However much some of us may feel that divorce can never touch our
personal lives, at least the question of it in regard to the nation
must always be interesting; and now, with the Majority and Minority
report of the Royal Commission still ringing in every one's ears, it
seems a moment to suggest some points of view upon the matter. To
those people entirely influenced by religion as it is expounded from
the laws laid down by the Church, there can be nothing to say,
because, in the first place, their belief in the infallibility of
these laws and the influence of their pastors ought certainly to keep
them from sinning at all; and if sinned against, ought to enable them
to bear the pain without murmur. But there are a vast number of our
countrymen and women who do not consider the dogmas of religion and
are not entirely imbued with respect for the laws of the Church, while
nevertheless being good and honest citizens. It depends upon each
person's point of view.
In this paper, as in my former ones upon Marriage, I want only to take
the subject from the standpoint of common sense, while with reverence
I admit that if the moral conscience could be awakened by any
religious convictions whatever, so that it would keep each individual
from sinning, that would be the true solution of the problem. But,
while seeking to enforce its laws in opposition to the laws of the
State, the teaching of the Church seems somehow not to have been able
to retain much hold over the general conscience which, ever since the
first secular law came into being, has availed itself of the relief so
afforded to free itself from galling shackles. The point, then, to
look at sensibly is not whether divorce is right or wrong in itself,
but what sort of effect the making of it easier or less easy would
have upon the nation. There does not seem to be the slightest use in
applying any arguments to the subject which do not take into
consideration the immeasurable upheaval in ideas, manner of living,
relaxation of personal discipline, and loss of religious control which
have taken place since the last reform was made. The luxury of
existence, the rapid movement from place to place permitted by
motor-cars, the emancipation of women, the general supposed necessity
of indulging in amusements, have so altered all the notions of life,
and so excited and encouraged interest in sex relationships, that the
old idea of stability and loyalty in marriage is shaken to its
foundations. The temptations for people to err are now a thousand-fold
greater than they were fifty years ago, and very few young people are
brought up with ideas of stern self-control at all. This being the
case, it would seem that the only rational standpoint to view the
question of divorce reform or divorce restriction from is the one
which gives the vastest outlook over each side's eventuality,
realising present conditions and tendencies to be as they are, and not
as they were, or ought to be. The forces which produced these
conditions are not on the decline, but, if anything, on the increase,
and must therefore be reckoned with and not ignored. What are they
likely to bring in the future? Still greater intolerance of all
restraint, still more desire for change? And if this is so, will it
have been wiser to have made the law harder or more lenient? That is
the question we shall soon, as a people, have to try to decide.
In setting out to look calmly at the subject of divorce, no good can
be arrived at by studying isolated cases, inasmuch as surely there can
be no divided opinion upon the fact of the cruelty of some of them,
and the certainty of their betterment by divorce. The one and only aim
to keep in view is what will be best for the whole people, and no
other aspect should ever influence the true citizen in making up his
mind upon so vital a question. Thus surely we ought each one of us to
ask himself or herself to look ahead, and try to imagine what would be
the result to our nation of relaxing the severity of the present
divorce law--or of increasing it. Of the effects of its present
administration we can judge, so it ought to be no impossible task to
work from that backwards or forwards.
But to look at any subject dispassionately, without the prejudice of
religion or personal feeling, is one of the hardest things to
accomplish. These two forces always make people take views as
unchangeable as the laws of the Medes and Persians, regardless of
totally altered conditions and requirements of mankind. I hold a brief
for neither side, and in this paper I only want to suggest some points
of view so as to help, perhaps, some others to look at the matter with
justice, as I have tried to look at it myself. It would seem to me
that divorce as a means of ridding oneself of one partner merely to be
happier with another must surely always be wrong, because it must
entail the degradation of conscious personal motive, in the knowledge
that one had taken advantage of a law to gain an end, and to help one
to break a vow solely for one's own gratification. The enormous
responsibility of so taking fate into their own hands would frighten
most people, if they gave themselves time to think--but they do not.
Nine-tenths of them have no compunction in breaking vows, because they
do not realise that by making them they have connected themselves with
currents and assumed responsibilities the consequences of which to
themselves they cannot possibly eventually avoid, no matter how they
may try temporarily to evade them.
It would seem to me that divorce for the rich and educated should be
made as difficult as possible, and the pleas investigated mercilessly,
to discover if any advantage has been taken of legal quibbles for
ulterior ends; but that the judge should grant decrees instantly when
habitual drunkenness, madness, or anything which degrades and lowers a
household or community is proved against the defendant. It would seem
to me that divorces for the poor should be facilitated in every way,
if this difference to those of the rich could possibly be
accomplished, so that the hideous cruelty and encouragement of vice
(cases of which are so admirably set forth in the pamphlets issued by
the Divorce Law Reform Union) could be summarily dealt with, and
relief and peace conferred upon the innocent party. Because the lives
of the poor are too filled with work to be as easily influenced by
personal emotion as the lives of the rich, and the lower level of
their education and standard of manners admits of such far greater
unkindness and brutality in their actions than in a higher class; and
thus they are the more entitled by justice to relief and protection
than the highly endowed and developed section of society who can
better take care of themselves. It seems to me to be a crying
injustice that the law of divorce can only be administered by paying
exorbitant fees for it; and that if the separation of two human beings
who are admittedly bound together by law can be accomplished by law
and that the breaking of the marriage vow is a sin against the law,
then the poorest in the land have an absolute right that this law
should be put into execution for them without special payment, just as
they have now a right to the Law's working for them to catch offenders
who steal their goods, or who break business contracts with them. It
would seem that this is a frightful case of there being one law for
the rich and one for the poor, and that it is a blot upon the boasted
equity and fairness of English justice. How glorious it would be if
all lawyers could be remunerated equally by the State! It would do
away with a thriving industry perhaps, but it might be a great aid to
real justice being arrived at, and not as things now are, when whoever
can pay the cleverest pleader has the best chance of winning the case.
But to get back to the views of divorce!
It would seem to me that the vital and essential question all persons
wishing for divorce ought to ask themselves is, "What is my motive in
desiring this freedom?" They should search their very souls for the
truth. If it is because the position has not only become intolerable
to themselves, but is a menace to their children or society, then they
should know that they are acting rightly in trying their utmost to be
free; but if the real reason is that they may legally indulge in a new
passion, then they may be certain that if they take advantage of a law
designed for the benefit of a race, and use it to their own baser
ends, they are invoking most dangerous forces to militate against
their own eventual unhappiness. No one who is in a position where his
or her good or bad example will be followed has any right to indulge
in any personal feelings to the influencing in a harmful way of his or
her public actions. This is the true meaning of that finest of all old
sayings, "_Noblesse oblige_." To me it would seem to be a frightful
sin for a man or woman for personal motives to degrade an order or a
community.
So this is the standpoint I would suggest every one looking at divorce
from: "Will the thing bring good or harm?--not to me who am only a
unit, but to that wider circle of my family and my country?" And if
common sense assures him or her that no good can come of it, then the
true citizen should not hesitate to bear the pain of refraining.
It would seem to me to be wrong to allow any personal feeling at all
to influence one to divorce, no matter what the cruelty of the
circumstances or the justice of the grievance one had, _if by so doing
the children of the marriage were injured in any way, or that the
prestige of an order or the honour of a family were lowered by one's
action_; but that were the husband or wife a shame and degradation to
the children or the family, the individual would be entirely justified
in divorcing, and would be helping the good of the State by preventing
the guilty and debased partner from committing further harm. Common
sense is always the truest wisdom, but it has often unhappily had to
be cloaked and hampered either by spiritual superstition, prejudice,
or ignorance. So that when a flagrant case which corrupts a whole
neighbourhood cries aloud to common sense to remove it by divorce,
there are found hundreds of good and worthy people to oppose this on
the ground that the Church does not sanction such proceeding! If the
State religion administered by the Church cannot inculcate higher
principles in its members, so as to prevent them from sinning, it
would obviously seem to be more fair to allow the statesmen and
sociologists to have a free hand in their attempt to better the
morality of England than for the Church to use the vast influence it
still possesses to the stultifying of these plans. The homely proverb
of the proof of the pudding being in the eating seems to be plainly
shown here. The religious teaching has failed to influence the people
to refrain from sin and to discountenance divorce, proving that its
method of imparting knowledge and obtaining influence over the modern
mind is no longer effectual, and common sense would suggest changing
the method to ensure the desired end. There is a story told of a
French regiment in the early days of conscription. A certain size of
boots had been decided upon for recruits, and this decision had worked
very well when the young men were drawn from the town, where the feet
were comparatively small, but when countryside youths became the
majority, the boots they were given were an agony to them, and
constant complaints were the result, with, however, no redress.
Omnipotent head-quarters had decided the size! And that was the end of
it! And it was not until nearly the whole regiment was in hospital
with sore feet that it entered the brain of the officials that it
might be wiser for France to regulate the size of the boots of the
regiment to the feet of the wearers. Why, then, cannot the Church
devote all its brain and force to evolving some new form of teaching
which will, so to speak, "fit the feet of the wearers"? Then all
questions of divorce could be settled by noble and exalted feeling and
desire to do right and elevate the nation. But meanwhile, with the
growth and encouragement of individualism, every little unit is giving
forth his personal view (as I am doing in this paper!), perhaps many
of them without the slightest faculty for looking ahead, or knowledge
of how to make deductions from past events, or other countries'
experiences; and the Church is preaching one thing, and the State
another, the Majority report taking a certain view, and the Minority a
different one--and we are all at sea, and the supreme issue of it all
seems to be fogged.
An enormous section of the public, and almost all women it would seem,
are of opinion that divorce should be granted for the same reason to
women as it is now to men. But surely those who hold this view cannot
understand that fundamental difference in the instincts of the sexes
which I tried to show as forcibly as I could in my former articles
upon Marriage. Infidelity in man cannot be nearly such a degradation
to his own soul as infidelity in woman must be to hers, because he is
following natural impulses and she is following grafted ones. A woman
must feel degraded in her body and soul when she gives herself to _two
men_ at the same time, a husband and a lover; but a man, when he
strays, if it has any moral effect upon him at all, probably merely
feels some twinges on account of breaking his word, and the fear of
being found out. The actual infidelity cannot degrade him as much as
it generally degrades a woman, and may be only the yielding to strong
temptation at a given moment, and have no bearing upon the kind home
treatment he accords his wife and children, or the tenor of his
domestic life. The eventuality of what this law would bring should be
looked at squarely. And it is rather a pitiful picture to think of the
entire happiness of a home being upset because a wife, without
judgment or the faculty of making deductions, discovering a single
instance of illicit behaviour in her husband, sees fit to, and is
enabled by law, to divorce him. It may be argued that the fear of this
would make him mend his ways; but did fear ever curb strong natural
instincts for long?--instincts as strong as hunger, or thirst, or
desire to sleep? Fear could only curb such for a time, and then
intelligence would suggest some new and cunning method of deceit, so
as to obtain the desired end. The only possible way to ensure fidelity
in a man is by influencing him to _wish_ to remain faithful, either by
fond love for the woman or deep religious conviction or moral opinion
that not to do so would degrade his soul. The accomplishment of this
end would seem to be either in the hands of the woman or in the
teaching of the Church--and cannot be brought about by law. Law can
only punish offenders; it cannot force them to keep from sin. When a
man is unfaithful habitually, it amounts to cruelty, and even with the
present law the woman can obtain relief on that ground.
In looking at a single case of infidelity in a woman, a man would be
wise to question himself to see if he has not been in some measure
responsible for it--by his own unkindness or indifference, and in not
realising her nature; and if his conscience tells him he is to blame,
then he ought never to be hard upon the woman. He ought also very
seriously to consider the circumstances, and whether or no his
children or his family will be hurt by the scandal of public
severance, as they should be more important to him than his personal
feelings. Tolerance and common sense should always hold wounded vanity
and prejudice in check. How often one sees happy and united old
couples who in the meridian of their lives have each looked elsewhere,
but have had the good taste and judgment to make no public protest
about the matter, and thus have given each other time to regain
command of vagrant fancies and return to the fold of convention!
With so many different individual views upon the right and wrong of
divorce, it is impossible for either side--the divorce reform or the
divorce restriction supporters--to state a wholly convincing case
against the other. The only possible way to view the general question
is, as I said before, to keep the mind fixed upon the main issue,
_that of what may possibly be best for the nation_, having regard to
the ever-augmenting forces of luxury and liberty and democracy and
want of discipline which are holding rule.
Lack of space prevents me from trying to touch upon the numerous other
moot points in divorce, so I will only plead that, when each person
has come to a definite and common-sense conclusion, unclouded by
sentiment or prejudice, he or she may not hesitate to proclaim his or
her conviction aloud, so that the law of the land may be reorganised
to the needs of present-day humanity and help it to rise to the
highest fulfilment.