Spanish Fork Press | 1907-12-19 | Page 4 | Hundreds of Thousands of Divorces in the United States

t I HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DIVORCES IN THE UNITED STATES WHY MTHIN the last 20 years < thoro havo been 100000 I I1TlIIl in the United States These figures arc rtt supplied by the census 1m react at Washington which Is etui at work preparing the complete and official report This Is nn Increase of 1000000 In tho last 20 years over the 20 prececl dig years and the appalling part of It Is that twothirds or nearly 000000 of these divorces have been granted nays the New York Sunday Herald t Hasty Marriages I A I FflJ I I 1 1Y HlOE A 4W 2PD I AM a minister of tho gospel I behave be-have in tho Bible It Is l regrettable that there are so many different state laws governing divorce and I feel sorry for tho children of all these dl rvorcdd people says Rev Phoebo A iHnnaford No It Is not the fault of the new woman There Is no now woman IA woman Is a woman There aro good women and bad women but no new Iwomen Thoro are too many hasty mar Tinges This should be looked after u When the census bureau began its investigation it had to leave out near dy 600000 cases which were pending and of tho 2900 Investigators clerks etc employed In tho bureau In the Preparation of this report 140 are still at work getting it In Its final and complete com-plete shape Franco has only 79 divorce courts Germany only 28 England only one and the United States has 2921 courts empowered to grant divorces These facts alone aro sufficient to give the thinker pause and ask What Is tho remedy New Woman Blamed Writers who defend tho conventional conven-tional and domestic type of woman put all tho blame on the new woman wom-an They say she has left her legltl nfato sphere the home that she no longer loves or inspires lovo and that In defiance of all history and her own r apparent destiny refuses to consider marriage and motherhood tho object of her existence They urge she has abandoned the hearthstone to become a writer an artist n playwright an actress it teacher or whatnot and during the period In which she has gained her rights the last 20 years the marriage mar-riage institution has been assailed on nil sides Is it tho now womans fault Tho now woman differs from her sister in this respect at least she hall no flattery for the tyrant man She turns right around and places all the blame for tho marital unrest on his shoulders Man does not understand our complex com-plex nature she says and while ho considers marriage as only one stage of his own mental and spiritual development devel-opment he insists that we shall consider con-sider it the only excuse for our existence ex-istence Calls Contentions Unfair This Is unfair she continues We are not to bo classed with our domestic sisters AVo pity them but we are not of them We have alms aspirations arid ambitious tho same as men and to attempt to force us into domesticity Is to suffocate us Wo object to being called undutiful helpmeets help-meets because we are not submissive to our husbands misconception and misunderstanding of us Hut the defenders of the conventional conven-tional typo of woman reply you can nct accomplish anything great In literature lit-erature science or religion and you I never have produced works of great nnd universal genius Tho most you can do Is tQ make your own bread and butter v i ° trivial creations In art anl lu < raturo can be spared and it Is your Intellectual discontent and unrest un-rest that Is spreading the divorce germ which threatens soon to develop de-velop Into a dlvorco epidemic Take the place assigned to you by nature bo 11111118 helpmeet and nil will he well Inns higher education made woman dissatisfied with the domestic sphere Or Is It that the high tension of modern everyday business life hall prevented the husband from giving bin wlfo the romantic attentions and caresses demanded by her nature Modern Man Too Busy It Is not uncommon for the wives of business men to spend summer In Europe and winter In the south and many times they find In these places tho romantic companionship and attention at-tention their own husbands had not time to give them at homeLike home-Like birds In a gilded cage they wero treated their husbands sending them packages of lace and bundles of Bilks and bringing them homo handfuls hand-fuls of Jewels but if they ever suspected sus-pected their wives need of romance and tenderness thoy wore unable to supply It because of the demands on their time by their many business Interests In-terests Or Is It that the modern Inventions for pickling preserving dyeing and cleaning have left the twentieth century cen-tury woman with vast leisure on her hands and has her lack of domestic domes-tic occupations and cares made her dissatisfied and hypercritical of her busy and worried husband 1 And does she brood over his coldness cold-ness all day because In his haste to keep some business engagement ho hurries forth without the morning kiss Other Reasons Given Or Is It that young couples look at mnrrlago too childishly and do not seethe see-the economic sociological and political sides of tho family Do they not realize its integral relation to tho state Do they consider It as a personal thing and does their dull sense of tho sociological aspect of marriage dull them to the sociological aspect of dl vorco Or are marriages too lightly entered 1 F Should Be Sacrament I Y 1 t II i 1 j t L is 4 I C YL Y IJr f C THE reason for so many divorces Is I that women do not spend enough time studying tho characteristics of their intended husbands according to Mrs Elizabeth Bacon Walling It Is not caused by tho fact that modern machinery and inventions have taken womans domestic work from her thus leaving her with lots of time on her hands to flirt and get Into mischief mis-chief The athletic girl Is all right I have nothing against her A young woman living In Nineteenth Nine-teenth street married a man she had only known three months One day In looking from her front window she saw him sitting In a back window of n Twentieth street apartment writing letters and reading a newspaper complacently com-placently She asked him what ho was doing there lIe replied ho was visiting his friend Johnson Subsequently It developed de-veloped that ho had a wife and family there Isnt this appalling Tho young woman came to mo heartbroken What could I do When people understand that marriage is a sacrament as tho church knows It to be there will bo fewer divorces and to a largo extent there will be no marital unrest Into Rev Dr Houghton pastor of Tho Little Church Around tho Corner Cor-ner now has the bans called which means that threo weeks public notice Is given of all Intended marriages in tho church Do husbands and wives expect to find in marriage only a continuation of the romantic bliss of courtship And when they find each day there is loss ecstasy and more Imperfections discoverable In each other do they I rush Immediately and without second thought to the divorce courts The reason I just got tired of Alfred Al-fred or Margaret became such a bore has been given by more than one perKon who has applied for divorce di-vorce Looking In marriage for Individual Indi-vidual happiness only how could they remember their duty to tho state Sociologists writers doctors and ognllsts on all hands are asking What Is to be done Should there lie ti uniform divorce law that all the llfferent states will ratify Should thQ magistrate the priest and thou tho-u J For Separation I Q4 i I J to 1JR FOtr AaLe WHAT we need IB a doctrine of marriage There Is no clear cut doctrine of marriage The church Is tied up to tho ethics of 2000 years ago tho oriental fantasies of Paul Tho old Idea of marriage was inculcated In-culcated and secured through two fundamental principlesreverence to parents and tho understanding that marriage was to be permanent These principles are both Imperiled Is the Idea of Dr Felix Adler i Under present conditions they are no longer tenable for the first wan founded on the Idea that tho child had no rights except through its parents Its position was one of tho subservience sub-servience ot unquestioned obedience to the parents and as regards the permanence per-manence of tho marriage tie It was chiefly a bond that tied the woman to the man Her position was one of subordination Today wo admit that the child has rights which we are bound to respect and that the woman Is the equal of the man One trouble with modern marriage Is that the masculine element predominates pre-dominates In the ceremonial This should not be so The great trouble Is that people who marry nowadays look In marriage only for happiness Happiness Is not the end of marriage as most people think but only an incident In-cident of married life They aro bound to find many trials They should respect the etchlcal Ideals their great responsibility Is to future generations the good of the race Under the multiplication of divorces di-vorces In this country the Issue Is whether tho sensuous nature of tho marriage contract is to prevail or whether tho spiritual Is to predominate predom-inate I believe In separation but never In divorce preacher when marrying couples Impress Im-press upon them the sociological aspect as-pect of their union as well as the spiritual and romantic From Various Views The different churches have different dif-ferent beliefs concerning marriage the different states have different laws governing It and they are both content to rest their case there Thus the greatest sociological problem prob-lem In the United States today is beIng be-ing tossed back and forth as if It were some rubber ball and yet 1300000 divorces In 20 years are suro to leave their Influence on many lives and many families Back In 174S Mme do Chateauronx said I see plainly that there will boa bo-a general overthrow If no remedy Is usedWhat What she said about the political F I Marital Unrest I t j J Lk lI7jf r I 2 YG fUrLPJIFJkt h7av MARITAL unrest Is neither an offspring 11l off-spring of the now woman nor the evil outgrowth of freer and justcr divorce di-vorce laws declares Dr Clarke Houghton It Is as old as tho world < To charge it up to tho conscience of tho new woman Is neither fair minded mind-ed nor rational The Old Testament reeks with It nnd tht biographers of our great warriors statesmen poets and prophets all tho way down tho ages from Earle or Gorky of the pres ent day back to Potlphnrs wlfo and David of old show It to have been the same yesterday today and forever Davids own wives arc described as women of comely countenance and of good understanding and there Is no record where either Abigail or Ahlnoam closed their cook books to study law or uttered a single idea not the echo of their Joint husband U they had who knows They might have saved him from the sin of sendIng send-ing tho poor Hlttlte to the aforcfront et the hottest battle that ho might take his beaulful wife IJnthsheba Who knows hind they Rpnsnncd the sameness of the married way with nn occasional dash of original thought Tho sacred Milton the divine Shelley Shel-ley Cicero Dante and the Immortal 1 Shakespeare are all melancholy examples ex-amples of marital unrest though none of them was divorced It I divorce Is growing greater It is 1 not because marital unrest Is growIng grow-ing worse but because offenses In marriage and hypocrisy arc growing lessTo To make tho happiness of the Individuals Indi-viduals only an Incident In marriage Is only to defend Dr Adlers dream of a higher and finer race Insure the happiness of husband and wife and It will follow as the day the night that we will have a finer generation of offspring Off-spring and a puror society of men and omen m VV condition of Franco then we may say about the divorce situation In the United States today The divorce congress two years ago accomplished practically nothing well Intentioned as It was If federal legislation legis-lation is urged In tho spring on the strength of the detailed report of the census bureau It will be challenged on the ground of Its being unconstitutional unconstitu-tional I Divorce a Reproach J f 4 r 1B Pr Sra1Ri N Z THE prevalence of divorces In the United States Is a reproach alike to the country and to the church Is 1 I the declaration of Dr Robert Stuart MacArthur Tho American republic has a most unenviable prominence i In this regard The detailed accounts of suits for divorce as these suits aro i pressed In the various courts are disgusting dis-gusting In tho extreme They bring reproach alike upon American men and women in all parts of our country These facts are admitted and at the same time are sadly regretted by our best citizens and our most devoted churchmen and churchwomen The causes for divorce are numerous numer-ous They are not limited In responsibility re-sponsibility either to men or to women It Is not a sufficient statement state-ment to say that the broader education educa-tion of women and their emancipation emancipa-tion from tho greater subjection of former years is tho chief cause as Mrs Anna Rogers says The men and women who rush Into the divorce courts elicit our contempt for their vulgarity and coarseness not to use even stronger terms It Is difficult so to control ones moral Indignation because be-cause of the vulgarity of these dl vorco cases as to sneak of them with the restraint becoming a newspaper article How men and women can stoop to charge abominable crimes against each other In order to cure divorces makes one ashamed of his race Idleness lack of spiritual occupation occu-pation and suggestion and vulgar conformity con-formity to low Ideals In life these are causes largely responsible for the prevalence of divorce Hasty marriage mar-riage is also somewhat responsible Many men and women rush Into marriage mar-riage with less serious though fulness than they would show regarding any ordinary business transaction The clorgy also are somewhat responsible by the haste with which they officiate of-ficiate at marriages without knowing the facts in tho case of those who dt slro to enter Into this relationship Marriage must be made more honorable hon-orable Its obligations must bo lifted to a higher level In n single word the correction of the evils of divorce as in the case of all other evils must in Its finality depend upon higher spiritual ideals nobler characters and more religious conceptions of all the duties and obligations of life In Its manifold relations Uniform divorce laws In the states would partially remove re-move tho evils of divorce There is no one specific cause there is no one specific cure When men and women realize their dignity and glory tho children of God and heirs of oti nlty they wilt BO order their lives that Ill advised marriages will be rare and they will then BO conduct themselves In their married relations that divorces di-vorces will bo practically unknown