Divorce and remarriage

“ Remarriage after widowhood is in practice almost unknown; and divorce is so discountenanced that its relief is seldom sought. On the other hand, the ascetic idea is at least absent, and a wife expects and a husband is prepared to give constant attention and all possible comfort. ”

“ Remarriage, residence, notice, and miscellaneous provisions.—The character of a divorce law does not, of course, depend wholly upon the number of causes for separation allowed, but in large measure upon the conditions under which the decree is granted and the safeguards provided to prevent hasty or clandestine action. Whether or not either or both of the divorced persons shall be allowed to contract further marriage, and on what terms, has always been an important question. ”

“ Especially interesting among uncivilized or backward races are the effects of divorce with respect to second marriage or the remarriage of the parties to one another. Everywhere, apparently, the man who puts away his wife or has been divorced by her is allowed to contract a second marriage immediately, or, at any rate, after a very short interval. [813] This follows almost as a matter of course where [245] wife-capture or wife-purchase exists, or where polygyny prevails. [814] But with regard to the second marriage of a divorced woman usage greatly varies. ”

“ With so many conspicuous examples in high places, it is hardly strange that divorces became deplorably common. “Does anybody blush at a divorce,” says one, “since illustrious and noble women compute their years, not by the number of consuls, but by the number of husbands they have had?” We hear of a woman who was the twenty-first wife of her twenty-third husband. ”

“ The right of divorce may not, however, be enforced if the husband’s father and mother have died since the marriage, as thus it would be inferred that the wife had served them well up to the time of their death ”

“ It is a cause, among other evils, of numerous divorces. The divorced woman can marry again in twelve days, though it is possible for the husband to give a divorce of such a character that she can never marry again. ”

“ If they be right—and I suspect they are—we have made a famous blunder by our late legislation about divorce. Of all the crafts that ever were launched, marriage is one from which fewest facilities of desertion should be provided. ”

“ On the contrary, there seems cause for wonder, not that there are so many divorces, but that there are so many happy marriages, with wives and husbands devoted and faithful. For a nobleman in the olden times to divorce his wife would have caused such a scandal and talk that it rarely occurred. ”

“ He who hath divorced his wife may choose, upon the passing of each month, to remarry her when there is mutual affection and consent, so long as she hath not taken another husband ... unless, clearly, her circumstances change. #68 Shoghi Effendi states, in a letter written on his behalf, that the intention of "the passing of each month" is not to impose a limitation, and that it is possible for a divorced couple to remarry at any time after their divorce, so long as neither party is currently married to another person. ”

“ But you have just told me, my child, that you are seeking a divorce from your husband because you are mismated, in order to become as quickly as possible the wife of another man, whom you profess to love. ”

“ And passing strange is it, too, that so many, wise and far-seeing in less weighty concerns, do not appear to see in the evergrowing power of divorce a menace not only to the sacredness of the marriage institution, but even to the fair social fabric reared upon matrimony as its corner-stone. ”

“ Newspapers tell of a woman who, in order to become a mother, obtained a divorce and married another man for a year, after which she and her child went back to her first husband. This is an exception. Some women, it seems, now are inclined not to trouble with the divorce proposition at all. ”

“ Paragraph 3- If one divorces his wife because she developed a bad reputation or because she takes vows often or is incapable of having children, he may not remarry her. There are those who say this is only where he specifically said that is why he is divorcing her and he doubles his statement and says if not for these circumstances he would not divorce her. ”

“ Seven causes for justifiable divorce are laid down in the classics of Confucius, which are the basis of legal morals in Japan as in China, or as those of Justinian are with us. The wife may be divorced:
1. If she be disobedient to her parents-in-law. (After marriage, in her husband's home, his parents become hers in a far more significant sense than among us.)
2. If she be barren. (If the husband loves his childless wife, he keeps and supports her.) ”

“ A woman whose marriage has been dissolved either by divorce or by the husband's death cannot marry again before the expiration of one year; and a divorced woman is not allowed to remarry her former husband; inversely a divorced man may not remarry his former wife. ”

“ Effects of Divorce.—Parties who have been divorced cannot become husband and wife again if either of them, after the divorce, have contracted a new marriage since the divorce and been divorced a second time. ”

“ The idea of divorce is repugnant to you—though you have ceased to love the husband who deeply wronged you. You shrink even more from marrying again because your children's father is still alive. If he were dead, the bar would be removed, and you would not hesitate. I appeal to your common sense, Constance. What sound reason is there why you should sacrifice your happiness—the happiness of us both? ”

“ Husbands and wives appear to pass their lives very [56] agreeably together, which may partly be caused by the facility of divorce. Many men and women have been married seven or eight times before they find the partner with whom they desire to spend the rest of their lives. I saw a young girl of seventeen who had already had three husbands. These divorces take place at varied times, from a few days after marriage, to one or two years. However, after the birth of a child, they seldom seek to separate, and if they do the husband is fined, but not the wife. ”

“ Thus, for instance, a wife cannot obtain legal divorce from her husband either because he is an habitual drunkard, or an incurable lunatic, or is imprisoned for life for some grave crime, or has abandoned his home and refused to contribute to the support of his wife and children! ”

“ For the last forty years two thirds of all divorces have been granted on demand of the wife. This may indicate, on the one hand, that the increase of divorces is a movement connected with the emancipation of woman, and on the other hand it may indicate that it is the husband who usually gives the ground for divorce. ”

“ I have put first the question of what is marriage. And we are now in a position to ask more clearly what is divorce. It is not merely the negation or neglect of marriage; for any one can always neglect marriage. It is not the dissolution of the legal obligation of marriage, or even the legal obligation of monogamy; for the simple reason that no such obligation exists. Any man in modern London may have a hundred wives if he does not call them wives; or rather, if he does not go through certain more or less mystical ceremonies in order to assert that they are wives. ”

“ If the slight formalities that are the bulwarks of love as well as friendship, many forbearances, and more of the small, sweet courtesies of life, were but permitted to blossom forth like unexpected flowers beneath the family rooftree, fewer unhappy marriages would catalogue their miseries in the divorce court. ”

“ But the truth is that the innovators have as much sham optimism about divorce as any romanticist can have had about marriage. They regard their story, when it ends in the divorce court, through as rosy a mist of sentimentalism as anybody ever regarded a story ending with wedding bells. Such a reformer is quite sure that when once the prince and princess are divorced by the fairy godmother, they will live happily ever after. I enjoy romance, but I like it to be rooted in reality ”

“ It is something for him to look forward to, all through the honeymoon. These little gatherings are so delightfully home like—it is reassuring to feel that you are all members of the same club.
BACK TO THE START AGAIN This little scene is the sort of thing that divorce leads to,—hope springs eternal, and all that. A divorce simply gets one into the right frame of mind for a fresh start in matrimony. After all, Nature will have its own way; there’s nothing like love—it is the passion to which the best divorce lawyers attribute their success. ”

“ The person in whose favor a limited divorce has been rendered may apply and get a full divorce [71] in one year, while the adverse party must wait two years before fore he can secure a similar decree, in the meantime the wife's right to alimony remaining unimpaired. ”

“ Really, I try to be broad-minded, but I can’t keep up with the rising generation. A young married woman called on me this afternoon—she and her husband are of our best families. She told me she was engaged to a young married man in New York. ‘But,’ said I, ‘you’re both married.’ ‘We’re going to get our divorces in the spring,’ she said. She asked me not to say anything about her engagement—‘for,’ said she, ‘we haven’t announced it. I’ve not told my husband yet that I’m going to get a divorce, and my fiancé hasn’t told his wife.’ What do you think of that, Lord Frothingham? ”

“ The husband may in a moment of displeasure simply utter the formula of divorce, and his wife ceases absolutely to belong to him. No particular disgrace attaches to the divorced wife, who easily finds a place in the harîm of another. ”

“ Once she has gone she cannot come back as a wife until after she has been married to someone else. To get around this, an angry husband, relenting and longing for the dear departed, arranges to marry her to a friend, a dervish, or some half-crazy man, who for a sum will go through the ceremony of a wedding and immediately divorce the woman, who can then be married again to her former husband. ”

“ Effects of Divorce.—The judgment of divorce completely sets aside the marriage, and both parties are free to marry again. On divorce the innocent party also comes into the immediate enjoyment of all the rights in the estate of the guilty spouse, or the funds settled by the marriage contract, as if the offending party had died at the date of the decree. ”

“ In every marriage there are the elements of success, and in every one the makings of a perfectly justifiable divorce. Some women couldn't live with a saint who was a king and a Rothschild into the bargain; others marry scamps and are perfectly happy whether they're being totally ignored or being pulled around by the hair! ”

“ Some may pretend to say that if it be considered adultery to marry another, after having unlawfully divorced a wife, then it would be considered adultery to marry another without a divorce, having two or more at the same time. ”

“ You may be interested to know that all the trends indicate that more divorced men remarry than do divorced women. In spite of the fact that each divorce separates a couple, in 1940 there were twice as many feminine divorcees who had not remarried as there were unmarried male divorces. ”

“ I have heard of one gentleman, who having lived in a state of domestic jarring with his wife, got her persuaded to concur with him in applying for a divorce.—This was soon obtained.—He then married another woman, with whom he was violently in love, and expected, as usual, eternal happiness. ”

“ At the end of some five or six years she may choose that one to whom her fancy inclines as her husband, and they will live together until the end of their life, unless, after living together a certain period, they fail to have children, when the husband is at liberty to divorce himself and take another wife, on the ground that his own is of no worth. ”

“ The actual getting of the divorce is simplicity itself. Man and wife go before the deputy of the governor of the city or province and state their case. The deputy will probably say, "Very well. Pay the woman such-and-such a sum mentioned in the agreement, and go your several ways."
A man, however, often changes his mind, and marries the woman whom he has divorced; and perhaps they are divorced a second time and married a third time. But he may not marry her the third time unless she has meanwhile been married by another man and divorced from him. ”

“ As under the Mosaic law, these causes were invented only for the advantage of the husband. A wife had no right even to desire a divorce from her husband.
An examination of the seven causes shows that a woman could be divorced practically at her husband’s pleasure. The New Civil Code has changed all this. A wife has equal rights with her husband to the benefits of the divorce law. ”

“ A husband can obtain divorce from his wife if he can prove a single case of infidelity on her part; but the wife cannot obtain divorce from her husband even if he can be proved to be living in continual adultery. ”

“ There is no reason why we should restrict divorce only to the relation of husband and wife. Let us broaden the word and make it conceivable for a husband or wife to divorce not only the partner, but the children. Then it might be possible to meet the demands of the Shaw-esque extremist up to the point of permitting a married parent, who desired freedom, to petition for a divorce, not from his or her partner simply, but from his or her family, and even for a widow or widower to divorce a family. ”

“ If a man pronounces three divorces upon a wife who is free, or two upon a slave, she is not lawful to him until she shall have been regularly espoused by another man, who having duly consummated the marriage, afterwards divorces her, or dies, and her ’iddah from him be accomplished. ”