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Show DIVORCE EVIL IS I HURTING DMY i CAMPAIGN French Sociologists Turn EU forts to Head Off Mari- tal Breaks j (By Newton C. Parke, International News Service Correspondent.) PARIS, Sept. 4 A startling in crease In number of divorces since the war ha.i practically wiped out. all i.etoie me present year passes more benefits accruing to France from a na- H tlon-wlde campaign for more and bet- J tor babies g H The divorce evil has reached such alarming proportions that sociologists are turning their attention from the H baby campaign in an efrort to head off the crowds bes.lcf.Vi: the divorce courts. They lnt out that their H movement for the repopulation of H I France will be of no avail If youn H 'married people continue to sever mar V ital ties. In 1913, a record divorce year, tho separations granted in Faris to-all.d to-all.d r,p;n. Iu 1919 the number H reached So;i7. and it Is estimated that before ihe present year pasess more than 10.000 couples will have been di- H ! vorced in the capital alono. WARTIME SEPARATIONS. "The divorce is almost the fashion," writes Henry Bordeaux, one of the best known of modern French writers. I "There is no longer any feeling of shame attached to it "What are the causes of this evil what are the causes invoked by mar-rled mar-rled people who ask separations? In JH the greater part of the unions con H traded before the war I find the same H complaint, the same allusion to the past 'we were happy before the war. the war came and separated us, and p-g-S now ihat wo are able to live together again, we no longer wish to. nuivug ue- i-uuipiaiuis maue uy uus- hands, we must recognize that Infidelity Infidel-ity is ihe moft frequent. The women tried to live their own lives, but only cave proof of their feeblenens. Many a family that had lived in happiness before the war, was broken up when Hie husband went to war One old man H whom I knew was stupefied on his re- H I turn to find that his 50-year-old wife had run away with an American sol- Iter Another came back to resume -.-.H his business only lo find that his wife had given everything away to a youth- l'ul lover. The women who were too lH weak abandoned everything in their ' folly, husbands, children, situations H and relatives, to try new lives. WOMEN FEEL INDEPENDENT. "But these are women a bit light H headed. There are others, simply prac- tlcal and rc-solved to be independent. The lived independent lives, while H their husbands were at the front and they can no longer support the yoke, H , They no longer care for tho protection H I of men, they can look after them- H "And the men, by an inverse phe- H nomenon, have never shown them- H selves less accommodating. They take H I badly this attitude on the part of their H srlyee. Having fought the war they H think everything Is due them. Instead H of gallant conversations with their H wives they prefer to smoke their pipes .H and exchange remlnscences with their H comrades. Between two patroners so H fundamentally different and so little H disposed to make concessions, con- H fllCltS are inevitable H RECOGNIZE EVILS. "Then. too. the marriages contracted H during the war are finding their way iruo t tie uivorce e ouris. u see'uis inai h frequently they were solemnized with- out serious thought. For instance, one J soldier admitted that he married only to get leave from the front These were fragile and lamentable unions J and the rupture brought only a quar- rel and a court decision dividing tbe H household furniture or the children. H 'Certainly la many families the war H has brought family ties closer togeth H it. has resulted in the reconciliation I Of many wives and husbands who hvl H separated. But it cannot be denied thai our morals have suffered heavily H from the war. The progress of the H divorce evil Is one of our greatest so- cial dangers because it corresponds so H i losely to the vital questions of our birthrate." |