Show DIVORCE DISCUSSED MRS RS FRANK LESLIE CAN SPEAK ON THE SUBJECT EX CATHEDRA A without nit nil answer three classes of livols tho the dogg DOBI in tile aann vet r bare tile ilia et 1 lease copyright ty by american press vz I 1 T IS always a pretty i spro sure sign that a subject is alive and although much discussed never settled set t led when it keeps coming up for fresh discussions cus and I 1 ia always receiving fresh settlements men do not earnestly and angrily di discuss the question of tho the sun buri lising I 1 in n the east although to bo be sure it la Is not very long since a prophet arose in pennsylvania to declare that tho the car carth th is ia stationary arid and the curt curi but as a general thing that subject as well as tho the fact that two and iwo make fourham four has been settled and laid away airily some time since along with the voraciousness 0 essof of george washington ton and the supremacy of the american ea eagle le overall over all tho the fowl that A fly among these ever to be debated and never settled subjects there is not one specially especially in our own country so apos impossible to decide so keenly debated so vehemently doci decided ded first on the one side aide and then on the other as divorce A largo large body of persons and many of them among the very best and wisest of our people clergy clergymen mon statesmen and leaders leader of coblio thought have handed banded themselves in an auti divorce league pledged to use their best endeavors to proc procure U n uniform divorce law in all our states and that law to bo be of the most stringent only allowing divorce for the scriptural offense off enso and even in that case not without final faial proof and great and aad protracted effort our english cousins always prone to the conservative course and as fond of red tape as they aro are of red beef until the establishment of sir Cres Cressw swells ellB divorce court laa hai 0 tried this thia method of rigid legislation upon divorce arid and not with the most fortunate results look for instance at the life of george 0 eliot if the english law lav had set mr bir lewes free from ilia his profligate fifo ho he and mary ann evans would have been quietly married according to law and the great novelist would not have left upon lier her name a stain which however affection and ree ct may gild it remains precisely the same muo stain attaching atta clung to the name of an any other woman ali who 0 lives with a man legally married to another woman or look at charles mor or daunt danat v hom the english law refused to set freo free from a woman whose ex es crows had bad iriven driven her to insanity achl itier WA mn aCS it has been all too plainly proven that the i agid english law of divorce of 50 years ago did not succeed in ili guarding the sanctity of the marriage covenant or the honor arid and peace of the family any more effectually than the laxest lagest of our western state regulations and to say a divorce is more easily procured in london thin than in new york our state slate being especially rigid in this respect spott re and a now new york divorce only tho the character of tho the one against whom the judgment is rendered and forbidding 1 a subsequent marriage by the offending party in some parts of the far west it is ia said eaid ono one may get a divorce for almost any conceivable cause I 1 do not vouch for the exactness of this aliis statement but can well believe it after some incidents of travel in tho the west among these wag a brief companionship with a young girl of 17 years hailing from chicago after half an hours acquaintance this young lady who was as pretty and as silly as any girl gill I 1 have ever met anywhere confided to mo me that she and charlie made two of a party to visit Mili milwaukee vaul for the day anaas aad as the theater kept lato late they missed the train they hall planned to tako take home in this dilemma some one suggested that the young men had better marry the girls and then it would be quite correct to go to a hotel three couples accepted the proposition and she rhe and charlie became man mail and wife after an ail uc of about a fortnight and where is charlie now ventured 1 I seeing that the poor child waa evidently alone oh hob at homo home in chicago replied she carelessly hes in ia a diore store and dont get enough tobay his salt let alone my hats bats I 1 reckon ill stop east cast awhile with some friends and then get a divorce wo we were only fooling when we got married you know a and rid we dont get along alon I 1 first rate anyhow I 1 and what do your parents say about it asked I 1 but the girl tossed her licad head in pretty scorn at the idea of parental interference 1 I 1 guess they got much to say bay about it pas gone off to mexico or and mas just got married again and is glad to bo be shut of me reckon I 1 can paddle my own canoe without their help hc lp now between the laxity which renders such a story etory as this possible ard and I 1 assure you it is absolutely a truis true story and the rigidity rigi lity which drove george lewes and mary ann evana to open defiance of law there lies a i vast bisti distance ance a happy medium wherein to my mind the true solution of the problem lies which again reminds moot mo of a learned joke first narrated and then explained to me by a gentleman from boston during my iny late western tour it that professor agassiz v ith other le irnell pundits of boston wis was unwrapping a recently imported mammy ant and disputing as to its li using illg thu tha of a i priest a fact presently iv ther the ihu r A i mammy it of an ail ibis i 1 aln bo 1 the he 1 of tho the human commy whereupon agassiz triumphantly boritas Vo ritas in madias res tutis ima ibis by way of coming down softly from athenian heights I 1 will add to iwa anecdote one frum from my own ov n experience moro more illustrating the simo same theory I 1 was having my mi ph photograph taken by a very charming foreigner iKner ro ra bently acquainted acquaint eLl with tho the english tongue anil and ijo be after various efforts to get tho the proper expression upon my lay fico exclaimed not too severe severo and jand not too cmil smiling amiling ing but let us find a liappa if we would be perfect ono One would rot not of course be flippant cippant upon a subject like lika this involving as it does docs tho the deepest ani and most vital interests of so many human bei baingi rigs and al though although it hns has undeniably its humorous eido the general aspect is one of profound sad sadness arid and perplexity two persons marry perhaps they are in tho the firby flush flash of youth with all sorts of rose colored ideals confidently set before their eyes or perhaps they are ara older and having aheady known sorro anil and olis disappointment appointment and disillusionment fancy they have at list last found a cora panion whose sympathy and comrade ship shin ire are to make kiako up for a great deal of what is forever lost in either cither case the contract at least on tho the woman li part is made with full intention of fulfilling its obligations she repeats her vow of constancy for better belter tor for worse for richer for poorer in sickness and health till death do us part with a sense of joyful security and certainty tho the drifting is over tho loneliness and forlornness forlorn nesa past never never again will sho she gland baand in tho the twili twilight glit murmuring that threadbare yet ever new lament my barks barka upon a darkling sen sea and no one stands beside me and no ono one minds tho helm for me and no ono one cares carea to guide me and tho the man if ho he bo be a true and holl honorable man as lie ho turns from the ilia altar tells himself that iu in this hour a new life must begin for him illo iho old follies 1 and I 1 rid vices must be forsworn tho the old companions forgotten the old crooked ways bo be made straight and clean lie he has promised to love cherish and protect this woman and forsaking all others keep himself only unto her so BO ion loas as both shall livo solemn words and a largo large promise but ho he means it all at least east we will hops hope most bridegrooms bride grooms do they go home and life begins be gips and for sonic some perhaps one half of those wedded couples the early promise and the tha solemn vows become realities at least we will say approximate realities and time tho the effacer and the reconciler over the shortcomings and buries thu memory of those lofty ideals end and brings a certain cynical philosophy into the life and so makes of it not what was expected not what was planned but something thin toler tolerable ablo and moderately satisfactory tory at least as good as the lives of other f people ople around about and yes well e enough nouga let us say fout JP out of this great mass of mankind there are a few a very few married couples who do really fulfill their ideals ideala ind nd find life just what they had hoped fast pst what they hall had planned th they y are and go go tabo world gloating over their own happiness and vaunting flaunting it in the faces of other people in a fashion that would bo be exa exasperating if it were not so pathetic now this class of persons look upon divorce as near akin to murder or sacrilege or madness they cannot in the least understand how anybody once onca admitted bitted to the paradise of matrimony could ever wish to leave it or to drive doivo their other self out of its dear inclosure they speak with bated breath or with uplifted eyo eyebrows brows and whispers of holy horror and dismay as they wonder what strange sort of beings those may be and fin finally illy giving up the gloomy conundrum turn with a sigh of relief to throw themselves into each others arms and thank with brief thanksgiving whatever pow ers rs may be that they are are not like other men returning to that great class of married people who just get on oil after a fashion with a good deal of beckerm bickering and a good many spoken or unspoken doubts as to whether marriage is ia worth while or not wo we find them also opposed to divorce but from a different standpoint than tho the little clique of just described they thoroughly recognize why some people wish to be divorced they tire ore more or less frankly conscious of occasionally wishing to be so themselves but they have never said so a loud aloud and the bitterness of their opposition to this mode of relief is that they do not caro care to sea others other a rid themselves of a burden which they have made up their in minds to bear it is just the dog login in the manger over again 1 I cant eat this thia clover and so yo you shant wt ll 11 says the dog 10 to the ox and sometimes tho ox is 13 scared away and gives up lis his proposed banquet it if I 1 can get along with tom I 1 imagine qu io yon von cani can with dick and so can you oil with says one of their philosophers to her sisters who are whispering about divorce and then warming wi with t h her topic she reads them a lecture upon the sinfulness and the shamefulness and the general depravity of the woman who will ivill see her name dragged through a divorce dh orce court arid and the duty of every wife to submit with patience and sweetness to her marriage lot whatever er it may turn out to be and it if she cant reform her husband to win him over by the exhibition of her own virtues until he be fills falla in love with goodness and forsakes sak es vice and all goes happy ever after yes these discontented and yet obstinately ll staying wives neives ire are tho the bitterest and most virulent op posers of divorce and do very pos possibly bibly effect some good by dragooning dragoo ning their feebler bi sisters aers into a submission that not infrequently ends in a 11 half bitter half indifferent acquits enco ence in a fate very different fi horn ora what was ivas hoped and yet not too ba bai bad I to bo be endured with some gome sort of philosophical c content to wives of class in fact of all three of the cl classes asses j just n at described I 1 say stay where you yon are bo be satisfied with tho the frying pan and dont jump jum pinto into the fire dear bear the ho ills you yon have rind nail do all that you can to r them above nil all if you have children rac sacrifice your own worn and rid weary lile life to their froli arc h young promise promis cs A woman ilbo has borne a child lias has in a marine manner pl pledged edgel herself to boar bear for that child wha iv tut t she would 11 not ot lear bear for tiers it C r it if and 1 n 1 groat great comes horn a heavy burden iut well w 11 borne that ii u ti tiie le way the tl 0 o italian women acquire their queenly poise cut but there cicro is ii belill another clans anil and 11 largo 0 o one to whom I 1 would not proffer this advice to whom I 1 would ol 01 rather say bay save yourselves whilo while you yon can women without ch children iran and without obligations except alie ilia marriage vows which have been back upon them shattered and foiled by him NN alio ho had sworn to hold them sacred and inviolate so ion loep as yo both shall live when this dy day comes to any wife the day when she finds her homo home ruined her womanhood insulted her self respect outraged ahn w lien she eho finds that her petitions her tears her arguments cud and her warnings alike tire scoffed and disregarded when irben she sees that the sho can do nothing to elevate tho the man who persistently degrades himself and drap drags her down him when she fears that blows may bo be added adad to cursing a and ud coar coarseness feness then my addico to that woman is appeal to the law for a re deaso ease from a union which lias has become a slavery annul tho the contract a ct L broken ro en a and rid despised by tho the other pa party t y bo be free every legal covenant is ia mado made dependent 1 upon the tl 0 o mutual mut nal honesty eni end gool good faith of the covenant ers and if ono one falls to fulfill lis his stipulated obligation tho the other is released often v with ith a com pen bation fo for r I 1 his As disa disappointment IJ lj ointment Is not madriago mar riago a contract worthy wort by of as much protection nat as tho the ca agreement of a firm of grocers or brokers lot let us its do hotl nothing hing either rashly or with too much prejudice or conservatism let us if wo N 0 would achieve buc coss beck see the happy middling I 1 beav between cen these two extremes whilo while harmless as ts doves do not lot let us forget for et to be also as serpents |