize 
 it, in such cases, as more of a sacrament than 
 the marriage which it dissolved." 
 
 In many cases the effect of divorce upon the 
 home and society is not any more disastrous 
 than are the unnoted consequences which fol- 
 low the thousands of engagements to marry 
 that are made and broken every day. The only 
 real difference is that in one instance the con- 
 tracting parties, on their own motion, absolve 
 themselves from their vows, while in the other, 
 the state acts as referee; in one case the break 
 
 80 
 
SOME SUGGESTED REFORMS. 
 
 happens after a meaningless religious cere- 
 mony, and in the other in advance of it. The 
 effect upon society is nil. The parties to these 
 broken engagement vows rarely cherish to- 
 wards each other an abiding ill-will. They sim- 
 ply cease to be lovers, but frequently continue 
 throughout their lives fond and faithful friends. 
 
 In cases where the marriage ceremony 
 has intervened before the estranging or alien- 
 ating influences develop, separatjion would 
 seem all the more proper and imperative, if the 
 happiness of the parties themselves and the 
 well-being of society are to be wisely safe- 
 guarded. Where the situation is not yet com- 
 plicated by the presence of children, there 
 should be no legal obstructions in the way of a 
 speedy release of such ill-mated people from 
 their unnatural, and certain to become intoler- 
 able condition. 
 
 Of course, any condition or movement, or 
 growing sentiment, which tends to bring mar- 
 riage into disrepute, or which encourages a low 
 and frivolous estimate of its duties and respon- 
 sibilities, is fraught with grave and far-reach- 
 ing consequences. To safeguard against these 
 very threatened dangers is conceived to be a 
 duty of the State, and of every earnest member 
 of society. 
 
 81 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 The question of reforming the marriage 
 laws, so as to more nearly conform them to the 
 requirements of changed conditions land the 
 spirit and genius of the time, has long since be- 
 come a subject of general interest. Many books, 
 both serious and sensational, have been written 
 upon this theme, and widely distributed. 
 
 All the "authorities" have been inter- 
 viewed and reported. Learned jurists and 
 statesmen, and scores of churchmen — from car- 
 dinal to curate — have contributed articles to 
 popular magazines expressive of their views 
 and recommendations. 
 
 The surprising thing is, that so much has 
 been written, and so little new thought has been 
 advanced. 
 
 All of these essayists, with no notable ex- 
 ception, have contended for a restriction of the 
 Divore law, their evident purpose being to 
 reduce the number of divorces by making the 
 legal procedure difficult or dishonoring to 
 those who must invoke the law. They seem de- 
 termined upon making divorce impossible 
 instead of striving to make it unnecessary. 
 
 A conspicuous Episcopal Bishop is quoted 
 as having said: "The divorce evil has flour- 
 ished because it has not been sufficiently 
 
 82 
 
SOME SUGGESTED REFORMS. 
 
 condemned. Divorced persons are not made to 
 feel any inconvenience or disgrace." 
 
 This unfortunate and ill-advised utterance 
 is emphasized and reinforced by the following 
 still more unfortunate declaration of a distin- 
 guished American Catholic Cardinal: "A rea- 
 son why divorce is on the increase is to be found 
 in the attitude of society towards persons who 
 are divorced. In former times, a woman who 
 was divorced was shunned. She was not re- 
 ceived nor recognized in good society, and was 
 frowned upon. Nowadays that is not the case. 
 If the divorce evil is to be checked, there must 
 be a stricter regard for the truths of the Chris- 
 tian religion. Every one of the gospels is oppos- 
 ed to divorce, and accordingly the state laws 
 should be made more severe." 
 
 This remarkable opinion of the Cardinal is 
 interesting and significant for what it recites 
 and also for what it implies. His Eminence not 
 only misses entirely the important reason why 
 divorce is sought by normal people, but he dis- 
 plays a dangerous disposition to discriminate 
 against the woman in divorce actions. He 
 would, by law land custom, make her bear the 
 burden and the blame, as she did in that indef- 
 inite former time, to which he refers. 
 
 Singularly enough, divorce, which is the 
 83 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE TEE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 only means of escape from a condition filled 
 "with possibilities of evil, is itself generally re- 
 garded an evil. This is a popular error which 
 leads many minds astray at the outset. 
 
 The evil, or apparent evil, lies back of the 
 court action, and will be found not in the di- 
 vorce, but in the circumstances preceding the 
 filing of the petition — the reason and the cause 
 for the divorce. 
 
 To prohibit divorce, or to render it diffi- 
 cult or onerous; or to taboo or ostracise those 
 who must accept its refuge, is to multiply and 
 to intensify the very evil conditions that the 
 peace and common good of society demand shall 
 be corrected. 
 
 Divorce is an effect of our matrimonial 
 mistakes, not the cause : it is not a disease, but 
 rather the unmistakable indication of the exis- 
 tence of a diseased condition, and no restrict- 
 ive or prohibitive divorce legislation can avail 
 to better our unfortunate social plight, so long 
 as the necessity for divorce continues to exist. 
 The effective remedy will not deal with symp- 
 toms, but will go directly to the seat and root 
 of the disorder. 
 
 84 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Divorce, a factor In Moral up-lift of Society — ^the Dakota 
 "Omnibus Clause" — The "itodeil" IDlivorce Bill framed 
 1)7 the Fhiladelphia (Tongress, not a Remedy but an 
 Irritant— Attitude of State indefensible — The Sane and 
 Moral may not hope for Relief under the proposed 
 Statute — Popfes and Priests not final Authority. 
 
 IN many instances divorce is a real blessing 
 and makes for the development of better men 
 and women, and consequently is an impor- 
 tant factor in the moral up-lift of society. 
 
 Before entering upon a defense of this posi- 
 tion it will be proper to briefly consider some 
 suggested reforms that are occupying the at- 
 tention of the country. 
 
 The general agitation of the so-called 
 "marriage question" which has been going on 
 during the past decade, with increasing feeling 
 and fervency, has set in motion many reforms 
 more or less radical, for special legislation in 
 nearly all the States of the Union. 
 
 Moralists, lawgivers and sociologists have 
 from time to time contributed much valuable 
 
 85 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 information to the general fund upon the sub- 
 ject, and as a result a question which for cen- 
 turies had been arbitrarily settled according to 
 a fixed rule, is now become a mooted and de- 
 bated issue. 
 
 The active participation in the discussion, 
 by some of the best scientific minds, has had 
 the effect of staying any precipitate action 
 along ill-advised lines, until a careful investi- 
 gation could be had of the existing laws and 
 the experience derived from their operation. 
 This knowledge is certainly important and es- 
 sential to the success of any remedial or re- 
 formative legislation. 
 
 One of the greatest difficulties encountered 
 by those who would recast the marriage laws 
 was found in the wide differences existing in 
 the various States, relative to the causes for 
 divorce, and what is known to lawyers as pro- 
 cedure and practice. 
 
 It was found that so long as the legal pro- 
 cedure differed in different States, it was quite 
 impossible to determine the real value of the 
 law in any particular State. 
 
 The State of South Carolina, for instance, 
 has no provision for the granting of divorce. 
 The new Constitution, adopted in 1895, express- 
 ly prohibits divorce and divorce legislation. 
 
 86 
 
SOME SUGGESTED REFORMS. 
 
 This is tlie language: "Divorces from the 
 bonds of matrimony shall not be allowed in this 
 State." 
 
 New Hampshire occupies a position pro- 
 bably at the other extreme. The Constitution 
 of the State not only provides for divorce but 
 the statutes recognize fourteen causes for di- 
 vorce, any one of which is a sufficient ground 
 for a dissolution of the marriage contract. 
 
 In Georgia the trying suspense and the pain 
 necessarily incident to the ordeal of divorce is 
 unduly prolonged, and to no good purpose. The 
 Constitution provides that "no total divorces 
 shall be granted, except on the concurrent ver- 
 dicts of two juries at different terms of court. ' ' 
 Eight causes for divorce, however, are recog- 
 nized by the statutes. 
 
 It has been the settled policy of New York, 
 for years, to grant divorce for adultery alone, 
 while in the State of Washington, and until re- 
 cently in South Dakota and Utah, the law 
 makes it the duty of the court to grant divorce 
 when it appears "that for any reason, the par- 
 ies cannot live together in peace and happiness; 
 and when their general welfare seems to require 
 separation." 
 
 It was against this section of the Dakota 
 law, known as the "Omnibus Clause" that the 
 
 87 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 churchwise of every State wrote and declaimed. 
 These "holier than thou" conservators of other 
 people's morals could see in the operation of 
 this law only moral chaos and social ruin. No 
 sane argument was at any time advanced in de- 
 fense of their course, but their whole conten- 
 tion was based upon the single theory that the 
 law must be bad, because there was no Scrip- 
 tural authority for its existence. 
 
 The writer wishes to record himself, here, 
 as a subscriber to the spirit and letter of this 
 "obnoxious" section of the Dakota law, and to 
 add that, if in his power, he would write it into 
 every statute book between the two Oceans. In 
 his opinion, there is indicated in this laiv the 
 only humane, moral and civilized course, in di- 
 vorce proceedings, that a humane, moral and civ- 
 ilized people have any justification in pursuing. 
 
 The "Omnibus Clause" was finally repeal- 
 ed, but, be it said to the credit of the Dakota 
 Legislature, not because of the senseless and 
 frenzied crusade of fanatics, but for the ample 
 reason that the good people of South Dakota 
 resented the besmirching of the fair .name of 
 their State by transplanted scandals, that 
 should have been confined to the environment 
 of their making. 
 
 88 
 
SOME SUGGESTED REFORMS. 
 
 But this Dakota experiment developed two 
 interesting, important and significant facts 
 that should be carefully weighed by those w^ho 
 still cherish the hope or belief that the solution 
 of the divorce problem lies either in abolishing 
 or in unduly restricting the causes for which 
 divorce may be granted. 
 
 FiKST : This law which was held to be such 
 a menace to social order, did not demoralize the 
 people of South Dakota, and did not materially 
 increase the number of divorces granted to bona 
 fide residents of the State. 
 
 Second: The largest number of those un- 
 fortunates who migrated to Dakota in search of 
 freedom from intolerable conditions, that their 
 home States declined to relieve, came from^ 
 South Carolina, the only State in the Union 
 which has, for nearly forty years, persistently 
 refused to recognize or sanction divorce. 
 
 This stem policy of the South Carolina 
 Legislature in refusing to grant legal separa- 
 tions, under any circumstances, has, of course, 
 entirely wiped out divorce actions in that State, 
 but no normal man will contend that this obdu- 
 rate and unyielding attitude of the Carolinian 
 law-makers has changed human nature, made 
 homes happier, or in any degree advanced do- 
 mestic felicity in the Palmetto State. 
 
 89 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 The failure of the South Carolina Constitu- 
 tion to make provision for divorce is either a 
 cowardly concession to the arrogance of igno- 
 rance, and priestly presumption, or it is a de- 
 liberate brutality, designed by brutal men for 
 the humiliation, degradation and enslavement of 
 noble women, who must endure with unavailing 
 protest, the cruelty and infidelity of recreant 
 husbands. 
 
 A serious movement, having for its con- 
 trolling purpose the adoption by all the States 
 of a uniform divorce law, was inaugurated in 
 the City of Washington early in 1906. 
 
 Forty-one States of the Union were repre- 
 sented in the convention which assembled. It 
 was a formidable gathering made up of men 
 and women drawn from various of the higher 
 walks of life, and, apparently qualified to furn- 
 ish the world with much new and saving light 
 upon a grave and exceedingly vexed question. 
 
 After a session of one week, marked by the 
 introduction of radical land revolutionary pro- 
 posals, some brilliant debate, and the eloquence 
 of earnestness, the convention adopted a set of 
 resolutions and adjourned. In the fall of the 
 same year, the congress reassembled in the city 
 of Philadelphia and proceeded promptly to the 
 
 90 
 
SOME SUGGESTED REFORMS. 
 
 framing of a statute, which the legislatures of 
 the various States would be called upon to 
 adopt, and to write into their laws. 
 
 Great public interest had been awakened by 
 the spirit of the early deliberations of the con- 
 vention, and the announcement of its findings 
 was awaited with high expectations, but the 
 law, as finally drafted, was a keen disappoint- 
 ment to those who expected something at least 
 approaching a solution of the great problem 
 discussed. One of the members of the Conmiit- 
 tee on Resolutions, being interviewed, declared 
 apologetically that: "While the real question 
 at issue has not been touched, it is my belief 
 that the general adoption of the statute will do 
 away with much scandal and many abuses in 
 administration, which characterize the opera- 
 tion of present divorce laws. ' ' 
 
 It is the same old barbarous law of the Old 
 Testament, and is probably a cowardly surren- 
 der to tradition, prejudice and convention, and 
 leaves the great problems presented by the pre- 
 vailing condition of "marital unrest" just 
 where the Congress found them. 
 
 "With the exception of an unnecessarily 
 cruel provision requiring courts to withhold fin- 
 al decree of divorce, in all cases, until one year 
 
 91 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 after judgment is entered, the law presents 
 nothing new in principle or practice. 
 
 Under the proposed uniform law, a divorce 
 may be granted only for certain definite causes 
 which are specified in the statute and one of 
 which every unhappy petitioner is required to 
 plead under oath. They are as follows: 
 
 Adultery, 
 
 Bigamy, 
 
 Willful desertion, for two years. 
 
 Habitual drunkenness, for two years, 
 
 Conviction of crime and continuous impris- 
 onment, for at least two years, 
 
 Extreme cruelty, ' ' such as to endanger the 
 life or health" of the other party; or 
 
 Hopeless insanity. 
 
 The presumption of the State, under this 
 law, is that crime and lunacy are the only dis- 
 solvents of the marriage bond. 
 
 No other causes for divorce are recognized, 
 and the crime is specified, and limited to a 
 singularly offensive sort ; and the lunacy must 
 be an incurable condition. 
 
 This is where the writer takes issue with 
 the rash reformers who framed that measure; 
 and with all the good-intentioned, but over-zeal- 
 ous and ill-advised people, who would now inflict 
 it upon the country. 
 
 92 
 
SOME SUGGESTED REFORMS. 
 
 The adoption of this law by all the States 
 will mean that a premium will be placed upon 
 faithlessness, brutality and crime. 
 
 It will mean that self-respecting and repu- 
 table people, whose magnetic forces have ceased 
 to blend, may not hope for escape or relief un- 
 der the law. 
 
 It will mean that in some extreme cases the 
 awful alternative of murder and suicide will 
 grimly answer the unnatural requirements of 
 the statute. 
 
 It will mean that the curse of unwelcome 
 children will continue to blight the race ; and it 
 will mean that an imdeserved stigma and a re- 
 proach will always attach to divorce, and dis- 
 grace and scandal will follow both the culpable 
 and the innocent. 
 
 This measure fails to touch, even remotely 
 the evil it is expected to overcome, as its fram- 
 ers have sadly failed to recognize the relation 
 of matrimony to economic and social conditions. 
 Dissoluteness, profligacy, drunkenness, 
 cruelty, desertion and abandonment on the part 
 of husbands and wives, are aU the effects of a 
 cause that lies deep in our defective social sys- 
 tem and which present laws not only do not 
 reach, but rather encourage and aggravate. 
 All of these deplorable consequences might be 
 
 93 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 avoided and rendered practically impossible 
 by the enactment of a wise, humane and civil- 
 ized law that would permit the timely separa- 
 tion of people whose lives no longer center 
 in each other. 
 
 The proposed law utterly disregards the 
 rights of honorable men, and the higher rights 
 of worthy women, and takes no note whatever 
 of the rights of the billion unborn who are 
 coming this way. 
 
 For these, and other reasons, the writer 
 condemns this law and protests against it with 
 all the ardor of his nature; with all the force 
 of his being; with every fibre of his soul. 
 
 The attitude of the State, under the pro- 
 visions of this proposed law, towards those who 
 seek a dissolution of the marriage contract, is 
 indefensible upon any ground except the single 
 one that it conforms to the implied Scriptural 
 injunction contained in the language of the Old 
 Testament, that marriage is the union of one 
 man and one woman for life. 
 
 Human experience and court records have 
 demonstrated that marriage is not a life union, 
 notwithstanding the "inspired" position of the 
 Scriptures on that point. It may be so in prin- 
 ciple, but this is an intensely practical age, and 
 we are beginning to find out that human happi- 
 
 94 
 
SOME SUGGESTED REFORMS. 
 
 ness depends upon living life much as we find 
 it. It is also being disclosed that only one 
 thing can insure the stability and lasting char- 
 acter of the marriage tie, and that one thing 
 is Love. 
 
 Where true love exists, violations of the 
 marriage rights or obligations by either hus- 
 band or wife, are impossible, but when love has 
 passed, hate may be in the next degree, and 
 every evil thing is possible. 
 
 Instead of requiring the filing of such 
 charges by those who feel warranted in seeking 
 a dissolution of the marriage bonds, the law 
 should discourage, if not expressly prohibit, 
 such a course. 
 
 And the public recording of any of these 
 charges and the discussion in open court of 
 their sad and sometimes revolting details is 
 inexcusable. 
 
 The public were not a party to the making 
 of the contract, and are not rightfully concern- 
 ed in the breaking of it. Publicity in such mat- 
 ters can serve no good purpose. It has no 
 deterrent effect and conveys no moral lesson. 
 
 What can be the theory of the State? 
 What is its purpose and aim? 
 Does it intend to make the divorce pro- 
 95 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 ceeding so arduous and disgraceful that only 
 the desperate or disreputable will have the 
 hardihood to undertake it? 
 
 Does it design to deny divorce to sane, 
 moral and considerate people, and open its 
 blessed refuge only to the vile, the recreant or 
 the demented? 
 
 Does it hope that the necessity for divorce 
 will be done away with, or that the conditions 
 which tend to and demand divorce will disap- 
 pear or be overcome, if the difficulties of secur- 
 ing a legal separation are multiplied? 
 
 Does it dream that men may be made moral 
 by law, that love of husband or wife or child 
 may flow from legislative enactment? 
 
 Or is it possible that the statutory causes 
 set out in this proposed bill are designedly made 
 obnoxious to the moral sense of decent people? 
 
 Can it be conceived that the framers of this 
 measure have deliberately devised a law that 
 shall require of the unhappily mated that they 
 shall continue in their unfortunate union until 
 such time as they are willing, in their despera- 
 tion, to' submit to, or to do some terrible thing? 
 
 May they not be permitted to anticipate 
 the possibilities of human weakness and avert, 
 by timely divorce, the very things which this 
 
 96 
 
SOME SUGGESTED REFORMS. 
 
 law demands as conditions precedent to their 
 separation? 
 
 Will it be contended that there is anything 
 conforming to a rational sense of rectitude or 
 morals, in a law which forces a sensitive wife to 
 live with an indifferent and brutal husband in 
 an atmosphere of strife and contention ; to bear 
 indignities and insults and assaults, imtil these 
 repeated abuses reach a point where her life is 
 endangered? 
 
 Why should she be required to wait until 
 she has suffered some lasting injury, or until 
 some criminal wrong has been done her? 
 
 Decency and justice are outraged by such a 
 measure and the moral sense revolts against its 
 adoption ! 
 
 There is something almost diabolical about 
 this law. It is monstrous from every point of 
 view. Its limitations are without sense or rea- 
 son ; its specifications conform to no sane stand- 
 ard of justice, and its philosophy is without 
 moral or rational reach. 
 
 It is calculated by its terms and implied 
 requirements to engender and intensify the 
 very evil conditions that the well being of so- 
 ciety demand shall be removed. 
 
 Its authors have jumped to the false and 
 97 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 illogical conclusion that Divorce is an evil, and 
 on that account should be abolished, or render- 
 ed as nearly impossible as the law can make it, 
 without considering the consequences to society 
 of such legislation. 
 
 Divorce is not an evil, but on the contrary 
 it is a good and a commendable thing. 
 
 To many, many thousands it has come as 
 an unmeasured blessing. Of course it is the 
 remedy of last resort, but it is the only lawful 
 and honorable way out of a situation that has 
 become insufferable. In fact, it is the only sane 
 and moral means by which relief may be had 
 from strained relations which, in the natural 
 order of things, might lead to evil conse- 
 quences. 
 
 Divorce is the saving alternative, when hu- 
 man endurance and magnanimity and heroic 
 sacrifice can no longer avail. It is the one last 
 hope — the life line, cast by the statute to the 
 exhausted and sinking swimmer. Verily, di- 
 vorce is the choice between good and evil, be- 
 tween freedom and slavery; peace and war; 
 heaven and hell, that the State, in the interest 
 of the public weal, wisely extends to the unhap- 
 py victims of matrimonial mistakes. 
 
 However, the way you look at it may make 
 98 
 
SOME SUGGESTED REFORMS. 
 
 all the difference in the world. Your view 
 point — your habits of thought — your method of 
 reasoning — ^your prejudies — ^your training — 
 your knowledge of human nature — your expe- 
 rience ; in short, your mental attitude, in what- 
 ever manner to be accounted for, must bias or 
 broaden your judgment. 
 
 If you believe that the marriage bond is 
 indissoluble and that popes and priests are the 
 final authority upon the question, then you are 
 simply unfortunate : you are allowing prejudice 
 and church predilections to pervert and distort 
 your view of certain important facts of life. 
 
 Human experience counts for something, 
 and may not be ignored or passed as of no 
 value. The practical knowledge of mankind, 
 representing the cumulated wisdom of society 
 gained by observation and trial, is always rele- 
 vant and material to all matters of vital con- 
 cern in the affairs of men. 
 
 And, in the light of past experience, we 
 may safely reason that the world — a decade or 
 so hence — ^will hold radically different views 
 about marriage and divorce, about the home, 
 and the family — not because the world is grow- 
 ing worse, but on the contrary because the 
 world is growing wisely better, and great moral 
 advances are being made in every direction. 
 
 99 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS, 
 
 The prevailing home ideals will surely 
 pass, and yet higher standards will be raised. 
 A nobler conception of brotherhood will find 
 lodgment in the hearts and minds of men ; and 
 neither class nor clan nor kindred will serve 
 to estrange men, or draw them closer together. 
 
 It is only a matter of time when Society 
 will alter its opinion about divorce, and reverse 
 its judgment of the divorcee. It will recognize 
 the operation of a natural law, in the honest 
 yearnings of the soul, that will not be bound by 
 creeds or conventions; and it will sincerely 
 sympathize with the man and the woman who 
 are willing to own their matrimonial failure, 
 and to give-up, rather than attempt to defy fate 
 and senselessly contend against the inevitable. 
 It will honor and esteem many of those whom 
 it now would reproach and banish from its 
 favor, and it will reserve its censure and its 
 condemnation for those shameless hypocrites, 
 who make a mockery of marriage by persisting 
 in wedlock, after love has flown. 
 
 This prediction may savor a bit of the ex- 
 treme and revolutionary, but it will be found 
 entirely within the reasonable probabilities, 
 if we consider the process by which all real 
 moral advance has been accomplished. 
 
 100 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Fixed beliefs give way before th)B awakening Conscience — 
 An eiamplie of the Crude moral notions of some of 
 our God-fearing prog|enltors — Divorce, the Safety valve 
 of Society — ^Heedless Reformers fail to note element of 
 Chance In all Human affairs — Thie Law and the Gospel 
 demand of the Unhappily married that they shall Hate 
 each other — ^The Law of Compensation. 
 
 PROGrRESS is a growth — an out-growing 
 of the old way or the old thing — ^and 
 it depends upon a relegating, as bad and 
 useless and unavailng, of the very thing that 
 once was considered good and needful and nec- 
 essary. We are not responsible for this. It 
 is a wise provision in the economy of nature 
 whereby, very likely, the old material is worked 
 over; in any event, it is the law — before we can 
 build-up, we must first tear down. 
 
 We have only to refer to the well authenti- 
 cated annals of our own Colonial time to find 
 many examples that tend to show how fixed 
 beliefs and well established customs were forc- 
 ed to give way before the awakening conscience. 
 We there witnesis the almost ruthless shat- 
 101 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 tering of long cherished ideals, and we can 
 appreciate in some degree the frenzied opposi- 
 tion by the religious zealots of the period, who 
 loudly proclaimed that the reforms being agi- 
 tated meant "a turning away from God" and 
 therefore the ruin and demoralization of so- 
 ciety. But the "turn" was made, and as yet 
 the threatened calamities have not overtaken 
 the people. 
 
 At this distance in years, and by virtue of 
 our added wisdom we have come to know that 
 the ideals of these crude and credulous church 
 folk were based upon narrow notions as regards 
 right and wrong, and we now realize that their 
 destruction was essential to real moral growth. 
 
 Some two hundred years ago, it was con- 
 sidered an evil thing if a man kissed his wife 
 on Sunday. Thousands of good, so-called God- 
 fearing-people in this country seriously believed 
 that. Every student of our early history knows 
 that to be a fact. It seems almost too extraor- 
 dinary to admit of belief that there lived at 
 any time on this continent a civilized people who 
 could so deceive themselves or so far libel the 
 goodness and wisdom of God. But, it is an 
 historical fact that one Captain Kemble of Bos- 
 ton was required to sit for two hours in the 
 town stocks, because on his return from a voy- 
 
 102 
 
SOME SUGGESTED REFORMS. 
 
 age, and an absence of three years, he 
 affectionattely folded Ms wife in his arms, and 
 kissed her — ^without first consulting his calen- 
 dar. The devoted Kemble was formally 
 charged with "lewd and unseemly behavior, 
 which consisted in kissmg his wife publicly on 
 the Sabbath day." 
 
 The mental attitude, as was pointed out in 
 a preceding chapter, has changed somewhat 
 towards that particular fact of life; and what 
 has happened — ^just this : The very thing that 
 was at one time regarded as a violation of Q-od's 
 law and a desecration of God's day, has come 
 to be looked upon as the proper and right 
 thing, and is now — in the light of this civiliza- 
 tion — a credit to both the law and the day, 
 without regard to special ownership. 
 
 That which was considered "lewd and un- 
 seemly" by some of our over zealous progeni- 
 tors, has of late become quite decent, decorous 
 and dignified. A little more reason, and a little 
 less religious bigotry have wrought this miracle. 
 The alchemistic union of honest doubt, rational 
 ideals and intelligent deductions have trans- 
 muted the seemingly base metal into the purest 
 gold ; and this has taken place before our very 
 eyes, so to speak. 
 
 What has really happened? 
 103 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 Our notions, concerning certain things, 
 liave undergone a change. This particular act 
 was never evil, or lewd, or unseemly — it was 
 always good and pure and beautiful. 
 
 We are growing morally, and are gradually 
 becoming more truly civilized. 
 
 We have come to see more nearly aright — 
 that's all. 
 
 No man, in that past day, would dare to 
 trifle with the wrath of heaven, or so far pre- 
 sume upon the mercy of God as to kiss his 
 sweetheart on the Sabbath day. 
 
 There was possibly one extenuating fea- 
 ture to that old puritanical blue law. It re- 
 quired of lovers that they take formal leave of 
 each other, at a fairly seasonable hour on Sat- 
 urday nights. 
 
 Let us go back in imagination to that in- 
 tensely Christian period of our history. 
 
 It is Saturday night ; and, in fancy we be- 
 hold two ardent wooers watching the minute 
 hand on the dial. The hour hand already points 
 to the end. 
 
 Every thundering tick of the clock brings 
 them nearer to the inevitable moment. 
 
 Wistful of eye, but heavy of heart, they re- 
 luctantly prepare to satisfy the hard and un- 
 
 104 
 
SOME SUGGESTED REFORMS. 
 
 yielding requirement of the law — to close-up at 
 twelve. 
 
 In just two minutes, it will be the Lord's 
 blessed day (the day on which most really 
 blessed things are barred) and we witness those 
 lingering lovers, wavering there — on the very 
 brink of perdition — ^between doubt and fear, 
 between love and duty, and then, failing of 
 heart, engage in an almost desperate rush for 
 that final embrace, which shall last through 
 twenty-four duU, empty, uneventful hours. 
 
 But, to return to the subject. 
 
 Divorce is not an evil. 
 
 The institution, itself, must not be con- 
 fused with the acts of those who would abuse 
 its offices. It is not to be charged with respon- 
 sibility, or held accountable for the motives and 
 purposes of moral bankrupts, who lightly re- 
 gard the most sacred relations of life, and who 
 seek the intervention of the Courts to justify 
 misconduct, or as a means of escape from 
 rightful obligations. 
 
 That evil-minded people sometimes seek 
 divorce, is not to be denied; that the methods 
 employed are frequently evil is quite well estab- 
 Ushed; that vicious people have been known to 
 employ divorce for wicked ends is sadly true, 
 
 105 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 but none of these facts tend to show that a legal 
 dissolution of the marriage contract is an evil, 
 or that it is not entirely right and proper, and 
 a wholesome provision of the law. 
 
 Divorce, in practice and principle, is op- 
 posed to the Scriptural theory that marriages 
 are made in heaven, and that the sundering of 
 the marriage tie involves a wicked or criminal 
 thing. 
 
 If divorce is an evil, then it is a good and 
 a holy thing for men and women who are mag- 
 netically repellent and temperamentally repug- 
 nant to persist in a state of wedlock — to bicker 
 and contend and wrangle and scold and hate — 
 ■until sweet death do them part. 
 
 If divorce is an evil, then crimination and 
 recrimination are virtues to be practiced and 
 extolled. 
 
 If divorce is an evil, then acrimony and 
 strife and discord and animosity and malignant 
 hatred are born of heaven, and woe be to that 
 impious and debased creature who would dare 
 to supplant them with kindliness and concord 
 and harmony and companionship and sympa- 
 thetic love. 
 
 If divorce is an evil, then the affinities of 
 106 
 
SOME SUGGESTED REFORMS. 
 
 nature are a lie and a delusion, and need not 
 concern us — 
 
 But, there is a subtle law back of the "likes 
 and dislikes" that mortals form, and it is a 
 part of our duty to find it out and to conform 
 our lives and laws to it — not to antagonize it, 
 or strive to overmatch it with doctrinal decrees 
 and conventional commands. 
 
 Divorce is the safety valve of Society. It 
 is the device of the law that relieves the burst- 
 ing tension of over-wrought temperaments, and 
 makes it possible to bring peace and quiet out 
 of rancor and rebellion. 
 
 It is the judicious compromise, provided by 
 the statute, for those who cannot carry out their 
 marital contract; and in the vast majority of 
 cases Divorce is a prudent preventive measure, 
 of proven value, against possible evil conse- 
 quences, and should be regarded as a social 
 necessity and a moral duty and not an evil. 
 
 The heedless reformers who framed this 
 "model" divorce law, which they now propose 
 to write into the statutes of the various States, 
 seem to have entirely ignored the element of 
 chance that enters into all human affairs. 
 
 In their evident anxiety to shape their con- 
 clusions and recommendations in accordance 
 
 107 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 i»» 
 
 with the implied requirements of the "word' 
 they have neglected to make allowance for hon- 
 est mistakes. They have made no provision for 
 those who suffer because of conditions, not of 
 their own making — the unhappy victims of cir- 
 cumstance, or those who fail notwithstanding 
 the most solemn resolutions and the most heroic 
 efforts to bear and to forbear. 
 
 They have given no thought to a solution 
 of the problem presented by the case of those 
 hapless mortals who after an experience of 
 weeks, months or years, discover in themselves 
 temperamental differences that cannot be over- 
 come or lived down, and who realize the utter 
 impossibility of drawing closer to each other. 
 
 What relief does this law afford the moral, 
 the sensitive, the unselfish who, without desir- 
 ing it, have grown away from each other? 
 
 What of the pure of heart, the worthy of 
 purpose, the noble of mind, who happen to be- 
 come unfortunately allied, and who realize the 
 utter futility of attempting to harmonize the pe- 
 culiar contrarieties of their natures? 
 
 What of those who have come to know as a 
 somber fact that their marriage was a mistake; 
 who feel it a duty to themselves and society to 
 dissolve their union ; who do not hate each other, 
 but, on the contrary, are each deeply and devot- 
 
 108 
 
SOME SUGGESTED REFORMS. 
 
 edly concerned in the welfare of the other; and 
 who are ready to make any personal sacrifice 
 that their natures will let them make, but who 
 heroically refuse to defile and defame each oth- 
 er before the public? What note has been tak- 
 en of these; what thought of their hapless 
 plight? 
 
 This is not a forced statement or an unduly 
 colored picture. Nothing here is borrowed 
 from romance. These are not mythical beings 
 that fancy-flit in story books, or are content to 
 dwell within the mimic marches of the stage, but 
 they are real, living, heavy-laden souls. 
 
 The world is filled with such drifting and 
 drowning human wreckage. Their name is le- 
 gion. They figure in every walk and station of 
 life. They dwell unknown in every community. 
 They are constrained by a nobility of character 
 or a sense of pride to conceal and stifle every 
 outward mark of their inward woe. Their se- 
 cret sorrow lies buried in their hearts, away 
 from wagging tongues, but their lives are deso- 
 late and their anguished souls are constantly in 
 eclipse. 
 
 What provision does the law make for the 
 relief or comfort of such unfortunates? 
 
 They are required by the implied conditions 
 of this proposed measure to sacrifice their lives 
 
 109 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 and endure to the end the unspeakable torment 
 that the knowledge of their unhappy state 
 brings to them, or they must learn to hate each 
 other. 
 
 There is no other alternative. 
 
 This is the law and the gospel. 
 
 And this, in the light of Twentieth Century 
 Civilization, and in a land where the pursuit of 
 happiness is declared to be a/n inalienable right! 
 
 Is it not a monstrous law that takes no note 
 of the worthy and the pure, but reserves its bene- 
 fits solely for the vicious, the degenerate, the 
 inhuman, the inebriate, the perverse, the moral- 
 ly abandoned, or the demented; for those only 
 who have become odious and detestable to each 
 other, or for those shameless creatures who, 
 having forfeited every sense of honor and self- 
 respect, are willing to flaunt their infidelity be- 
 fore the public! 
 
 Is it not a cruel and barbarous law which 
 demands the debasing of one's self, or the de- 
 famation of the character of one who once was 
 loved, in order to escape unbearable conditions, 
 which, in truth, Fate and Destiny had more to 
 do in the making than the poor victims who cry 
 for help! 
 
 There is no justification in law or morals 
 for the life-duration of the marriage contract. 
 
 110 
 
SOME SUGGESTED REFORMS. 
 
 There is no scientific or ethical reason why 
 it should not be terminated by the mutual con- 
 sent of the parties making the contract. 
 
 But the law expressly prohibits the grant- 
 ing of divorce where collusion or agreement of 
 the parties is admitted or discovered. 
 
 It would appear that the mutual consent 
 and expressed desire of the parties themselves, 
 that they be legally separated, should be the 
 best possible reason why Divorce in their case 
 should be granted. 
 
 It cannot justly be presumed that any 
 court or jury is better qualified to determine 
 what such people require than are they them- 
 selves ; and it is a serious question whether or 
 not the peace and order and general well-being 
 of society woxild be better conserved if courts 
 had no discretion under such circumstances, but 
 were required to enter upon the record formal 
 notice of the dissolution of all such partner- 
 ships, "by mutual agreement." 
 
 The utter futility of attempting to secure a 
 Divorce on the simple, sane and sufficient 
 ground: "We do not any longer love each other; 
 we are unhappy; we have agreed to separate," 
 holds together thousands of mismated people in 
 
 111 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 a galling bondage which, in the nature of things, 
 must become intolerable. 
 
 It seems cruelly wrong to require two peo- 
 ple to live together, whose natures have grown 
 apart — ^whose desires and tastes are no longer 
 in accord, simply because they are unwilling to 
 do or to charge any of the dreadful things which 
 are specified as statutory causes for Divorce!! 
 
 The State influenced by ecclesiastical un- 
 reasoning, undertakes to punish those who are 
 unfortunate in their marriage. They are made 
 responsible because of their failure to draw 
 prizes in a lottery in which Fate had staked the 
 cards against them. They are required to do 
 penance all the rest of their lives ; forced to live 
 in an atmosphere of inharmony and under con- 
 ditions that afford no distraction from their 
 unhappy plight; to be tormented by hopes that 
 can never be realized and tortured by anxious 
 yearnings that may never be gratified ; to spend 
 their fruitful days and their declining years in 
 the desolute solitude of an unloved companion- 
 ship. 
 
 It is nothing short of a brutal outrage of 
 common decency that any law of God or man 
 should require two unmated, unloved people to 
 live in wedlock. 
 
 And common decency may not be outraged 
 112 
 
SOME SUGGESTED REFORMS. 
 
 in this way with impunity. There is a penalty 
 attaching to every offense which must be paid to 
 the last farthing. There is no escape ; and there 
 is no conjecture about this. Society bears its 
 millions of scars to prove the truth of what is 
 here set down. 
 
 Compensation is the Law, the Judge and the 
 Jury! 
 
 In that Court, there is never a miscarriage 
 of justice; no clemency is shown; no one is 
 "white washed" or even permitted to plead 
 "not guilty;" there's never a hung jury; never 
 a mis-trial; there's always a verdict, and it is 
 final. There is no appeal ; no setting aside of 
 the finding ; no new trial ; no parole or pardon, 
 but the penalty must be paid. 
 
 The continuation of the marriage bond af- 
 ter love has ceased is not only immoral but it is 
 monstrous and barbarous. It is destructive of 
 the high purpose of the home life and works 
 an irreparable wrong to society and the race. 
 
 Children born of such a union cannot be 
 normal children, because the conditions of their 
 begetting are not normal, and right here is 
 where the law of compensation operates, — 
 where Nature evens the score and gives back 
 
 113 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE TEE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 to society the defective and degenerate product 
 of its own perverted system. 
 
 This is not the mere vagary of an alarm- 
 ist, but a startling fact that may well engage 
 the thoughtful consideration of serious people. 
 Science is rapidly demonstrating that crime is 
 a disease and that a predisposition to crime is 
 occasioned by deficient tissue; that this defi- 
 ciency of tissue results from pre-natal causes 
 and that these pre-natal causes are traceable to 
 incompatability of temperament in parents. 
 Indeed, the propensity to vice and crime is "in 
 the blood." May we not by this process of 
 reasoning, accounit in some manner, for many 
 of the unnatural crimes that continually shock 
 our civilization and for which penalties and 
 punishment, even to the forfeiting of life, have 
 no deterrent effect! 
 
 Will any one contend that roses may 
 spring from thistles ; that love may be begotten 
 of haite? 
 
 If more serious thought were given to the 
 scientific correction of this palpable and ap- 
 palling evil, resulting from the enforced marital 
 relaition of mis-mated people, instead of at- 
 tempting to square present conditions and 
 needs, to obsolete and dead philosophies, hu- 
 
 114 
 
SOME SUGGESTED REFORMS. 
 
 inanity would in truth commence an upward 
 march. 
 
 A priest was once asked why it was that so 
 many people belonging to Churches found their 
 way into penitentiaries, mad-houses and poor 
 farms. 
 
 The priest answered, rather adroitly, that 
 very few active members of Christian Churches 
 reached such ends, but fully ninety per cent of 
 those so confined had parted from their early 
 teaching and had brought upon themselves ruin 
 and disaster, as a result of their recreancy to 
 the Church. 
 
 And thus the world has reasoned and con- 
 cluded for more than a thousand years, un- 
 mindful all the while of the canker that has been 
 gnawing at its very vitals. 
 
 It is, nevertheless, a palpable and suggest- 
 ive fact that a vast majority of those people 
 who lead dissolute lives and end up disastrous- 
 ly, all had the benefit of early Christian train- 
 ing. 
 
 The Church itself is responsible, in a much 
 larger degree, than any other agency, for the 
 existence of crime and poverty and disease— 
 the trinity of horrors that mock our civilization. 
 
 In all the ages which the Church has inf lu- 
 115 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 enced or dominated the minds of men, it has 
 ever posed as the special conservator of the 
 world's morals, while at the same time, it has 
 abetted and directed the development of a per- 
 verted moral system which has augmented the 
 growth and spread throughout the world of this 
 condition which humanity now deplore. So the 
 Church must bear the large responsibility be- 
 cause of its lamentable failure to stamp out or 
 to reduce in any degree either poverty, disease, 
 or crime. 
 
 The Church has taught men to genuflect 
 and to believe, never to stand erect and to rea- 
 son ; to fear and to pray but never to think and 
 to know. The natural laws that encompass us 
 about have been defied and set at naught in 
 order that priestly men might perpetuate a 
 priestly graft. 
 
 Scientific men have long ago pointed out 
 the dangers to society to result from the chil- 
 dren of loveless marriages. It has been known 
 that children bom under unnatural conditions 
 and reared amid uncongenial surroundings suf- 
 fer in their mental and moral development, but 
 no church authority has ever uttered a sound or 
 written a line upon this vital subject. The 
 tMng sought for was numbers ; chance would be 
 taken as *to quality. 
 
 116 
 
SOME SUGGESTED REFORMS. 
 
 The Church has denied to its membership 
 the right to marry with those of a different 
 faith. There has been no reason, in sense or 
 morals, for this indefensible boycoitt, but the 
 Church has stood firm, until within the last few 
 golden years. 
 
 But in every instance, where the church has 
 relaxed her grip, or modified or tempered her 
 despotism in 'this respect, the recipients of her 
 "special dispensations" have been the rich and 
 the powerful ; her anathenaas and cruel interdic- 
 tions are now reserved alone for the poor, the 
 weak and the ignorant. 
 
 Babies ! and still more babies ! has been the 
 injunction, whether conditions were right or 
 not. Doubtful ones were assured that "God 
 would provide:" "the back would be prepared 
 for the burden," etc. Every "soldier of the 
 cross" became an asset of the church; a con- 
 tributor to the support of the priest; so why 
 not increase the niunber — the more the merrier 
 — the lower the mental quality, the better — for 
 the Church. 
 
 Those unfortunates who happened to be un- 
 happily married were told that they must bear 
 their lot with resignaition ; that having made 
 their bed, they must be content to lie in it; and 
 
 117 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 the Church could not countenance divorce be- 
 cause "what God hath joined together, no man 
 may put asunder." 
 
 In this cruel, ruithless way, coimtless thou- 
 sands of confiding faithful, have been duped 
 and deceived, and made to needlessly sacrifice 
 useful lives — countless thousands of homes 
 wherein only affectionate good will should pre- 
 side, have been transformed into the abodes of 
 hate and the breeding places of viciousness and 
 iniquity — chamel houses in which lie buried 
 the crucified hopes and yearnings of love's once 
 happy dream. 
 
 It may be well to add here, although some- 
 what of a digression from the subject in hand, 
 that the Bible-buttressed theory of sacrifice is 
 not consistent with the highest moral ideals. 
 Self abnegaition is not always a virtue. The 
 purpose sought and the motive prompting such 
 renunciation must be taken into consideration. 
 Self denial is only desirable or justifiable when 
 the good or happiness of others is accomplished 
 thereby. Then the one making the sacrifice re- 
 ceives the reward which always comes to him 
 who has the consciousness of having performed 
 a service to his fellow. But, sacrifice simply 
 for the sake of sacrifice, or for the selfish pur- 
 
SOME SUGGESTED REFORMS, 
 
 pose of "laying-up treasures in another world," 
 i^ails to comport with any approved precept of 
 good morals, besides, it is unnecessary and ab- 
 surd. 
 
 119 
 
The Rights of Women 
 in the Marriage Relation 
 
She 
 
 is my woman, 
 
 and 
 
 I'll 
 
 bend 
 
 her 
 
 to my 
 
 will? 
 
 
 
 
 
 (The old law, according to Scriptural and Ecclesi- ||| 
 
 astical 
 
 warrant.) 
 
 
 
 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 DIvorcte a prerogative sole'Iy of the Wife— The Husband 
 entitled to Divorce only when his Wife approves the 
 petition— A Wife should have Divorote on her demand 
 — The desire of a Wife to marry another man, a rea- 
 sonable ground for Divorce — There should be no es- 
 cape for the Husband from Civil obligations of Mar- 
 riage contract— The payment of Alimony imperative 
 and peremptory. 
 
 BEFORE announcing the more radical con- 
 clusions of this book the author wishes to 
 lay down two propositions which he holds 
 to be true and which follow as a logical deduc- 
 tion from the premises set forth in the preced- 
 ing chapters. His further and particular pur- 
 pose is to provide, if possible, a broad common 
 ground upon which he may meet all earnest stu- 
 dents of the subject in mutual accord and agree- 
 ment. 
 
 He is keenly sensible of the fact that many 
 of his readers will honestly differ from him, ill 
 their estimate of the institution of Matrimony; 
 and that they will not subscribe to all of his an- 
 nounced theories on the question of Divorce: 
 
 123 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 He has reason to believe that some may not fol- 
 low him sympathetically or approvingly in his 
 strictures on the Church, and its imputed rela- 
 tion to the marriage contract ; or in his attempt 
 to show, (in the succeeding chapters) the his- 
 toriQ hostility of the Church towards mothers 
 and wives. There will, of course, be some dis- 
 sent from his position respecting the special 
 rights of the wife, and the perpetuity of her 
 claim upon the husband for support. Possibly 
 others will not fully agree with him as to the 
 disposition of children in Divorce actions, etc., 
 etc., but he firmly believes that the opinions of 
 all right minded people must harmonize with his 
 own upon one great essential moral principle, 
 viz ; — that men and women should not hate, he- 
 cause they cannot love; and, that any marriage 
 system that requires, or even permits, mis- 
 mated and repellent natures to continue in a 
 condition of enforced wedlock spells disaster 
 to the race. 
 
 First — The man or the woman who marries 
 for place or position; for convenience or com- 
 petence; for relief from toil; for social prefer- 
 ment, strategy or spite; for commercial ad- 
 vancement, or opportunity, or for any other 
 
 124 
 
WOMEN IN THE MARRIAGE RELATION. 
 
 purpose, save love — absorbing, consuming love 
 — makes a sad and solemn mistake ! 
 
 Second — And, that man and woman, being 
 married, who persist in a state of wedlock after 
 love has passed, preferring to quarrel than to 
 quit; generating hatred instead of harmony— 
 who are slaves to custom and religious despot- 
 ism — ^make an equally sad and solemn mistake I 
 
 The loveless home, in which discord and 
 strife have taken the place of contentment and 
 peace, is an abomination and should not be 
 tolerated any longer than is absolutely neces- 
 sary. If a man and a woman, who are married, 
 discover that they are not congenial ; that they 
 are not any longer all in all to each other; if 
 they realize the inexpressible sorrow of a se- 
 rious temperamental incompatibility, a senti- 
 mental antagonism or a sexual repugnance, then 
 that man and that woman owe a duty to them- 
 selves and to society, and that duty is to sepa- 
 rate. 
 
 They are mis-mated ; they are magnetically 
 repellent, and are unfitted by that fact for the 
 duties and responsibilities of the marriage 
 state. 
 
 Under our system of mating, this condition 
 could not have been anticipated, and when 
 discovered to exist, the law should provide a 
 
 125 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 means for the prompt dissolution of the mar- 
 riage bond in aU such cases, without shame, 
 scandal or a sacrifice of self respect. 
 
 Are those who fail in their selection of mar- 
 riage partners to be forced to drag out miser- 
 able lives, on the senseless theory that perhaps 
 God might be displeased if they sought to find 
 happiness through other asspciations ? 
 
 Are such unfortunate people to be pun- 
 ished for a state of affairs they could not have 
 foreseen, certainly could not have desired, and 
 which they would gladly overcome if in their 
 power? 
 
 What good purpose can be served by the 
 infliction of such punishment? 
 
 If the closer relation of wedlock discloses the 
 mistakes of judgment during courtship, can 
 there be any warrant in law or morals or human 
 experience for the continuance of a condition 
 fraught with such evil consequences to society. 
 The great dangers here referred to, and 
 which it is presumed are understood by the 
 reader, can only be briefly touched in the course 
 of this passing review of the subject. However, 
 effort will be made in the ensuing pages, to af- 
 ford in some measure a new perspective of this 
 particular feature of the questioon ; in the hope 
 that general public interest may be awakened, 
 
 126 
 
WOMEN IN THE MARRIAGE RELATION. 
 
 and that better minds and abler pens will give 
 themselves to the discussion and solution of the 
 complex problem involved. 
 
 The right to engage one's self should carry 
 ■with it the right to withdraw from the engage- 
 ment; and the right to marry should imply the 
 right to un-marry or Divorce. 
 
 Under all circumstances, where the parties 
 to a marriage contract in good faith, mutually 
 agree to separate, a formal notice of that fact, 
 duly signed and attested should satisfy every 
 requirement of the civil law, and a certificate 
 of divorce should issue immediately upon the 
 filing of such notice. It being understood, of 
 course, that all such decrees may be set aside, 
 as in other civil proceedings, if it should later 
 develop that force, fraud or coercion had been 
 employed by either party to secure such agree- 
 ment. 
 
 It is the belief of the writer that the ends of 
 justice and the best interests of society would 
 be better served if a divorce were granted to 
 amy wife who was willing to ask for it. She 
 should not be required to subject herself to the 
 further humiliation of detailing for the delec- 
 tation of a curious and gossipy public, the in- 
 dignities she may have endured, or of con- 
 fessing any of her own frailties or mistakes. 
 
 127 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 The fact tliat sh.e desires a separation is 
 deeply significant. 
 
 If the man whom she once thought worthy 
 of her adoration has now become hateful, so 
 much so that she wishes to be released from 
 him, the law has no moral justification in re- 
 quiring her to remain subject to his pleasure 
 and power. She should be freed instantly, and 
 placed in a position to dictate to such a husband, 
 the terms of their future relation. 
 
 The rights of women are not fairly safe- 
 guarded by present marriage laws. Women are 
 entitled to more than the ordinary considera- 
 tion accorded to men; not alone because they 
 are women, but because they sometimes become 
 mothers. This is not merely a sentimental ex- 
 uberance, but is a suggestion for a defensive 
 measure — purely selfish — designed to better im- 
 prove the quality of the race, by removing as 
 much as possible those conditions that operate 
 to the detriment and disadvantage of progeny. 
 
 If a man finds himself unhappily allied 
 with a woman who has grown away from him, 
 or for whom he no longer entertains affection 
 or desire his sorrow is of a very different 
 character than that experienced by a woman 
 under like circumstances. He is exempt by his 
 nature from the great dangers that menace the 
 
 128 
 
WOMEN IN THE MARRIAGE RELATION. 
 
 ■wife, who is required to live in wedlock with a 
 man whom she does not love. 
 
 If a wife is forced to become a mother 
 against her will, or under conditions not pleas- 
 ing to her, the extreme mental anguish and con- 
 sequent nervous disturbance experienced by her, 
 under such circumstances, must find expres- 
 sion in her child. If we may accept this as a 
 fact, or even as a remote possibility, we are at 
 once impressed with the gravity of the situation, 
 and must appreciate the justice and wisdom of 
 according wives certain special privileges in 
 the marriage relation. These extra rights or 
 immunities of the wife should not only be rec- 
 ognized, but her exercise of them should be at 
 all times, entirely within her own discretion. 
 
 In all actions under the statute, growing out 
 of differences between married people, the 
 rights and demands of the wife should always 
 have precedence over those of the husband in 
 deference to her nature, her peculiar organism, 
 her special mission in life, and because of the 
 always present possibility of maternity. 
 
 In aU cases where the wife sues for divorce, 
 the decree of the Court should invariably go to 
 the plaintiff ; and in all divorce actions instituted 
 by the husband, but contested by the wife, the 
 
 129 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 Court should always sustain the contention of 
 the defendant, especially if she sets up in her 
 petition that she loves her husband, and sin- 
 cerely desires to continue as Ms wife. 
 
 The actual pleasure of the wife is the most 
 important thing to be determined by the court, 
 and having established her real desire — unin- 
 fluenced by threats or promises of reward, the 
 court should always grant the petition of the 
 wife. If she does not desire to continue a wife- 
 ly relation with her husband, she certainly does 
 not desire to become the mother of his children, 
 and no Court may justly require her to take any 
 chance of maternity, under circumstances not 
 perfectly acceptable and pleasing to her. 
 
 The law should not in any way interfere 
 with, or restrict the right or opportunity of any 
 woman who seeks a divorce to re-marry if she 
 so elects, or to prescribe a time limit within 
 which she shall not marry. This is a matter in 
 which the public can have no proper concern and 
 the attitude of the statute in conferring dis- 
 cretionary power upon courts in such actions, 
 is without just warrant and amounts to an un- 
 necessary and arbitrary intermeddling by the 
 State. 
 
 This period of probation or punishment or 
 "reconciliation" or whatever it may be, or for 
 
 130 
 
WOMEN IN THE MARRIAGE RELATION. 
 
 whatever purpose it is designed to serve, is in 
 effect, a "trial divorce," and the trial divorce is 
 just as dangerous to morals and as destructive 
 of homes as is the "trial marriage." Barring 
 a comparatively few exceptions, it is safe to 
 presume that those people who ask for divorce 
 know what they want and the responsibility 
 should rest with them. The State is not di- 
 rectly concerned and should not intrude itself. 
 Even if divorce is sought by a wife for 
 the avowed purpose of marrying another man, 
 there are many good and scientific reasons why 
 that fact should he made a statutory ground for 
 a legal severence of the marriage tie in her 
 case. This privilege, under no circumstances, 
 can be claimed justly as the right of the hus- 
 band, but in the nature of things, is a prerogojr 
 tive solely of the unfe. 
 
 There is here suggested a radical depart- 
 ure from the custom and thought of the hour, 
 but probably not any greater than is presented 
 by many of our current moral notions, when 
 contrasted with those of our forefathers of 
 "blue-law" days. No doubt many good people 
 will misinterpret these lines and rashly con- 
 strue them against the author; probably they 
 will feel affronted by a philosophy which seems 
 to do such violence to long fixed convictions. 
 
 131 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 However, as this may be, the writer disclaims 
 any intention or desire to offend the moral 
 sense of the most refined and exacting. He is 
 not seeking after notoriety, and would avoid, 
 as much as possible, the sensational. 
 
 Radical reforms make their way slowly, 
 resistance and obstruction serve to develop 
 their truth and power. It is hardly to be hoped 
 that this position of the writer will be approved 
 instantly by all people; on the contrary, quite 
 general opposition to it is expected, but he 
 earnestly believes that deep down in the soul of 
 things, justice presides with his view. 
 
 In determining the real moral value of the 
 contention here indulged, the reader will again 
 bear in mind the special mission and the pe- 
 culiar nature of woman, which as has been 
 pointed out, entitles her to special considera- 
 tion. 
 
 Now, we may proceed. 
 
 Every woman should enjoy, and be free 
 to exercise without restraint or dictation, her 
 inalienable right to select the father of her child, 
 or to refuse to subject herself to the possibility 
 of becoming a mother under circumstances that 
 would affect the physical or mental develop- 
 ment of her child, or that would tend to destroy 
 or diminish her love for it. 
 
 132 
 
WOMEN IN THE MARRIAGE RELATION. 
 
 If a woman has any rights that are not 
 subject to the control and domination of man> 
 then these rights here claimed for her— as 
 sacred to her as life itself— are certainly a part 
 of her natural estate, and her free exercise of 
 them may not be justly denied. 
 
 This is a truth, whatever tradition or the 
 conventionalties of society, or the best inter- 
 pretations of the Scriptures may hold to the 
 contrary. 
 
 The rights of children, likely to be born 
 under unnatural and undesirable conditions, are 
 also to be considered if the attainment of the 
 highest ideals of society and the race are to be 
 rationally striven for. A sane and civilized 
 recognition of the absorbing desire of mothers 
 in this respect, would be in the nature of a 
 proper safeguarding of those rights. 
 
 It may be argued that such an advantage 
 given to the wife, as is here advocated, would 
 frequently result in the breaking-up of homes 
 for passing and trivial differences that might 
 otherwise have been adjusted. This is a com- 
 mon error — a conclusion drawn from the sur- 
 face. It is neither fair nor reasonable to be- 
 lieve that any wife would immediately, and 
 without sufficient cause, avail herself of such a 
 
 133 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 statutory recognition of her rights and forth- 
 with pack up and leave her happy home, or re- 
 quire her "lord and master" to seek other 
 lodgings. 
 
 Homes would not suffer ! 
 
 The law can in no way affect the joyous 
 interchange of hearts that love, nor bind to- 
 gether in peaceful union those hearts that have 
 ceased to love. And only homes in which love 
 presides are homes in fact and such homes only 
 have any right to endure ! 
 
 But, for argument's sake, it will be admitted 
 that this suggested radical reform of the mar- 
 riage laws, with respect to the rights of women, 
 will not only not cure all the ills that are now 
 suffered, but that new and unheard of ills will be 
 added by the operation of the law. It will be 
 further admitted that mistakes — grievous mis- 
 takes — ^would result from such a law, but it is 
 maintained that it were better — a thousand 
 times better — that ninety-nine divorces should 
 be granted for insufficient cause than that one 
 unwelcome, unloved child should he horn. 
 
 Now, all precedent and prejudice aside, and 
 without regard to conflicting conventional no- 
 tions, let's take a homely, common-sense view 
 of the subject. 
 
 134 
 
WOMEN IN THE MARRIAGE RELATION. 
 
 Why should a woman be required to con- 
 tinue in a condition of wedlock with a man who 
 has become loathsome to her; whose touch 
 is repulsive; whose look terrifies; whose very 
 presence irritates, and whose near association 
 tends to destroy all that is gentle and desirable 
 in both! 
 
 Think of the degradation and humiliation 
 of the wife who must endure and submit to the 
 brutal and beastly overtures of a man she ab- 
 hors. Measure, if you can, the enormity of the 
 crime against the race that is wrought when- 
 ever to such a union a child is born. 
 
 God ! is there any justification for a law 
 that permits the poisoning of the blood of 
 babes ! 
 
 What of the rights of the husband? 
 
 If the laws are constructed and construed 
 so that the natural rights of women— in the mar- 
 riage relation — may not be ignored or denied, 
 then the just rights of every husband will be 
 amply protected. 
 
 It has been said by one of the greatest lib- 
 eral authorities on marital law, that "a man 
 should have a divorce if he can prove that he 
 is entitled to it." 
 
 The author dissents from this opinion for 
 135 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 the reason that there is here implied the right 
 of the husband to prefer charges against the 
 wife, a procedure which under our peculiar sys- 
 tem, may disgrace her and forever blast her 
 future. He opposes to this view his own belief 
 that a husband can— under no circumstances — 
 justly claim exemption from any of the duties 
 and responsibilities entailed by the marriage 
 contract, on the ground of a change of tempera- 
 ment or a lack of devotion on the part of his 
 wife, or for any other cause, unless she ap- 
 proves his petition. In other words, he holds 
 that a man is never entitled to a divorce, unless 
 his wife is willing that he shall have it. He 
 believes that a sane and civilized law will in- 
 vest the wife with absolute and fnal power, in 
 all such actions. 
 
 The full release of the husband from the 
 civil obligations of the marriage bond should 
 always require — in addition to the Court's de- 
 cree — rtihe written consent of the wife. 
 
 So long as men propose in marriage, women 
 should dispose in divorce. 
 
 The marriage of a divorced wife to another 
 man would, in justice, operate automatically as 
 a waiver of any future claim on her part on her 
 
 136 
 
WOMEN IN THE MARRIAGE RELATION. 
 
 ex-husband, and this fact would release him as 
 fully as would a discharge in writing. 
 
 Under no circumstances should a divorced 
 husband be permitted to ignore, or in any man- 
 ner, evade the payment of a fair portion of his 
 income towards the support of his former wife, 
 until such time as she re-marries, or of her own 
 free wUl, absolves him from further responsi- 
 bility. 
 
 Failure to pay alimony should be punish- 
 able by imprisonment. This law should be 
 made uniform throughout all the States, and the 
 penalty, as a matter of wholesome public policy, 
 should follow every offender, high or low, with 
 equal certainty and swiftness. 
 
 The degree or quality of the wife's offend- 
 ing has no proper part in the case and need not 
 be considered. This is purely extraneous to the 
 issue and cannot rightfully release the husband, 
 and should not vitiate the lawful title of the wife 
 to his support. 
 
 When the wooer pleads for the hand of his 
 "heart's desire" he does not stipulate, and 
 there are not understood, any conditions under 
 which he shall be freed from his voluntarily 
 proposed and willingly assumed obligation. 
 Only the conditions of the contract expressed 
 
 137 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 and justly understood can be later invoked in 
 defense of his own cowardice or recreancy. If 
 the court has the right, on a moral ground to 
 discharge a man from the obligation to provide 
 for the reasonable maintenance of his wife, 
 which he willingly and anxiously agreed to do, 
 as a condition of her marriage with him, then 
 by the same token, the court may absolve a 
 man from liability on a promissory note, if it 
 can be proved that the payee had been drunk, or 
 had been imprisoned, or had been guilty of 
 some other serious infraction of the moral law 
 since the note was made. The absurdity of this 
 latter proposition is apparent on its face. 
 
 The fact remains that a husband is liable, 
 and justly so, to support his wife, notwithstand- 
 ing her indifference to him, or even her infidel- 
 ity. He took that chance when he married. 
 This result — unfortunate as it appears — must 
 be regarded as one of the possible eventualities. 
 of matrimony. 
 
 These things happen as do rheumatism or 
 typhoid fever, in obedience to laws over which 
 we are powerless to exercise control, and they 
 cannot always be anticipated or warded off. 
 
 138 
 
CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 Alimony a valid claim, in nature of Punitive damage — 
 Husband never justified in assailing Good name of 
 Wife — Custody of Children in Divorde actions — Moth- 
 er's place cannot be filled by an artificial Mother — 
 The first right of levery Child — "Science must m^ke 
 Woman Mistress of Herself" — ^State should provide 
 Course preparatory to Matrimony — Sex Ignorance In- 
 excusable. 
 
 WHEN we civilize our marriage laws, a 
 man will not be able to escape the ob- 
 ligation to support a wife towards 
 whom lie has grown indifferent, or who may 
 have grown indifferent towards him. He will 
 not be permitted to turn her out or cast her 
 adrift in a friendless world to make her own. 
 way, handicapped by evil tongues — simply be- 
 cause he has tired of her, or feels aggrieved be- 
 cause she has tired of him. 
 
 He may be allured by other eyes, and other 
 hearts may turn responsive to his own, but the 
 wife who once filled his vision and to whom he 
 sang his songs of love, will continue to lawfully 
 claim his protection and support, until she frees 
 
 139 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 him or allows some other to assume his obliga- 
 tion. The law will not senselessly undertake to 
 make him love her if he cannot, or punish her 
 because he no longer fills her life; and society 
 wUl not censure either of them if — prompted by 
 natural and worthy motives and without decep- 
 tion — they happen to center their hearts upon 
 some other, but the law and society will hold 
 the husband to a strict discharge of the civil 
 obligations of his contract. And if he deserts 
 the wife he vowed to protect, the law will pun- 
 ish, and all the world will ostracise such a man — 
 when the marriage laws are civilized! 
 
 The wife's side of the marriage bargain is 
 too lightly regarded. When a woman gives her- 
 self in marriage to a man, she does the utmost 
 thing that she can do, and she has done that 
 thing which entails, or should entail upon the 
 husband, a life of devotion and considerate 
 care. 
 
 If he later makes himself offensive to her, 
 for any reason or lack of reason, so she no 
 longer loves him and wishes to be released from 
 his control and domination, the duty to still 
 provide for her support should run against the 
 husband as a valid claim in the nature of a 
 punitive damage. She has given to him the 
 best of her life; she has sustained a certain 
 
 140 
 
wome^ in the marriage relation. 
 
 social discount, as a result of her conjugal mis- 
 take, and her opportunity to re-marry has been 
 greatly circumscribed. For this, she is enti- 
 tled to some reparation. 
 
 But aside from these secular, and more 
 or less mercenary considerations, there is an- 
 other perspective of this question which af- 
 fords a better view of the situation, and a 
 clearer conception of the equities involved. 
 This is offered here in further defense of the 
 author's opposition to the theory that "a man 
 should have a divorce, if he can prove that he is 
 entitled to it." It will be recalled that issue 
 was taken with this doctrine because of the im- 
 plied right it conferred upon the husband to 
 prefer public charges against the wife, which 
 procedure he holds to be without moral justi- 
 fication. 
 
 It is difficult to conceive how any man 
 can justify his course, or square his action with 
 his conscience, or even harmonize it with a fair 
 sense of consistency, who attacks the charac- 
 ter of his wife. 
 
 The man who publicly aisscdls the good 
 name, or criticises the acts of his wife, or at- 
 tempts to hold her up to public contempt and 
 scorn — whatever her offense — not only does a 
 
 141 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 cowardly and a dastardly thing, hut sets him- 
 self down a liar, a pervert and a deserter. 
 
 It must be borne in mind that this same 
 man, who now denounces this wife before the 
 world, plead upon his knees — j'aye, in great 
 meekness and humility — begged and besought 
 this woman, in the days of her beauty and in- 
 nocent girlhood, to become his bride. Like 
 every other eager and impetuous Borneo, he 
 urged his suit with all the art and ardor of his 
 soul. He poured into her enraptured ears the 
 assurance of an imdying love ; he promised ever 
 to be her willing slave ; he swore that he would 
 swim the sea; beard a lion in its den, or gladly 
 give his life in defense of her — if she would 
 only be his wife. And, when in the dazed be- 
 wilderment of her joy, she chanced to find her 
 tongue and nervously ventured: "but, dear, if 
 I should change; if you should one day dis- 
 cover my many, many faiilts" — he quickly de- 
 clared, before high heaven, that she had no 
 faults, and if she had, they should be as virtues 
 in his sight. 
 
 And who will say that she alone must bear 
 
 responsibility for the change of temperament, 
 
 or manner, or speech, that now makes this wife 
 
 such an undesirable being in the estimation of 
 
 142 
 
WOMEN IN THE MARRIAGE RELATION. 
 
 her husband. If she is not the faultless angel 
 now that she was on that glad, sad day when 
 she gave herself in marriage to this poltroon, 
 her close association with him may account for 
 the change. 
 
 There is always a reason for the changes 
 that come in the lives of married people, under 
 our defective social system, and it is rarely the 
 case that one party is wholly at fault. Human 
 frailties are the legitimate result of human fol- 
 lies, and human mistakes, and sodety as a 
 whole is responsible. The individual who hap- 
 pens to be a medium for their pronounced ex- 
 pression is often unjustly made to bear the en- 
 tire blame. 
 
 What shall be done with the children, un- 
 fortunate enough to be bom to ill-mated and 
 quarreling parents? 
 
 This is a very serious question and one 
 that may not be lightly passed. The children 
 of to-day will make the men and women of to- 
 morrow, and the environment of these children 
 will have much to do with their future activi- 
 ties for good or ill in the world. 
 
 A child is the saddest thing that can be- 
 fall two people who do not love. That such a 
 lamentable thing can happen, in this age, is a 
 
 143 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 severe commentary upon our boasted civiliza- 
 tion. Some day, when society becomes truly 
 enlightened and wisely moral, every babe that 
 comes into the world will be joyously welcomed 
 and dowered with the love of two united hearts. 
 
 Society may never be able to perfect a 
 plan by which it may right the wrong suffered 
 by the hapless little ones that are already bom 
 into homes of discord. They are here, and 
 the conditions of their begetting cannot now be 
 helped, but it is the duty of society to devise 
 some wise and effective means by which the 
 number of such children may be reduced in 
 the future. 
 
 But just now we are called upon to meet 
 a condition confronting us. 
 
 What shall be done with children in divorce 
 actions? 
 
 Who shall have their custody! 
 
 It does not appear that there could be two 
 views of this question, and yet there is a wide 
 divergence of opinion among those who have 
 studied its equities. 
 
 The writer contends that the mother should 
 always direct the disposition of her children. 
 The court has no right, upon any pretext, to rob 
 a mother of her child, or to deprive a child 
 
 144 
 
WOMEN IN THE MARRIAGE RELATION. 
 
 of the care and affection that only a mother 
 can bestow. 
 
 Children are of the mother, and belong to 
 her in a very much larger sense than they can 
 be said to belong to the father. The mother's 
 love for her child is natural and instinctive, 
 while that of the father is acquired by asso- 
 ciation. 
 
 There may be exceptional and isolated 
 oases where it appears that the mother, be- 
 cause of her dissolute life, has forfeited the 
 right to be intrusted with the care of her own 
 child. But, the grave responsibilities of sep- 
 arating mother and child — even under such cir- 
 cumstances — should be assmned only after the 
 most careful and conscientious investigation of 
 all the facts, and then only when it appears 
 imperative for the child's immediate good and 
 future welfare. 
 
 The failure of the mother's conduct to 
 measure up to the current moral standard of 
 Christian society, cannot change her relation 
 to her child, or disqualify her as the mother. 
 She is still the mother and her place cannot be 
 filled by an artificial mother, and no man is 
 capable of giving to the development of a child 
 
 145 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE TEE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 the essential training that even such a mother 
 can supply. 
 
 It were better to reform the Christian's 
 savage and cruel opinion of the woman who 
 is said to have "fallen" than to attempt to 
 justify the wrong worked to children ruthlessly 
 torn from a mother's clasp and entrusted to the 
 tender mercies of those who, at best, can have 
 only a passing interest in their welfare. 
 
 Every possible safeguard that human ex- 
 perience can suggest or that science can devise, 
 should be thrown around childhood, to the end, 
 that an even mental, moral and physical de- 
 velopment may be accomplished. 
 
 The first right of every child is that it be 
 born right. Every baby has an advance claim 
 upon society to provide for it natural condi- 
 tions for its begetting, and a recognition of this 
 obligation devolves upon society as a defensive 
 measure against its own degeneracy. 
 
 The rights of children are so intimately in- 
 volved in the rights of mothers that they may 
 best be protected by a careful regard, at all 
 times, for the natural and acquired rights of 
 women in the marriage relation. 
 
 Every baby is either the precious product 
 of love, or the penalty of concupiscence. 
 
 146 
 
WOMEN IN THE MARRIAGE RELATION. 
 
 When this fact becomes more generally un- 
 derstood, and its great significance fully ap- 
 preciated, we may then look for some intelli- 
 gent and merciful movement for the prevention 
 of unwelcome children, and the adoption of an 
 effective, rational system by which every babe 
 that is born may be a consummate flower of 
 love. It is not the province of this writer, or 
 the purpose of this book, to do more than call 
 attention to this grave problem. It will be 
 touched here only incidentally. A discussion 
 of its intricacies and subtleties would lead too 
 far from the subject immediately under con- 
 sideration, 
 
 A possible solution of this tremendous prob- 
 lem, at least an advanced step in that direc- 
 tion, was offered by the great IngersoU who, 
 when asked: "How can we prevent the igno- 
 rant, the poor and vicious from filling the world 
 with their children?" made this answer: 
 
 ' ' There is but one hope. It cannot be done 
 by force, physical or moral. There is but one 
 way. Science must make woman the owner, 
 the mistress of herself. Science, the only pos- 
 sible savior of mankind, must put it in the 
 power of woman to decide for herself whether 
 she will or will not become the mother. This 
 is the solution of the whole question. This 
 
 147 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE TEE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 frees woman. The babes that are born, then 
 will be welcome. They will be clasped by glad 
 hands to happy breasts. They will fill homes 
 with light and joy. 
 
 "Men and women who believe that slaves 
 are purer, truer than the free, who believe that 
 fear is a safer guide than knowledge ; that only 
 those are really good who obey the commands 
 of others, and that ignorance is the soil in 
 which the perfect perfumed flower of virtue 
 grows, will, with protesting hands, hide their 
 shocked faces. Men and women who think that 
 light is the enemy of virtue, that purity dwells 
 in darkness, that it is dangerous for human be- 
 ings to know themselves and the facts in nature 
 affecting their well-being, will be horrified at 
 the thought of making intelligence the master 
 of passion. But I look forward to the time 
 when men and women, by reason of their knowl- 
 edge of consequences, of the morality bom of 
 intelligence, will refuse to perpetuate disease 
 and pain, will refuse to fill the world with fail- 
 ures. When that time comes, the prison walls 
 will fall, the dungeons will be flooded with light, 
 and the shadow of the scaffold will cease to 
 curse the earth. Poverty and crime will be 
 childless. The withered hands of want will not 
 be stretched for alms. They will be dust. The 
 
 148 
 
WOMEN IN THE MARRIAGE RELATION. 
 
 whole world will be intelligent, virtuous and 
 free." 
 
 For a thousand years, the most progress- 
 ive and saving thought of the world has been 
 stifled, and discouraged by a school of so-called 
 Christian ethics, from a proper consideration of 
 this great issue, which, at no distant day, civ- 
 ilized society will be required to meet and 
 solve. 
 
 It is a fact to be deplored that essential 
 information affecting the peace and happiness 
 of those who marry, and the moral and physi- 
 cal well-being of future generations, should be 
 placed under the ban by a narrow and stupid 
 moral system, which forces us to learn our first 
 lesson last, and that often after the severest 
 experience. 
 
 Parents commit a grievous sin of omission 
 when they allow their children to grow up to 
 a marriageable age without providing them 
 with the fullest information in regard to them- 
 selves. The plainest duties, obligations and re- 
 sponsibilities that crowd the married state are 
 wholly unknown to, and unconsidered by fully 
 ninety per cent of those who marry nowadays. 
 
 Some sort of scientific supervision should 
 be exercised by the State in the all-important 
 matter of mating. 
 
 149 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 Not that the State shall require marriage- 
 able men and women to measure-up to certain 
 arbitrary physical standards — not that the 
 State shall establish proscriptions or prohibi- 
 tions of any sort; but that it shall provide those 
 contemplating matrimony the benefits of such 
 useful knowledge, as the experience of soci- 
 ety hcDS developed. 
 
 Boys and girls should know more about 
 themselves. 
 
 Ignorance will not insure iunocence. 
 
 The school course in physiology is woefully 
 deficient. Important and essential information 
 is artfully withheld, and that which is imparted 
 is so guardedly revealed that the child acquires 
 only an indifferent knowledge of the physical 
 agencies and sources of life. 
 
 It is not generally known how lamentably 
 ignorant we are of our own bodies, until we 
 wisely ply our neighbors with questions, and 
 then attempt to answer them ourselves. 
 
 If you stop an hundred men on the street 
 just as they come — ^butchers, bakers and candle- 
 stick makers — and propound to each of them 
 the single question: "Where is your Liver 1 
 Not more than five will be able to answer 
 promptly and correctly. All will be quite cer- 
 
 150 
 
WOMEN IN THE MARRIAGE RELATION. 
 
 tain it is on the inside, but to say just where, 
 would be for the majority of them the veriest 
 guess. 
 
 Now, out of the five who prove to possess 
 knowledge as to the location of their liver, not 
 more than two will be able to intelligently state 
 anything concerning its function. To the aver- 
 age man, the exact whereabouts of his liver, and 
 the important part it plays in his physical econ- 
 omy, is a profound mystery. Yet every such 
 individual will not hesitate to lightly assimie and 
 indifferently discharge the grave responsibili- 
 ties of the parent. 
 
 No prior preparation is deemed necessary 
 for those who marry. Boys and girls just grow 
 into a marriageable age and then like all of 
 their kind before them — take a chance. Some 
 few, by the veriest streak of good fortune pick 
 the "lucky star," but the multitude reap dis- 
 aster. 
 
 Neither parents nor guardians nor friends 
 will volunteer the benefit of their own experi- 
 ence. Any overtures, in this direction, are 
 likely to be resented as a piece of unwarranted 
 levity or a flippancy not permissible in polite, 
 refined society. So the knowledge that comes 
 
 15a 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 to young people who marry, is largely the re- 
 sult of unexpected happenings. 
 
 Sex is the central fact of life, yet boys and 
 girls gain only a vague knowledge of this truth 
 through the proper channels and at the proper 
 time. 
 
 A foolish and inexcusable prudery and a 
 mawkish modesty interferes with the duty of 
 teachers and parents in this matter. 
 
 The failure of fathers to cultivate closer 
 confidences with their boys, leaves them unpre- 
 pared to meet the tempations of evil and vic- 
 ious associations, and "the silence of mothers 
 on the great fundamental laws of life leads to 
 the downfall of more girls than all other 
 causes combined." 
 
 Some form of popular scientific instruct- 
 ion touching these vital matters in every boy's 
 and girl's education should be provided in con- 
 nection with our public school system; free 
 lecture courses should be arranged to reach 
 the masses and so enlist their interest. 
 
 Boys and girls should be taught the pur- 
 pose and significance of courtship ; the meaning 
 of marriage; why people marry; who should 
 marry, and who should not. All physiological 
 and phrenological facts that will aid them in 
 selecting a life-mate, and all necessary knowl- 
 
 352 
 
Vi'OMEN IN THE MARRIAGE RELATION. 
 
 edge concerning the sex relation, should form 
 a part of the common school course. 
 
 Ignorance of sex and self is inexcusable. 
 
 "We cannot be said to be enlightened so 
 long as we fail to apply, ordinary intelligence 
 to the begetting of human offspring. 
 
 Every boy and girl, before entering matri- 
 mony — the most important and solemn mission 
 of life — should be equipped for it by an under- 
 standing of something of its real import. Un- 
 der the prevailing system of mating, marriage 
 is purely a lottery, and, as a natural conse- 
 quence, the majority of matrimonial ventures 
 are disappointing. 
 
 No parent would, for a moment, think of 
 permitting his son or daughter to engage in 
 the business of poultry farming, without advis- 
 ing a careful and intelligent investigation of 
 the subject. The experience of others would 
 be inquired into, everything of value written 
 upon the subject would be read and studied. 
 But in the all-important business of perpetua- 
 ing the human speoies, a sort of hap-hazard, 
 happy-go-lucky, hit-or-miss chance is taken, 
 and the result is left largely to fate. 
 
 When men and women will learn that the 
 begetting of children is a science that is worthy, 
 forsooth, at least the same careful study now 
 
 153 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 devoted to the breeding of fancy stock, then, 
 indeed, will society turn its face to the sun and 
 humanity commence an onward and upward 
 march ; divorce courts will present a decreasing 
 record of domestic infelicity and the awful 
 shadow of feticide will be averted from many 
 a happy home. 
 
 Some day, in the near future, sane and 
 normal men — with science as their safe gxiide 
 — will re-write our marriage laws. 
 
 Then young men and young women who 
 marry will approach this holiest and most 
 solemn and withal the most natural condition 
 of life, with new desires in their hearts, new 
 ideals in their minds. 
 
 In making up their judgment of their life- 
 mate, the question of necessity, convenience, 
 wealth, position, religious opinion, ambition 
 for social power or commercial advancement, 
 will never control or confuse their delibera- 
 tions. They will recognize that these are but 
 passing things that only delude and destroy. 
 
 They will know that mutual love is the 
 great determining factor, and that God joins 
 those souls only which — under natural condit- 
 ions — seek each other; and they will under- 
 stand that a pure, reciprocal, absorbing, abid- 
 ing love finds its consummation in only one 
 
 154 
 
WOMEN IN THE MARRIAGE RELATION. 
 
 way. They will be taught early their most 
 important mission in life — they will know 
 something of their economic relation to each 
 other, and they will realize that they are race- 
 builders, and that Nature demands of them, 
 for their own fullest development, that they re- 
 produce themselves. 
 
 "When the marriage laws are civilized, ev- 
 ery man who enters matrimony will know that 
 he assumes certain permanent obligations — en- 
 forcible under the civil law — from which he 
 cannot, of his own motion, release himself. 
 
 If he promises to love "until death do us 
 part," he will know that he undertakes to do 
 that which he may not be able to perform, and 
 the court will be powerless to keep him to his 
 promise, but his agreement to support and pro- 
 tect the wife, will become a valid claim which 
 the law can and will enforce. 
 
 When the marriage laws are civilized, no 
 stigma or shame will follow a divorcee; no 
 scandal will be furnished idle tongues, for 
 then no man will be permitted to asperse or 
 defame the name of the woman he calls Ms wife, 
 and no wife will have need to resort to such a 
 shameful proceeding. There will be nothing in 
 evidence, or of record that will make their pri- 
 vate sorrow a public scandal. No loss of social 
 
 155 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 caste will then be suffered by those who divorce, 
 but, on the contrary, it will be regarded as a 
 laudable and a noble thing for those who are 
 unhappily mated, to amicably reach an agree- 
 ment to separate rather than attempt to contin- 
 ue to live together imder conditions fraught 
 with such dangers to themselves and such haz- 
 ard to society. 
 
 The hatreds and deep seated animosities 
 engendered by weeks, or months or years of do- 
 mestic inharmony will rarely be possible under 
 a civilized marriage system, and those who part 
 because they do not love, will not on that ac- 
 count hate, but they will continue to bear 
 towards each other the kindliest sentiment, and 
 the most considerate regard. 
 
 It will be possible then, and only then, for 
 a man to refer with reverential respect to "my 
 devoted sister, who was my wife," and the wor- 
 thy woman, who in the past filled first place in 
 his mind and heart, will thenceforth know him 
 as "my noble brother , who was my husband." 
 
 Why otherwise? 
 
 It will be so— when the marriage laws are 
 civilized ! 
 
 156 
 
The Woman is the Mother, and the 
 highest hopes of humanity are with her. 
 
Woman! Woman! 
 In my own crude lines, 
 
 1 trace a faint resemblance 
 To thy fair, angelic form ! 
 
 Of all created things 
 
 Or beings evolved, 
 
 Thou art the first and best; 
 
 The supreme result of all the ages — 
 
 The masterpiece of the universe! 
 
 In thy miracle nature 
 Art exquisitely blent, 
 Both humanity 
 And Divinity ! 
 
 Thou art the font at which the world 
 Renews its youth — the medium 
 By which man attains perfection, 
 And puts on immortality! 
 
 Woman ! Woman ! 
 Thou wondrous creature — 
 So like a man — 
 Yet, Angelic 1 
 
CHAPTER IX, 
 
 Why Woman is subject to Man — The schleme of Creation 
 probahly devised to servte political end — Biblical war- 
 rant for all manner of indignities practiced against 
 woman — Brutal attitude of New Testament and the 
 early Christian Fathers towards Mothers and Wlvtes — 
 Free Men noiw working out Freedom of Women — 
 Honor thy Mother — Science will Civilize the Marriage 
 Laws. 
 
 IN concluding this little volume which in its 
 largest sense is a plea for a recognition of 
 the rights of women, it is deemed proper to 
 devote some space to a brief review of the caus- 
 es that have operated to keep woman in a posi- 
 tion of relative inferiority to man. 
 
 The overshadowing cause has been man's 
 physical superiority, which has enabled him to 
 enforce submission to his authority. Thirf phy- 
 sical -advantage has made him master through 
 all the barbarous past, and he has rarely — lof 
 his own accord — surrendered it or failed to ex- 
 ercise it, save in specious talk. On the contra- 
 ry he has sought by questionable artifice and 
 cowardly stratagem to perpetuate his dishonest 
 
 159 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 dominion, in tlie old way, but all the while ab- 
 solving himself of responsibility for the meth- 
 ods employed. 
 
 A favorite plan was to secure a divine war- 
 rant for his acts, upon which he could boldly 
 stand and behind which he could take shelter, 
 while protesting to a susceptible people: "So 
 sayeth the Lord!" 
 
 Controlled by selfishness and a lust for 
 power which contemplated ease and indolence, 
 he has made all the rules, and devised the gov- 
 ernments of society, always with a view to his 
 own interest — for the protection of the rights 
 and the enlargement of the opportunities of 
 men. He has written all the laws, and con- 
 strued them to serve his own advantage, to glor- 
 ify himself, to magnify his own importance, and 
 to intrench and perpetuate his usurped domm- 
 ion. 
 
 The family as historically constituted rep- 
 resents the power and ownership of man. For 
 several thousand years man had the power of 
 life and death over his wife and children, and 
 there was an abundance of "divine" warrant 
 for his discretionary exercise of his heaven sent 
 prerogative. It is only within the last century 
 that woman has come to be recognized as a per- 
 son, in the eyes of the law. 
 
 160 
 
WOMEN IN THE MARRIAGE RELATION. 
 
 The position of inferiority and subjection 
 to the will of man, in which the mothers of the 
 race find themselves, even at the present time, 
 is the result of early Christian teaching, based 
 upon Scriptural authority. 
 
 The book of Genesis was written by a man, 
 as of course, were all the Bible stories. It was 
 written for a purpose — not a moral purpose — 
 when viewed in the light of the twentieth centu- 
 ry. That purpose was three-fold : 
 
 1. To assert man's (the male human ani- 
 mal) dominion over the earth. 
 
 2. To intrench and perpetuate the politi- 
 cal authority of the particular set of men then 
 in the power, and 
 
 3. To give the irrevocable sanction of 
 heaven to the principle of monarchy, and nec- 
 essarily, its sequent hand-maid — ^human slavery. 
 
 The genesaic scheme of creation, including 
 the story of the "fall" of man, and his rehabil- 
 itation and final redemption, contemplated a 
 fumble, and then another fumble. 
 
 The important first step was to provide a 
 plausible hypothesis for the begimimg of things, 
 which should be generally accepted by the in- 
 telligence of the world at the time of its an- 
 nouncement. The theory of creation necessar- 
 ily pre-supposed a Creator, or Supreme being — 
 
 161 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 the logical ruler of the universe and the source 
 of all power and authority. Now, with this 
 broad foundation laid, it was not a difficult 
 matter to impose upon a superstitious people 
 the reserve features of the plan by which the 
 rights of the proletariat were to be controlled 
 and subordinated to the will of a few design- 
 ing men. So the establishment of the entente 
 cordiale with this mythical being of the skies 
 became the important next step. This was done 
 by a daring declaration, in claimed accordance 
 of course with divine direction, and, behold the 
 accredited Ambassadors of Heaven appeared 
 among men; and from that day forward, for 
 fifteen centuries, the world groaned under the 
 weight of an Absolutism that tolerated no ques- 
 tioning of its infallibility, or its divine origin 
 and authority. 
 
 The story runs this wise; after some six- 
 teen hundred years of temporising with his in- 
 corrigible and recalcitrant children, the Lord is 
 supposed to have reached his wits' end. God 
 is placed in the absurd predicament of knowing 
 not just what to do, and "it repented the Lord 
 that he had made man on the earth ; " so in his 
 desperation he concluded to destroy all except 
 one family, and certain other favored types 
 of his creation. Having called the world into 
 
 162 
 
WOMEN IN THE MARRIAGE RELATION 
 
 being in an impossible manner, he is reported to 
 have proceeded to destroy it in an equally im- 
 possible manner. However, after the waters 
 subsided, and the work of world-building was 
 again auspiciously resumed on dry land, for 
 some unaccountable reason, things began to go 
 wrong. In some mysterious way, not antici- 
 p'ated by the Lord, man whom he had fashioned 
 after his own image, had become innately per- 
 verse. It repented the Lord again, but he 
 restrained himself from a repetition of violent 
 measures, and instead this time resolved to sac- 
 rifice his only Son, after the barbarous custom 
 of the period, in order that this degenerating 
 hoo-doo might be lifted from the race. 
 
 Several thousand years are said to have 
 elapsed before the Son made his appearance on 
 this planet. Evidently it must have been known 
 that this final assault upon the evil, which the 
 Lord inadvertently permitted to slip into the 
 world, was not going to be a perfect success, 
 and a modification of the plan was later adopt- 
 ed. 
 
 This revised plan contemplated a partner- 
 ship with man, and right here is where and how 
 the "divine right" of Kings had its inception. 
 The rights and powers theretofore exercised 
 directly by the Lord were now delegated to 
 
 163 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 agents, who acted for him. The Lord is sup- 
 posed to have retired to some distant place in 
 the skies, and left the lives and fortunes of his 
 people to the tender mercies of intermediaries. 
 These divinely appointed and anointed vice- 
 gerents immediately proceeded to enslave their 
 fellows, and in the name of the tolerant and 
 compassionate Jesus, to persecute all who re- 
 fused to submit to their despotism. 
 
 In all the dealings the Lord is reported to 
 have had with this mundane sphere — from the 
 propitious start in the Garden to the pathetic 
 climax &t Calvary — iwoman, as a real being, ap- 
 pears to have been studiously overlooked; her 
 rights disregarded and her individuality ig- 
 nored. The only possible exceptions to this rule 
 are found in such instances where she is em- 
 ployed — scapegoat fashion — to serve as a buf- 
 fer between her Master and the vengeance of a 
 wrathful God. Especially is this true wherever 
 reference is made to the status of woman in the 
 marriage relation. 
 
 The first slighting or discriminatory refer- 
 ence to woman, said to have been indulged by 
 the Lord, of which the Bible makes mention, is 
 supposed to have occurred about the year 3950 
 B. C. The general circumstances are given in 
 Genesis, of course, but are more fully detailed 
 
 164 
 
WOMEN IN THE MARRIAGE RELATION. 
 
 by Peter Fredet the Catholic Historian, in the 
 following language: 
 
 " * * * the devil, or fallen angel, 
 whom pride had made an enemy of God, being 
 jealous of the happiness of Adam and Eve in 
 the Garden of Eden, resolved to destroy it by 
 inducing them to transgress the divine com- 
 mand. Under the form of a serpent, the devil 
 addressed Eve, as the weaker of the two, and 
 suggested to her that if they should eat of the 
 forbidden fruit their eyes would be opened and 
 they would be as Gods, knowing good and evil. 
 Eve, seduced by the promises of the tempter, 
 not only ate of the fruit, but offered some to 
 Adam, who, through a criminal condescension 
 for his wife, shared in her disobedience, * • 
 • • The Lord summoned them before him, 
 and after pronouncing his maledictions against 
 the serpent, he condemned the woman to bring 
 forth children in sorrow, and to be subject to 
 man through all her days." 
 
 From the day that indefensible slander 
 upon the justice and wisdom of a merciful Deity 
 was first uttered, down through all the cen- 
 turies to this thrillant hour, cowardly men 
 claiming to be '.'called of God" have condoned 
 and justified all manner of indignities and 
 barbarities practiced against womankind, and 
 
 165 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE TEE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 have charged the responsibility back to the Al- 
 mighty. 
 
 This curse, alleged to have been visited 
 upon •woman by God himself, was emphasized 
 by Moses and Aaron and David and Solomon 
 and many of the Prophets, and by the Apostles 
 Paul and Matthew, and later by all the con- 
 spicuous teachers and Fathers of the Church; 
 and even in this age, in which we see so much 
 of the civilizing influence of woman's work, it 
 is invoked by priestly men, to handicap her 
 advance, to defeat her claim to equality with 
 men, to frustrate her efforts for emancipation, 
 and to keep her in a condition of subjection. 
 
 A twentieth century effort, on the part of 
 a delegation from a Union of Italian women, 
 to secure from the "holy see" some recogni- 
 tion of their rights, so long denied, was met by 
 Pope Pius X in the following specific declara- 
 tion: ^^ After creating man God created wo- 
 man and determined her mission, namely, that 
 of being man's companion, helpmate and con- 
 solation. It is a mistake, therefore, to maintain 
 that woman's rig'hts are the same as man's. 
 Woman, created as man's companion, must so 
 remain — under the power of love a/nd affec- 
 tion, hut always under his power." 
 
 In the year 1490 B. C. or about 2460 years 
 166 
 
WOMEN IN THE MARRIAGE RELATION. 
 
 after the Lord formally placed woman under 
 the control and domination of man, according 
 to the record of sacred history, he is reported 
 to have again bolstered and boosted the usurped 
 dominion of man, in that respect, by a still 
 further debasement of the wife's position. 
 
 Grod himself is credited with this infam- 
 ous injunction of the old Mosiac law — in- 
 famous in its implied degradation of woman — 
 and is said to have personally delivered it to 
 Moses amid the thunders of Sinai: "Thou 
 shalt not covet thy neighbor's house; thou 
 shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods, nor his 
 wife, nor his servant {slave), nor his handmaid, 
 nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy 
 neighbor's." 
 
 This commandment not only emphasized 
 the divine authority for a division of society 
 into Masters and Servants, by giving specific 
 sanction to the then existing condition, but it 
 enslaved woman in a particular manner by in- 
 cluding her among the chattels of her husband, 
 and placed her in the same classification with 
 merchandise, and on a level with beasts of bur- 
 den. 
 
 Thus throughout the Old Testament we 
 find the husband is made the ruler, and the 
 wife the subject. Divorce was held to be the 
 
 167 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 privilege of the husband alone; the repudiation 
 of the wife was sanctioned; polygamy was ap- 
 proved; the slavery of women, and the barter 
 and sale of the wife, as a part of the movable 
 property of the husband, were not only tol- 
 erated but justified by this barbarous old Jew- 
 ish law. 
 
 And what do we find in the New Testa- 
 ment? 
 
 A few specimens only are necessary to 
 show the cruel and brutal attitude towards wo- 
 men and wives of this great Christian author- 
 ity: 
 
 "Man is the glory of God, but woman is 
 the glory of man." 
 
 "Wives submit yourselves to your hus- 
 bands." 
 
 "As the Church is subject unto Christ, so 
 let wives be to their husbands in everything." 
 
 "Let woman learn in silence, with all sub- 
 jection." 
 
 "Ye wives be in subjection to your hus- 
 bands." 
 
 "They (wives) are commanded to be un- 
 der obedience." 
 
 "If they (women) will leam anything, let 
 them ask their husbands at home." 
 
 In the Gospel, according to Matthew, we 
 168 
 
WOMEN IN THE MARRIAGE RELATION. 
 
 are told that: "Whosoever shall put away his 
 ■wife — except for fornication — and shall marry 
 with another, commiteth adultery, and he that 
 shall marry her that is put away, commiteth 
 adultery." 
 
 This statement of the Gospel, which was 
 the law for fifteen hundred years, affords a 
 fair example of the cruel and barbarous dis- 
 crimination practiced against women. 
 
 It means that the wife who commits forni- 
 cation is condemned to lasting disgrace, while 
 the man who wrought her woe is held immune, 
 except he do the only honorable thing such a 
 man could do, and acknowledge her before the 
 world as his wife. But to marry her, and thus 
 protect and cherish her, under the law, would 
 be adultery; and all other men are prohibited, 
 imder pain of adultery, from marrying with 
 her. So, by the very terms of the statute, such 
 a wife is not only permanently ostracised, but 
 her unlawful consort — who is justly answerable 
 for her ruin — is absolved from all personal obli- 
 gation or responsibility. 
 
 The husband was permitted not only to 
 "put away" his erring wife, but he was free 
 to re-marry. 
 
 The obvious purpose of this diabolical in- 
 junction was to keep the woman in a condition 
 
 169 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 of complete dependence and subjection to the 
 will of her husband, while it licensed the man 
 to abuse the confidence, and to outrage the per- 
 son of women, with impunity. 
 
 "Is it any wonder," asks a conspicuous 
 modem writer, "that women have been treated 
 in the disgraceful manner that they have been, 
 in Christian countries, when authority is found 
 for it in the book which is the Christian's idea 
 of all that is right?" 
 
 Mrs. Mary Livermore says: "The early 
 Church fathers denounced women as noxious 
 animals, necessary evils and domestic perils." 
 Lecky says: "Fierce invectives against the 
 sex form a conspicuous and grotesque portion 
 of the writings of the Fathers." 
 
 Gamble says: "In the fourth century, 
 holy men gravely argued the question, ought 
 women to be called human beings." 
 
 But let the Christian Fathers speak for 
 themselves. 
 
 Tertulian thus addressed woman: "You 
 are the devil's gateway; the unsealer of the for- 
 bidden tree; the first deserter from the divine 
 law ; you are she who persuaded him whom the 
 devil was not valiant enough to attack ; you de- 
 stroyed Grod's image — ^man." 
 
 Clement of Alexandria, whose mother, 
 170 
 
WOMEN IN THE MARRIAGE RELATION. 
 
 singularly enough, was a woman, declares in all 
 humolity, that: "It brings shame to reflect of 
 what nature woman is." 
 
 Gregory Thumaturgus observes: "One 
 man among a thousand may be pute ; a woman, 
 never. ' ' 
 
 "Woman is the organ of the devil, "ac- 
 cording to St. Bernard. 
 
 "Her voice is the hissing of the serpent," 
 said the gentle and child-like St. Anthony, and 
 the great St. Cyprian discovered that "woman 
 is the instrument which the devil uses to get 
 possession of our souls." 
 
 "Woman is a scorpion," declared St. Bon- 
 aventura. 
 
 "The gate of the devil; the road of in- 
 iquity," says St. Jerome. 
 
 "Woman is the daughter of falsehood, a 
 sentinel of hell; the enemy of peace," asserted 
 the good St. John Damascene. 
 
 The world is indebted to the learned St. 
 John Chrysostem for this wonderful revelation : 
 "Of all wild beasts, the most dangerous is wo- 
 man;" and to St. Gregory— the Great, who first 
 disclosed that "woman has the poison of an 
 asp, the malice of a dragon." 
 
 The list is by no means exhausted. Simi- 
 lar examples of the atrocious and fiendish 
 
 171 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 esteem in which women were held by many of 
 the most conspicuous of the anointed and sacred 
 monsters of the early Church, might be con- 
 tinued for several pages, but enough have been 
 set down to establish the force of the point that 
 it was desired to make. 
 
 Of course this fact must not be lost sight 
 of: the church is distinctively a man-made in- 
 stitution, man-managed, for men. Women have 
 been excluded from its ministry and its coun- 
 cils, cut off from its revenue, denied its privi- 
 leges and opportunities. So it is hardly to be 
 wondered at that the church should regard wom- 
 en as of little consequence, and of no concern 
 whenever the rights of men are involved. 
 
 In the face of incontrovertable revelations 
 of science to the contrary, the church has per- 
 sistently insisted upon the truth, reliability, and 
 all- sufficiency of the Scriptures, touching the 
 status of woman, and has consistently main- 
 tained towards her an attitude, not only of in- 
 difference to her rights, but of hostility to them. 
 
 For over fifteen hundred years the Chris- 
 tian Church exerted its powerful influence to 
 keep mothers and wives in a condition of servi- 
 tude, and of subjection to the will of man. Even 
 in this free and luminous age, the Church im- 
 poses "obedience to husbands" as the duty of 
 
 172 
 
WOMEN IN THE MARRIAGE RELATION. 
 
 wives, and many Bible followers seriously be- 
 lieve that husbands have a sort of divine right 
 to conduct themselves towards their wives with 
 an insolent and lordly indifference. 
 
 It is not difficult, with this light, to trace 
 the source of the taint which vitiates the South 
 Carolinian Legislator's philosophy, for he 
 prides himself upon his uncompromising ortho- 
 doxy. 
 
 In what pleasing contrast with the brutal 
 and savage opinions just reviewed, do we find 
 the following sentiment only recently uttered 
 by one of the most eminent liberal teachers of 
 this day ; and with what a sense of relief we con- 
 template its inspiring justice : 
 
 "In all the language of man, the holiest 
 word is 'woman }' There is a poetic suggestion 
 of the blended destiny of man and woman. The 
 unit of society, of government, is not the man, 
 lordly as he is, important as he seems. It is 
 the family — ^it is the man and woman together. 
 I have the profound conviction that this human 
 world of ours will never come into the full light, 
 never know the complete fulfillment of its pos- 
 sibilities, until by every custom, by every law, 
 in every statute, in all social and political af- 
 fairs, there stand together, side by side, equal 
 and sovereign, man and woman." 
 
 173 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 Gradually the old world is emerging from 
 the long night of theological superstition. 
 
 Civilizing influences are at work on every 
 hand. 
 
 Free men are working out the freedom of 
 women, and the day is not far distant when the 
 mothers of men shall stand truly emancipated, 
 and be accredited their rightful place in the 
 world. 
 
 If honor is due to any man — ^honor then his 
 mother. 
 
 If men are great, then in that which makes 
 them great, they reflect the glory of their moth- 
 ers. Their achievements should remind us in 
 a particular manner of our debt of gratitude 
 to the mothers who, in pain, gave them to the 
 world. 
 
 Every Christ who has kissed the earth in 
 every age — every patriot with soul aflame with 
 love for his fellow, whose voice has cried out 
 against tyranny and oppression — every discov- 
 erer of science, whose magic touch has unlocked 
 the mysteries of the unknown; every lover of 
 truth in every land who has hated wrong and 
 loved the right, was the joy and the hope of 
 some ardent mother who dreamed of a millen- 
 nial time when justice would triumph and hu- 
 manity would be free. 
 
 174 
 
WOMEN IN THE MARRIAGE RELATION. 
 
 The laws reflect the men who make them. 
 
 Only men morally dwarfed and intellectual- 
 ly obtuse could willingly sanction the attitude of 
 the Legislature of South Carolina on the ques- 
 tion of divorce. 
 
 The man whose opinion in these matters of 
 vital human concern is not subject to change, 
 upon evidence, whose reason is closed to every 
 view that happens to conflict with the authority 
 of the Scriptures ; who is imbued with the stulti- 
 fying belief that a literal obedience to the teach- 
 ings of the Bible is the duty of a man in this 
 awakened age, is not only a dangerous and de- 
 luded leader, but one sadly lacking in the funda- 
 mental attributes that distinguish the civilized 
 man from the savage. 
 
 These old laws and teachings of the Testa- 
 ment were given at a special time to serve the 
 needs and purposes of society in that ancient 
 day, and very likely they represented the most 
 advanced thought of that period. 
 
 But the world has grown apace ; all things 
 have changed and are ceaselessly changing still. 
 
 Man is striving to adjust himself to new 
 conditions that constantly confront him, and he 
 grows, progresses and civilizes in just the de- 
 gree in which he develops the ability to fit him- 
 self to the requirements of the hour. 
 
 175 
 
LET'S CIVILIZE THE MARRIAGE LAWS. 
 
 Modem civilization demands a new code of 
 ethics, and is writing a new Scripture. 
 
 This luminous age is Sending forth into the 
 world the Prophets of a new Messiah — Science. 
 
 And, 'Science will civilize the Marriage 
 Laws! 
 
 Science will minister to the needs of men 
 here. It will ferret out the secret of happiness 
 on the earth. It will concern itself about the 
 real salvation of the race — the mental and phys- 
 ical development and perfection of the hmnan 
 
 animal. 
 
 •«i 
 
 Science will sanctify fellowship, and glorify 
 service among men — thus will poverty pass; it 
 will .breed out disease ; and by the establish- 
 ment of a broad brotherhood, which shall know 
 neither caste nor kind nor creed, it will remove 
 the occasion for crime. 
 
 These things will surely come to pass. 
 
 AU these surpassing blessings will be real- 
 ized through a proper recognition of the pecul- 
 iar privileges or special prerogatives of wom- 
 en in the marriage relation; by a hallowing 
 and exalting of maternity, under all circiun- 
 stances; and by a plenary protection of the 
 rights of Mothers in the interest of the chil- 
 dren of love that are to be. 
 
 So, Let's Civilize the Marriage Laws. 
 176 
 
BUT, IT WERE BETTER I C( 
 
 TEND-A THOUSAND TIM 
 BETTER— THAT NINETY-NI 
 DIVORCES SHOULD BE GRANT 
 FOR INSUFFICIENT CAUSE, TH 
 THAT ONE UN-WELCOME, L 
 LOVED CHILD SHOULD BE BORI 
 
o 
 
 u 
 
 AN EPOCH MARKING BOOK. 
 
 T is only a matter of time, when Society will 
 alter its opinion about Divorce and reve:se 
 its judgment of the Divorcee. ' " " ' It 
 will recognize the operation of a natural 
 law, in the honest yearnings of the soul, 
 that will not be bound by creeds or conventions 
 It will honor and esteem many of those whom it would 
 now^ reproach and banish from its favor, and it will le- 
 serve its censure and its condemnation for those shame- 
 less hypocrites who make a mockery of marriage, by 
 persisting in wedlock after love has flown." 
 
 "It is now known that forms and cerenionies and 
 rituals have little tc do with the enduring marriage; that 
 no power, in scripture or sky, can avail to make de- 
 sirable or tolerable, a union w^here love is not; that men 
 and women, involuntarily and unconsciously— but in 
 obedience to the law of affinities seek each other, ju^ 
 as the metals combine and harmonize their atoms juSt 
 as the pollen of the flower finds its kind." 
 
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