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 833
divorces. If you want to know how easy it is you have only to look
over the records of the States. In Massachusetts 600 divorces in one
year; in Maine 478 in one year; in Connecticut 401 divorces in one
year; in the city of San Francisco 333 divorces in 1880; in New
England in one year 2113 divorces, and in twenty years in New England
20,000. 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's 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 is one to eleven; in Rhode Island is one to
thirteen; in Vermont is 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 20,000 cases of divorce
in one year in Paris.