So far, I have ignored the real difficulty of divorce--the child or
children. At once the situation alters; when children are born both the
practical needs and moral values are different. A marriage that becomes
creative cannot be broken without grave disaster; for all creative
things are eternal. What, then, must be done? Frankly, I know of no one
workable plan, and I can suggest nothing except that in all cases the
welfare of the children should be taken as the standard to which the
desire of the parents should be subordinate.
You see, if we accept this standard of the child's good as the one
thing of importance, we shall have great changes to make in our thought
and in our action. I must follow this a little, though it takes me away
from the main line of my argument, but I want to make quite plain the
failure in our attitude. Perhaps on no other aspect of this question is
greater nonsense talked than on this one of the effect of divorce on
children. It is said so universally that it is better for the marriage
to be broken than for children to live in a home in which the parents
have ceased to love each other. I am not sure that this is true, the
child's values are often very different from our adult values. Only just
now I am reading "Joan and Peter," by Mr. Wells, and I am amazed at the
levity with which he makes his characters treat this serious subject.
You will remember the situation, almost at the opening of the book.
Dolly, Peter's mother and the adopted-mother of Joan, has discovered
that Arthur, her husband, has been unfaithful to their marriage. She is
considering whether she will remain or will go to Africa with her
cousin, Oswald Sydenham, who has for long loved her. These are the
passages of which I wish to speak: "Then, least personal and selfish
thought of all, was the question of Joan and Peter. What would happen to
them?" Dolly goes over the details of the situation, her certainty that
Arthur would allow her the custody of the children, then the passage
ends with this remarkable statement: _Oswald would be as good a father
as Arthur. The children weighed on neither side._ A little later Oswald
speaks on the same matter of the children's future. Dolly has asked him,
"But what of Peter and Joan?" He answers, _Leave them to nurses for a
year or so, and then bring them out to the sun._
Now, to some people that sort of talk sounds all very well on paper, but
as Mr. Wells and everyone ought to know, it is damnably different in
practice. Shaw, Wells, Cannan, Beresford, and other writers have, in my
opinion, done immense evil. They will present situations and treat them
intellectually, without any honest facing of the facts. Children cannot
be left for a few years and then picked up again like a bag or a trunk.
The change of a father or a mother is a tremendous fact to a child,
quite independent of whether the new parent is better or worse than the
parent who has left. We know, as yet, very little of the results
probable upon such a change, but we do know that confusion and jealousy
are very likely to be stirred in the childish soul, and that these may
work tremendous and lasting harm.
It has seemed worth while to bring this forward to show a little more
clearly the complications which are set like a thick hedge around this
problem. There is no easy way out, and the protection of the child's
interests mean much more than provision for its bringing up and the
satisfying of its physical needs. Only the parents who are sure that
they are not claiming their individual right to freedom at the expense
of the stronger home rights of their child or children can be held
blameless in dissolving their marriage. We talk a great deal to-day
about children and their welfare, but very few of us realize at all
practically the change of attitude, the restrictions of the adult
liberty and sacrifice that are likely to be necessary, if, under all
circumstances, our theories are to be expressed in our daily conduct.
And this brings us straight back to the question we are considering at
the very point at which we left it. For, if we place first the child's
rights, we see at once that our existing divorce law does already in
this matter fail, and fail very seriously.[110:1] A parent, either the
father or the mother, may by neglect and many unkindnesses do far more
injury to a child than by an act of unfaithfulness. I need not wait to
prove this perfectly obvious fact. It seems to me, however, that these
home-destroying acts, the result of any sort of daily indecency of
living, which brings suffering, with lasting injury, to little children,
are the one condition that makes divorce necessary and also right in a
marriage where there are children.
I admit the difficulties of framing a law sufficiently elastic to meet
this need. I do not, however, see that it would be impossible. The one
who claimed the divorce--the father or the mother--or both if the
dissolution of the marriage was desired by both parents, could be
desired to state in the application for the divorce full answers to the
following questions:--
(1) The reason or reasons on which the divorce was sought.
(2) The arrangements one or both parents propose to make for the after
care of the child or children.
(3) The guarantees offered that these arrangements would be honorably
fulfilled.
(4) Proof to be given by one or both parents that the continuance of the
marriage would be harmful to the welfare of the children.
Perhaps you will object that such a law would limit too much the liberty
of the parents. I acknowledge this, and I think such limitation is
right. You see, I do not believe in the kind of liberty that makes it
easy for anyone to do wrong to helpless children.
Science has now shown us how terribly the future of the child depends on
its early relationships in the home: its relation to its mother, its
relation to its father, to its brothers and sisters. These early home
relationships assume a much deeper aspect, and are, indeed, the most
important influence in the life of every human being. Parenthood is far
more nearly eternal than we knew. It is this tremendous fact, from which
there can be no kind of escape, that ought to decide our attitude and
direct us in framing an honest and clean divorce law. This protection of
those who cannot protect themselves is the one essential and right
consideration. The law must take action to guard all children that the
failure or folly of their parents do not fall too heavily upon them.
There is little more that I need to say. A hard and fast divorce law
cannot, I am sure, meet the needs of the young people of the new
generation; moreover, it cannot but act to degrade marriage. Marriage is
too difficult--the needs of children, as well as the needs of men and
women are too complicated for the old standards of punishments. Divorce
as it exists at present is a revenge, it ought to be a help to honorable
conduct; it depends now upon a committal of perjury and adultery, it
ought to depend on honesty and on a right fulfilling of
responsibilities.