RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Divorce
ful. There is a prevailing notion that a large number of persons who seek divorce do so in order at once to contract new marriages. Unfortunately there are no collected statistics adequate to settle this question. Such foreign statistics as are available show that restriction upon the remarriage of divorced persons would not in a large degree affect the divorce rate. They indicate that within the first two or three years after dissolution of marriage divorced men are not much more inclined to remarry than are widowers, while during the same period a greater number of divorced women than widows renew the nuptial ties. Whether the number of divorces is greatly influenced by legislation is a question which has given rise to decided differences of opinion. In 1883 Bertillon took the position that statutes extending the causes of divorce or relaxing the procedure in divorce suits have little influence " upon the increase in the number of decrees." For the United States, at any rate, this view can not be entirely sustained. The divorce movement is indeed mainly dependent upon social forces which lie far beyond the reach of the legislator. Yet it seems almost certain that there is a margin, very important though narrow, within which he may wisely exert a restraining influence. He can create a legal environment favorable to reform. Good divorce laws — laws which are clear, certain, and simple, laws which can not be evaded, which are not a " dead letter," laws which express the best results of social experience— constitute such an environment, and they may even greatly lower the divorce rate, as conclusively proved by the experience of North Dakota. They may check hasty impulse and force individuals to take time for reflection. They may also by securing publicity prevent manifold injustice in the granting of decrees.
In Europe the divorce rate is rising, while the marriage rate is falling. The same is doubtless true of the United States. It is by
5. Amer- no means creditable to the American ican people that with eleven exceptions —
Legisla- the six New England commonwealths,
tive Re- Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, California form, (1905), and Iowa (1906)— the States 1887-1907. are making no effective provision for the collection or publication of divorce statistics. At present there is no means of determining the average rate for the whole country; but every practical reformer and student of social ethics will rejoice that Congress has already provided for a second report on marriage and divorce, covering the period since 1886. The report, doubtless, will show substantial progress. Indeed, there is much hasty and misdirected criticism of American divorce laws that ignores the remedial legislation of the last twenty years. Within this period the foundation of what some time may become a common and effective divorce code for the whole Union has slowly been laid. More and more in their essential features the divorce laws of the States are duplicating one another, and they are becoming better. Little by little, as a detailed examination of the whole body of enactments reveals, more stringent provisions for notice to the defendant have
been made, longer terms of previous residence for the parties required, and more satisfactory conditions of remarriage after the decree prescribed; while the more dangerous " omnibus clauses " in the list of statutory grounds have been repealed. At least eight States now severely punish the soliciting of divorce business. Moreover, saner opinions regarding the true nature and the real sources of the divorce evil are beginning to prevail.
IV. Nature of the Divorce Problem: The divorce movement, an almost universal incident of modern civilization, signifies underlying social evils vast and perilous. To the student of history it is perfectly clear that this is but a part of the mighty movement for social liberation which has been gaining in volume and strength ever since the Reformation. According to the sixteenth-century Reformer, divorce is the " medicine " for the disease of marriage. It is so to-day in a sense more real than Adam Smith or Heinrich Bullinger (q.v.) ever dreamed of. Certain it is that a detailed study of American legislation produces the conviction that , faulty as are our divorce laws, our marriage laws are far worse; while our apathy, our carelessness and levity touching the safeguards of the matrimonial institution are well-nigh incredible.
Nowhere in the field of social ethics, perhaps, is there more confusion of thought than in dealing with the divorce question. Some people look upon divorce as an evil in itself; others regard it as a " remedy " for, or a " symptom " of, social disease. To the Roman Catholic and to those who believe with him divorce is a sin, the sanction of " successive polygamy," of " polygamy on the instalment plan." At the other extreme are those who, like Milton and Humboldt, would allow marriage to be dissolved freely by mutual consent, or even at the desire of either spouse. According to the prevailing opinion, however, as expressed in modern legislation, divorce should be allowed, with more or less freedom, only under careful state regulation. Yet divorce is sanctioned by the State as an individual right; and there may be occasions when the exercise of that right becomes a social duty. The right, of course, is capable of abuse. Loose divorce laws may even invite crime. Nevertheless, it is fallacious to represent the institution of divorce as in itself a menace to social morality. It is a result, and not a cause; a remedy, and not the disease.
This is the principle upon which rests the whole modern theory of social control. In the Western world the extension of the sphere of secular legislation practically to the whole province— the whole outward or legal province — of marriage and divorce is a fact of transcendent interest. In this regard the Reformation marks the beginning of a social revolution. Luther's dictum that "marriage is a worldly thing " contained within it the germ of more history than its author ever imagined. The real trend of evolution has not at all times been clearly seen or frankly admitted; but from the days of Luther, however concealed in theological garb or forced under theological sanctions, however opposed by reactionary dogma, public opinion has more and more decidedly recognized the right of
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