"That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which
is wanting cannot be numbered."--Ecc. i. 15.
I
I am well aware that there will be many among my readers who, having
gone so far in my book and agreed more or less with my point of view,
must here fall into disagreement with me. This essay upholding free
divorce, and the three that follow, the first one recommending
regulation and firm action in suppressing prostitution as the only way
to stay the spread of venereal diseases; the second essay on the
illegitimately born child, where I differ in one important matter from
the accepted view of what is chiefly needed to protect these unhappy
children; and, even more, the proposal I make in the last essay, where
I plead for an open recognition of honorable sexual partnerships outside
of marriage--this half of my book will be disapproved of, very probably
disliked, and my views more or less violently disputed. It will be said
that what I advocate now is in direct opposition to my ideal of marriage
being a religious duty, which demands the consecration of women to the
service of the family and the home. This, however, is not so: if I have
been understood at all, it should be evident that the opposition is not
there.
I care little for our existing and chaotic forms of morality; what I
desire is to create a new reality, the value of which consists in that
it provides wider possibilities of decent and honorable conduct. We have
to brave moral danger in trying to attain a higher moral reality. To me
what seems the first necessity is to face things as they are, and not to
go on eternally pretending that our world is what it is not.
Our vague-minded lax society has to pull itself together, has to
reconsider and administer and formulate a more helpful system of
regulations; has to learn to express again its united will in some
better way than "go as you please," or fail. What is wanted is a new
honesty to create standards of conduct, which will fix the every day
indispensable duties, that, after all, make up the total of life. We
have but a choice between the danger of falling deeper into confusion
and dishonesty or the danger of awakening to a clearer and more
difficult consciousness. Now, I do not believe it is moral to regulate
life by fear, considering only the desire to remain undisturbed of those
who are decayed and petrified. I do not know if I make my meaning clear.
As our habit, we ignore or minimize all sex difficulties as much as we
can; we hesitate and compromise and bungle over every reform because we
are afraid of what may happen if we probe down to the real bottom of
what needs to be done. We have neither the courage of our bodies or of
our souls. This is why so often our attitude becomes false and our
thoughts entangled, so that our moral life is corrupt with concealments
and deceptions. Now, I am not content with the compromise which
sanctions every form of sexual sin so long as the conventions are
respected and the sin hidden--all the rottenness going on beneath the
respectable structure of our society. I want as far as is possible to
emancipate our lives from such slavery; to make less easy the hypocrisy
which law and custom sanction; to gain freedom from a sham morality and
the pretense of a righteousness that we do not maintain. It is a
necessary step, for me at least, on the way to any kind of improvement.
More and more I am convinced that we shall have to make a violent and
very conscious effort to get clear of dishonesty.
That is why I am advocating, as a first most necessary reform, simpler
and more decent facilities of divorce. I plead for a greater breadth of
toleration, with a more honest facing of the facts, because I have known
in my experience the degradation, the falsity and the absurdities that
are going on to-day; the deceptions into which everyone is driven who is
unfortunate enough to have to seek relief, under the present disgraceful
divorce laws, from a marriage that has failed. There are conditions
which degrade and embitter and make honorable conduct very difficult.
A great number of people, regarding marriage as a mystical and,
therefore, unbreakable sacrament, object to divorce under any
circumstances whatever. This is the case in Catholic countries, such,
for instance, as Spain, the land I know and love so well. Such an
attitude I can understand and respect, though I do not consider it a
practical proposition, and know, moreover, that indissoluble marriage,
in some ways, works very harmfully. It prevents hasty marriage. In Spain
marriage is regarded as the gravest and most momentous step in life; but
this caution does not altogether work out for good in the way one might
expect.
I recall a conversation with a Spanish friend on this question. We were
speaking of the great numbers of young Spaniards who did not marry. I
asked my friend the reason of this. He answered: "You see we have no
divorce in this land as you have in England, that makes us afraid now we
have begun to think, we hesitate and hesitate, then we take a mistress
while we are deciding, but it is easier and less binding to live like
that, and we keep going on and put off marrying, sometimes put it off
until it is too late." In Spain the illegitimate birth-rate is the
highest of any country in Europe.
We must accept, then, that indissoluble marriage fails in practice, and
the society which enforces it commits self-injury by setting up a
standard of conduct impossible to maintain; and further, one that acts
in deterring the more thoughtful from marriage and leaves the protected
institution to the more reckless, who do not consider consequences.
Now, when once we do accept this, admit the principle of divorce and
acknowledge that in certain circumstances the bond of marriage may be
severed, at once the aspect of the question changes: it becomes a matter
of practical adjustment, so that what is needed is decision and
regulation of the conditions under which divorce should be allowed, so
that they may meet best the needs of men and women in the society and,
at the time, in which they live. I am very anxious to show the
difference between the practical and the conventional attitude toward
this problem. It is to be wished that this question of divorce could be
approached free from the falseness of the old prejudices of religious
intolerance and of sentimentality.
The great and pressing need of reform is being widely discussed at the
present time. I note with a mixture of amazement and fear that
practically in every argument the opinion universally held appears to be
that the relief given should be as limited as possible; it is still
being taken for granted that free divorce in this country is neither
attainable nor desirable, and, indeed, that any extension of the grounds
of divorce would act against the sanctity of marriage. I say I note this
attitude with fear, because it seems to me that the triumph of prejudice
and ignorance here is a most serious symptom of the degradation of our
moral outlook and the poverty of our faith in the institution of
marriage.
"Divorce is relief from misfortune, not a crime," to quote from the
admirable statute book of Norway, a saying which should be one of
universal application in divorce. And this relief must be granted, not
merely as an act of justice to the individual; it is called for equally
in the interests of society.
The moral code of any society ought to meet the needs of its members.
But the needs change as time goes on, and moral codes must then also
change or they become worn-out and useless. That society which is
unwilling to modify its laws to fit new conditions drives its members
into defiance of the law and acts directly as a cause of immorality. It
were well to remember this as we come to question our laws of divorce.
There can be no possible doubt that as the law stands at present it does
not meet the needs of those people who claim its relief; while further,
the most superficial knowledge of the situation proves how harmfully and
immorally the law acts.