THE CONDITIONS OF DIVORCE
A brief chapter must be devoted to the question of the conditions of
divorce, which are really part of the conditions of marriage. Here, as
in every other case, we must apply the universal and unchallengeable
eugenic criterion: the conditions of divorce, like the conditions of
marriage itself, must be such as best serve the future of the race. This
will mean that, in the first place, in entering upon marriage--which of
necessity means so much more to a woman than it does to a man--the woman
must have the assurance that when the conditions of the contract are
broken she will be liberated. The law must bear equally upon the two
sexes. This condition of safety, once established, may determine toward
marriage a certain number of women at present deterred by what they know
of the manner in which our unjust laws now work.
Secondly, Divorce Law Reform in the right interests of women and the
future must involve the complete protection of both from, for instance,
the drunken husband. The male inebriate is on all grounds unfitted to be
a father, and the laws of divorce must ensure that if he be married, his
wife and therefore the future shall be protected from him. Those of us
who believe in the movement for Women Suffrage will be grievously
disappointed if, when that movement at last succeeds, such fundamental
and urgent reforms as these are not promptly effected.
A Royal Commission is now sitting in England upon this subject of
Divorce Law Reform, and I wish to repeat here with all the emphasis
possible what has been already said in indirect contribution to the
evidence laid before that Commission. It is that the first principle of
judgment in all such matters is the Eugenic one. Primarily marriage is
an invention for serving the future by buttressing motherhood with
fatherhood. The judgment of all our methods of marriage and divorce lies
with their products. "By their fruits ye shall know them." If there were
any antagonism between the interests of the individual and those of the
race we should indeed be in a quandary, but as I have shown a hundred
times there is no such antagonism. The man or woman from whom a divorce
ought to be obtained is _ipso facto_ the man or woman who ought not to
be a parent.
When it is a question of life or gold, we in England are consistent
Mammon worshippers. Woe to the poacher, but the wife beater has only
strained a right and may be leniently dealt with; woe to the destroyer
of pheasants, but the destruction of peasants is a detail. Thus it is
that the great fundamental questions which, because they determine the
destiny of peoples, are the great Imperial questions, are unknown even
by repute to our professed Imperialists. Every kind of industry except
the culture of the racial life interests them profoundly--if there is
money in it. The whole nation can go wild over a budget or the proposal
to revive protection, but the conditions under which the race is
recruited are the concern of but a few, who are looked upon as cranks.
In the case of such a question as our Divorce Laws the public is
substantially unaware that we are hundreds of years behind the rest of
the civilized world; that our practice is utterly unthought out, and
that the supposed compromise of Separation Orders is insane in principle
and hideous in result. The present law bears very hardly upon both sexes
in a thousand cases, but more especially upon women, toward whom it is
grossly unjust. All honour is due to the Divorce Law Reform Union,[19]
which for many years has devoted itself to this important subject, and
has at last succeeded in obtaining the formation of a Royal Commission,
the upshot of which, we may hope, will be to reform our law on moral,
humane, and eugenic lines. The following is a striking quotation from a
pamphlet written on behalf of this Union by Mr. E. S. P. Haynes, a
distinguished expert.
"But our law of divorce is only one example among many of our
hide-bound attachment to ancient abuses. It is of the utmost
importance to realize that Divorce Law Reform will merely bring our
jurisprudence up to the level of the modern enlightened State. It
involves no revolutionary disturbance of anything but our crusted
ignorance of how modern civilization works outside England. It sets
out to place the family on a firmer basis, to regulate the marriage
contract on equitable lines, and to improve the chances of the
future generation in a country where deserted wives fill the
work-houses and forty thousand illegitimate children are born every
year."
In Germany, which we are always being asked to imitate in non-essentials
by the more stupid kind of Imperialist--the kind which only very strong
empires can survive--the law of divorce is vastly superior to ours.
There is no such thing as judicial separation, which "is rightly
condemned as being contrary to public policy." Further, as Mr. Haynes
points out, "In Germany a male cannot marry under twenty-one or a female
under eighteen, whether parental consent is available or not. In England
a man may and not infrequently does cut his wife and family out of his
will; in Germany the rights of wife and children are properly
safeguarded by limiting this liberty of disposition. In England a father
need not do more for his children than keep them out of the work-house
unless he has brought himself under Divorce Jurisdiction; in Germany he
is obliged to maintain them in a suitable manner. In England a
spendthrift or dipsomaniac can only be controlled when he has spent all
his money. In Germany such persons are protected from themselves by the
family council. In England an illegitimate child can never be
legitimated by the subsequent marriage of the parents. In Germany this
humane and reasonable opportunity of making reparation to the child
exists as a matter of course."
Here in England we have one law for the rich and another for the poor,
for the average cost of a decree is about £100; and a case was recently
reported in which a woman had saved up for twenty years in order to
obtain a divorce. What an absolutely abominable scandal; how hideously
beneath the level of practice amongst what we are pleased to call savage
peoples. As everyone knows, the present law directly encourages
immorality, pronouncing separation _without_ the power of
re-marriage--that is to say, the greater punishment, for lesser
offences, and divorce _with_ the power of re-marriage, that is to say,
the lesser punishment, for greater offences.
Further, the law totally ignores the interests of the future in
conspicuous cases where one or other possible parent is hopelessly unfit
for such a function. In the interests not only of the individual but the
future it would be advisable to grant divorce to a person whose partner
had been confined in a lunatic asylum for, say five years, and who could
be certified as likely to remain insane permanently, or whose partner
had been confined in an Inebriates' Home for, say, two terms of one
year, or who could be proved and certified to be an incurable drunkard.
We must abolish these atrocious Separation Orders, with their direct
promotion of every kind of immorality, illegitimacy and cruelty to
women. But perhaps this chapter may be brought to a close since in
England the matter is now before a Royal Commission, and since our
stupidities are of no direct interest to the American reader. It was
necessary, however, to deal with the subject because of its immediate
and urgent bearing upon many of the problems of Womanhood.