373. Easy Divorce

Easy Divorce

Mat_19:6 : ’93What, therefore, God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.’94

That there are hundreds and thousands of infelicitous homes in America no one will doubt. If there were only one skeleton in the closet, that might be locked up and abandoned; but in many a home there is a skeleton in the hallway and a skeleton in all the apartments. ’93Unhappily married’94 are two words descriptive of many a homestead. It needs no orthodox minister to prove to a badly-mated pair that there is a hell; they are there now. Sometimes a grand and gracious woman will be thus incarcerated, and her life will be a crucifixion, as was the case with Mrs. Sigourney, the great poetess and the great soul. Sometimes a consecrated man will be united to a fury, as was John Wesley; or united to a vixen, as was John Milton. Sometimes, and generally, both parties are to blame, and Thomas Carlyle is an intolerable grumbler, and his wife has a pungent retort always ready; and Froude, the historian, pledged to tell the plain truth, has to pull aside the curtain from the lifelong squabble at Craigenputtock and No. 5, Cheyne Row.

Some say that for the alleviation of all these domestic disorders of which we hear, easy divorce is a good prescription. God sometimes authorizes divorce as certainly as he authorizes marriage. I have just as much regard for one lawfully divorced as I have for one lawfully married. But you know and I know that wholesale divorce is one of our national scourges. I am not surprised at this when I think of the influences which have been abroad militating against the marriage relation. For many years the platforms of the country rang with talk about a free-love millennium. There were meetings of this kind held in the Academy of Music, Brooklyn; Cooper Institute, New York; Tremont Temple, Boston; and all over the land. Some of the women who were most prominent in that movement have since been distinguished for great promiscuosity of affection. Popular themes for such occasions were the tyranny of man, the oppression of the marriage relation, women’92s rights, and the affinities. Prominent speakers were women with short curls and short dress and very long tongue, everlastingly at war with God because they were created women; while on the platform sat meek men with soft accent and cowed demeanor, apologetic for masculinity, and holding the parasols while the termagant orators went on preaching the gospel of free love. That campaign of about twenty years set more devils into the marriage relation than will be exorcised in the next fifty. Men and women went home from such meetings so permanently confused as to who were their wives and husbands that they never got out of the perplexity, and the criminal and the civil courts tried to disentangle the Iliad of woes, and this one got alimony, and that one got a limited divorce, and this mother kept the children on condition that the father could sometimes come and look at them, and these went into poor-houses, and those went into an insane asylum, and those went into dissolute public life, and all went to destruction. The mightiest war ever made against the marriage institution was that free-love campaign, sometimes under one name and sometimes under another.

Another influence that has warred upon the marriage relation has been polygamy in Utah. That is a stereotyped caricature of the marriage relation, and has poisoned the whole land. You might as well think that you can have an arm in a state of mortification and yet the whole body not be sickened, as to have any Territories and States polygamized and yet the body of the nation not feel the putrefaction. Hear it, good men and women of America, that so long ago as 1862, a law was passed by the Congress forbidding polygamy in the Territories and in all the places where they had jurisdiction. Thirty-seven years have passed along and nine administrations, yet not until the passage of the Edmunds Law, in 1882, was any active policy of polygamic suppression adopted. Armed with all the power of government, and having an army at their disposal, the first brick had not till then been knocked from that fortress of libertinism. Every new President in his inaugural tickled that monster with the straw of condemnation, and every Congress stultified itself in proposing some plan that would not work. Polygamy stood in Utah and in other of the Territories more entrenched, more brazen, more puissant, more braggart, and more infernal, than at any time in its history. James Buchanan, a much-abused man of his day, did more for the extirpation of this villainy than all the subsequent administrations dared to do, up to 1882. Mr. Buchanan sent out an army, and although it was halted in its work, still he accomplished more than the subsequent administrations, which did nothing but talk, talk, talk. Even at this late day, and with the Edmunds Act in force, the evil has not been wholly extirpated. Polygamy in Utah, though outlawed, is still practised in secret. It has warred against the marriage relation throughout the land. It is impossible to have such an awful sewer of iniquity sending up its miasma, which is wafted by the winds of north, south, east and west, without the whole land being affected by it.

Another influence that has warred against the marriage relation in this country has been a pustulous literature, with its millions of sheets every week choked with stories of domestic wrongs, and infidelities, and massacres and outrages, until it is a wonder to me that there are any decencies or any common sense left on the subject of marriage. One-half of the news-stands of our great cities reeking with the filth.

’93Now,’94 say some, ’93we admit all these evils, and the only way to clear them out or correct them is by easy divorce.’94 Well, before we yield to that cry, let us find out how easy it is now. I have looked over the laws of all the States, and I find that while in some States it is easier than in others, in every State it is easy. The State of Illinois through its Legislature recites a long list of proper causes for divorce, and then closes up by giving to the courts the right to make a decree of divorce in any case where they deem it expedient. After that you are not surprised at the announcement that in one county of the State of Illinois, in one year, there were eight hundred and thirty-three divorces. If you want to see how easy it is you have only to look over the records of the States. In Massachusetts, six hundred divorces in one year; in Maine, four hundred and seventy-eight in one year; in Connecticut, four hundred and one divorces in one year; in the city of San Francisco, three hundred and thirty-three divorces in one year; in New England, in one year, two thousand one hundred and thirteen divorces, and in twenty years in New England, twenty thousand. Is that not easy enough? If the same ratio continue, the ratio of multiplied divorce and multiplied causes of divorce, we are not far from the time when our courts will have to set apart whole days for application, and all you will have to prove against a man will be that he left his slippers in the middle of the floor, and all you will have to prove against a woman will be that her husband’92s overcoat was buttonless. Causes of divorce doubled in a few years, doubled in France, doubled in England, and doubled in the United States. To show how very easy it is I have to tell you that in Western Reserve, Ohio, the proportion of divorces to marriages celebrated was in one year one to eleven; in Rhode Island, one to thirteen; in Vermont, one to fourteen. Is not that easy enough?

I want you to notice that frequency of divorce always goes along with the dissoluteness of society. Rome for five hundred years had not one case of divorce. Those were her days of glory and virtue. Then the reign of vice began, and divorce became epidemic. If you want to know how rapidly the empire went down, ask Gibbon. Do you know how the Reign of Terror was introduced in France? By twenty thousand cases of divorce in one year in Paris.

What we want in this country and in all lands is that divorce be made more and more and more difficult. Then people before they enter that relation will be persuaded that there will probably be no escape from it, except through the door of the sepulchre. Then they will pause on the verge of that relation until they are fully satisfied that it is best, and that it is right, and that it is happiest. Then we shall have no more marriages in fun. Then men and women will not enter the relation with the idea it is only a trial trip, and if they do not like it they can get out at the first landing. Then this whole question will be taken out of the frivolous into the tremendous, and there will be no more joking about the blossoms in a bride’92s hair than about the cypress on a coffin.

What we want is that the Congress of the United States move for the changing the national Constitution so that a law can be passed which shall be uniform all over the country, and what shall be right in one State shall be right in all the States, and what is wrong in one State will be wrong in all the States. How is it now? If a party in the marriage relation gets dissatisfied it is only necessary to move to another State to achieve liberation from the domestic tie, and divorce is effected so easily that the first one party knows of it is by seeing it in the newspaper that Rev. Dr. Somebody, a few days or weeks afterwards, introduced into a new marriage relation a member of the household who went off on a pleasure excursion to Newport or a business excursion to Chicago. Married at the bride’92s house. No cards. There are States of the Union which practically put a premium upon the disintegration of the marriage relation, while there are other States, like the State of New York, which has the pre-eminent idiocy of making marriage lawful at twelve and fourteen years of age.

The Congress of the United States needs to move for a change of the national Constitution, and then to appoint a committee’97not made up of single gentlemen, but of men of families, and their families in Washington’97who shall prepare a good, honest, righteous, comprehensive, uniform law that will control everything from Sandy Hook to Golden Gate. That will put an end to brokerages in marriage. That will send divorce lawyers into a decent business. That will set people agitated for many years on the question of how shall they get away from each other to planning how they can adjust themselves to the more or less unfavorable circumstances.

More difficult divorce will put an estoppel to a great extent upon marriage as a financial speculation. There are men who go into the relation just as they go into Wall street to purchase shares. The female to be invited into the partnership of wedlock is utterly unattractive, and in disposition a suppressed Vesuvius. Everybody knows it, but this masculine candidate for matrimonial orders, through the commercial agency or through the county records, finds out how much estate is to be inherited, and he calculates it. He thinks out how long it will be before the old man will die, and whether he can stand the refractory temper until he does die, and then he enters the relation; for he says, ’93If I cannot stand it, then through the divorce law I will back out.’94 That process is going on all the time, and men enter the relation without any moral principle, without any affection, and it is as much a matter of stock speculation as anything that was transacted yesterday in Union Pacific, Wabash, and Delaware and Lackawanna. Now, suppose a man understood, as he ought to understand, that if he goes into that relation there is no possibility of his getting out, or no probability, he would be more slow to put his neck in the yoke. He should say to himself, ’93Rather than a Caribbean whirlwind with a whole fleet of shipping in its arms, give me a zephyr off fields of sunshine and gardens of peace.’94

Rigorous divorce law will also hinder women from the fatal mistake of marrying men to reform them. If a young man, by twenty-five years of age or thirty years of age, have the habit of strong drink fixed on him, he is as certainly bound for a drunkard’92s grave as that a train starting out from Grand Central Depot at eight o’92clock to-morrow morning is bound for Albany. The train may not reach Albany, for it may be thrown from the track. The young man may not reach a drunkard’92s grave, for something may throw him off the iron track of evil habit; but the probability is that the train that starts to-morrow morning at eight o’92clock for Albany will get there, and the probability is that the young man who has the habit of strong drink fixed on him before twenty-five or thirty years of age will arrive at a drunkard’92s grave. She knows he drinks, although he tried to hide it by chewing cloves. Everybody knows he drinks. Parents warn, neighbors and friends warn. She will marry him, she will reform him. If she is unsuccessful in the experiment, why then the divorce law will emancipate her, because habitual drunkenness is a cause for divorce in Indiana, Kentucky, Florida, Connecticut, and nearly all the States. So the poor thing goes to the altar of sacrifice. If you will show me the poverty-struck streets in any city I will show you the homes of the women who married men to reform them. In one case out of ten thousand it may be a successful experiment. I never saw the successful experiment. But have a rigorous divorce law, and that woman will say, ’93If I am affianced to that man, it is for life; and if now in the ardor of his young love, and I the prize to be won, he will not give up his cups, when he has won the prize, surely he will not give up his cups.’94 And so that woman will say to the man, ’93No, sir; you are already married to the club, and you are married to that evil habit, and so you are married twice, and you are a bigamist. Go!’94

A rigorous divorce law will also do much to hinder hasty and inconsiderate marriages. Under the impression that one can be easily released, people enter the relation without inquiry and without reflection. Romance and impulse rule the day. Perhaps the only ground for the marriage compact is that she likes his looks, and he admires the graceful way she passes around the icecream at the picnic! It is all they know about each other. It is all the preparation for life. A man not able to pay his own board bill, with not a dollar in his possession, will stand at the altar and take the loving hand, and say, ’93With all my worldly goods I thee endow!’94 A woman that could not make a loaf of bread to save her life will swear to love and keep him in sickness and in health. A Christian will marry an atheist, and that always makes conjoined wretchedness; for if a man does not believe there is a God, he is neither to be trusted with a dollar nor with your lifelong happiness. Having read much about love in a cottage, people brought up in ease will go and starve in a hovel. Runaway matches and elopements, nine hundred and ninety-nine out of one thousand of which mean death and hell, multiplying on all hands. You see them in every-day’92s newspapers.

Our ministers in some regions have no defense such as they have in other regions where the banns must be previously published and an officer of the law must give a certificate that all is right; so clergymen are left defenseless, and unite those who ought never to be united. Perhaps they are too young or perhaps they are standing already in some domestic compact. By the wreck of ten thousand homes, by the holocaust of ten thousand sacrificed men and women, by the hearthstone of the family, which is the corner-stone of the State, and in the name of that God who hath set up the family institution and who hath made the breaking of the marital oath the most appalling of all perjuries, I implore the Congress of the United States to make some righteous, uniform law for all the States and from ocean to ocean, on this subject of marriage and divorce.

Let me say to all young people, before you give your heart and hand in holy alliance, use all caution; inquire outside as to habits, explore the disposition, scrutinize the taste, question the ancestry, and find out the ambitions. Do not take the heroes and the heroines of cheap novels for a model. Do not put your lifetime happiness in the keeping of a man who has a reputation for being a little loose in morals or in the keeping of a woman who dresses immodestly. Remember that while good looks are a kindly gift of God, wrinkles or accident may despoil them. Remember that Byron was no more celebrated for his beauty than for his depravity. Remember that Absalom’92s hair was not more splendid than his habits were despicable. Hear it, hear it! The only foundation for happy marriage that ever has been or ever will be, is good character.

Ask the counsel of father and mother in this most important step of your life. They are good advisers. They are the best friends you ever had. They made more sacrifices for you than any one else ever did, and they will do more today for your happiness than any other people. Ask them, and above all, ask God. I used to smile at John Brown, of Haddington, because, when he was about to offer his hand and heart in marriage to one who became his lifelong companion, he opened the conversation by saying, ’93Let us pray.’94 But I have seen so many shipwrecks on the sea of matrimony, I have made up my mind that John Brown, of Haddington, was right. A union formed in prayer will be a happy union, though sickness pale the cheek, and poverty empty the bread tray, and death open the small graves, and all the path of life be strewn with thorns, from the marriage altar, with its wedding march and orange blossoms, clear on down to the last farewell at that gate where Isaac and Rebecca, Abraham and Sarah, Adam and Eve parted. And let me say to you who are in this relation, if you make one man or woman happy you have not lived in vain. Christ says that what he is to the Church you ought to be to each other; and if sometimes through difference of opinion or difference of disposition you make up your mind that your marriage was a mistake, patiently bear and forbear, remembering that there is a glory in the patient endurance of a sad yoke. Life at the longest is short and for those who have been badly mated in this world, death will give quick and final bill of divorcement written in letters of green grass on quiet graves. And, perhaps, my brother, my sister, perhaps you may appreciate each other better in heaven than you have appreciated each other on earth.

In the ’93Farm Ballads’94 our American poet puts into the lips of a repentant husband after a life of married perturbation these suggestive words:

And When She Dies I Wish That She Would Be Laid by Me,

And Lying Together in Silence, Perhaps We Will Agree,

And If Ever We Meet in Heaven, I Would Not Think It Queer

If We Love Each Other Better Because We Quarreled Here.

And let me say to those of you who are in happy married union, avoid first quarrels; have no unexplained correspondence with former admirers; cultivate no suspicions; in a moment of bad temper do not rush out and tell the neighbors; do not let any of those gadabouts of society unload in your house their baggage of gab and tittle-tattle; do not make it an invariable rule to stand on your rights; learn how to apologize; do not be so proud or so stubborn or so devilish that you will not make up. Remember that the worst domestic misfortunes and most scandalous divorce cases started from little infelicities. The whole piled-up train of ten rail-cars telescoped and smashed at the foot of an embankment one hundred feet down came to that catastrophe by getting two or three inches off the track. Some of the greatest domestic misfortunes and the widest resounding divorce cases have started from little misunderstandings that were allowed to go on and go on until home and respectability and religion and immortal soul went down in the crash!

Fellow-citizens, as well as fellow-Christians, let us have a divine rage against anything that wars on the marriage state. Blessed institution! Instead of two arms to fight the battle of life, four. Instead of two eyes to scrutinize the path of life, four. Instead of two shoulders to lift the burden of life, four. Twice the energy, twice the courage, twice the holy ambition, twice the probability of worldly success, twice the prospects of heaven. Into that matrimonial bower God fetches two souls. Outside the bower, room for all contentions and all bickerings and all controversies, but inside that bower there is room for only one guest’97the angel of love. Let that angel stand at the floral doorway of this Edenic bower with drawn sword to hew down the worst foe of that bower’97easy divorce. And for every Paradise lost may there be a Paradise regained. And after we quit our home here may we have a brighter home in heaven at the windows of which this moment are familiar faces watching for our arrival and wondering why so long we tarry.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage