OCR Text |
Show CAUSES FOR DIVORCE. "Extreme Cruelty" Is a Charge Requiring: Requir-ing: Nice Discrimination. As sufficient causes usually cited for the Intervention of law and Infidelity, non-support, "gross neglect of duty," and "extreme cruelty." In regard to the first, the injured party, whether man or woman, must keenly feel the personal indignity offered by infidelity as such a plea for divorce is an open recognition , or the basis of marriage which many a woman had rather endure en-dure wrong than acknowledge in public, pub-lic, writes Mrs. K. Garnett Wells, in the North American Review. The sec- ond cause, non-support, is being done J away with by the modern, economic woman, who contends for her right to industrial pursuits and alleges her ability and destiny to be a wage-earner. wage-earner. It used to be a stigma to be so unattractive as a wife that (ine was not supported in comfort. Now it is a greater stigma to be incapable of self-support. self-support. If both husband and wife I are to be wage-earners, or If the unearned un-earned increment of Invested capital accrues to both, it will be difficult for a woman to base a suit upon this ground, except its object to be to secure an arrangement for her participation in her husband's resources, in which case it is still to be hoped, the larger burden of self-support will fall upon the man, once the patron, now the equal, of woman! The third and fourth conditions, ' "gross neglect of duty" and "extreme cruelty," appeal to the mind as pregnant phrases, which allow large liberty- to offenders and require a nice sense of discrimination discrimina-tion in tne court. If other conditions are maligned, these can never be sus- ceptible as they are of individual interpretation, in-terpretation, sheltering alike vanity and modestv. "Nes-lprt- nf iintv" i o much more ethical cause than the offering of-fering of "indignities" that render life "intolerable" or "burdensome," as one might be over-fastidious or too easily bored. "Extreme cruelty" depends upon up-on that to which the victim has been accustomed. But, however bad or misleading mis-leading is any "omnibus clause," it is no worse in its moral effect than restriction re-striction of divorce to a single cause. |