Divorce rate

“ As divorce presupposes a legal marriage, the amount of divorce, or the divorce-rate, is best stated as the ratio between the number of divorces decreed during a year and the number of subsisting marriages or married couples. The usual basis is 100,000 married couples. In 1898-1902 the divorce-rate was 200 divorces (400 people) to 100,000 married couples. This is equivalent to more than one divorce annually to each 1400 people. ”

“ Depressions in trade have had a tendency to decrease divorces as well as marriages;" whereas in England, while the marriage rate falls the divorce rate rises in hard times. But in that country divorce is notoriously very expensive and hence mainly a luxury for the rich. ”

“ In this "set," and particularly its imitators throughout the United States, the divorce rate is appalling. Men leave their wives and obtain a divorce for no other reason than that a [Pg 36] woman falls in love with another woman's husband. On a yacht we will say there is some scandal. A divorce ensues, and afterward the parties are remarried. Or we will say a wife succumbs to the blandishments of another man. The conjugal arrangements are rearranged, so that, as a very merry New York club man told me, "It is difficult to tell where you are at." ”

“ After the passage of a stringent new divorce law in 1967, the divorce rate dropped from 1.94 per 1,000 population in 1965 to 0.35 per 1,000 population in 1969, making it the lowest rate in Eastern Europe.
In most families the husband and wife are partners whose relationship is based on cooperation and mutual respect. The husband is the titular head of the family who represents it to the outside world, but within the family he customarily consults with his wife on almost all matters. Patriarchal families where the father is the undisputed head are encountered among some peasants. ”

“ These show that within the first two or three years after dissolution of marriage divorced men are not much more inclined to remarry than are widowers, while during the same period a considerably greater number of divorced women than widows renew the nuptial ties. [776] With an increasing rate, which does not advance uniformly, it is perhaps impossible to measure exactly the effects of lax or restrictive legislation. The divorce movement is dependent upon social forces which lie far beyond the reach of the statute-maker. ”

“ The changes effected by these laws are of many kinds, including the addition and repeal of causes and various alterations in the procedure, some of them complex. But under careful scrutiny in some instances the statistics reveal no certain causal relation between the change in the divorce rate and the antecedent change in the statute. Indeed, in the light of Professor Willcox's detailed criticism of the figures, four of Mr. Wright's test cases must be rejected, so far as evidence afforded by the statistics is concerned; [774] four or five others show considerable influence of legislation ”

“ The high rate of divorce at the end of World War II is symptomatic of events above and beyond the structural characteristics of family constitution, re-constitution, or breakdown. The rate of divorce in the years following the war, especially in the last 10-15 years, is nevertheless connected to the underlying structure of a pragmatic framework within which permanency, whether that of language, family, values, nations, laws, art, or anything else, becomes a liability because it affects the dynamics of change. One out of two marriages-and the proportion is changing quite fast-ends in divorce. ”

“ Perhaps the one encouraging aspect of the growing male shortage is that it may slow down the divorce rate. Divorces occur most frequently when men are plentiful. When men are scarce women tend to hang on to what they have and need to be provoked before they will fly off to Reno. ”

“ It is argued, probably with good reason, that the high rate of divorce-the socially sanctioned breakdown of a family, but probably only relatively indicative of the breakdown-is not meaningful unless put in a broader context: how many people still marry, how many remarry, how much longer people live. ”

“ It is worth noting that in England it is usually the husband who petitions for a divorce, and almost always the wife who seeks a judicial separation." [759]
It has long been observed that in Europe the marriage rate falls in hard times and rises again on the return of prosperity. "According to all experience," declares Mill, "a great increase invariably takes place in the number of marriages in seasons of cheap food and full employment." ”

“ I asked, "the wives whose hearts have been broken by plurality?"
"Well," was the reply, "there are plenty of unhappy wives. But this is surely not peculiar to polygamy, is it? There are plenty of women who find they have made a mistake. But is it not the same in monogamy? And yet, though our poor women can get divorces with no trouble, and at an expense of only ten dollars, and are certain of a competence after divorce, and of re-marriage if they choose, they do not do it. There is no greater disgrace attaching to divorce here than in Europe. ”

“ According to the report of the State librarian there were in the State last year 4,734 marriages and 478 divorces. Discontented people come here from other States, to take advantage of what is called our liberal legislation, to obtain divorces which would be denied them at home. As the sacredness of the marriage relation lies at the foundation of civilized society, it should be carefully guarded. Under our present laws the causes of divorce are too numerous, and not sufficiently defined, and too wide a discretion is given to the courts. ”

“ During this twenty years 79 per cent. of all divorces granted were for adultery and desertion, and of those granted for the first-mentioned cause only a trifle over one-half were for the fault of the man; while, contrary to a widely-prevalent belief, the record shows that of the decrees entered for that cause the proportion is greater in the country districts than in our cities. In the same period the highest ratio of divorce to marriage [32] has been one to twenty-three, and the lowest one to thirty-three, the average for the whole time being one to thirty-one ”

“ The main thing, however, is for society to recognize that there are just restrictions upon marriage and that this is proved by the actual social burden which unfit persons place upon their fellows when marrying and bringing forth after their kind. The third point, which must be emphasized more strongly than has been the case heretofore, is the need of making the state, through its courts, the ally, not the enemy, of marriage permanency. As it is now, the Divorce Court exists to secure divorces. ”

“ It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to say how far the frequency of divorce in the United States has been or is a social injury; how far it has weakened or undermined the ideal of marriage as a lifelong union between man and woman. ”

“ But if you ask me whether I believe that in the end general incompatibility—meaning thereby total lack of sympathy between husband and wife—will be recognized by human society as a valid and beneficial ground, my answer is that the social drift is that way. It will depend on the attitude of the women. They constitute by far the majority of the applicants for divorce, as you know. If they become convinced that it will not be for the welfare and happiness of themselves and their children to remain tied to men utterly uncongenial, the State probably will give them their liberty. ”

“ According to the sixteenth-century reformer, divorce is the "medicine" for the disease of marriage. It is so today in a sense more real than Smith or Bullinger ever dreamed of; for the principal fountain of divorce is bad matrimonial laws and bad marriages. Certain it is that one rises from a detailed study of American legislation with the conviction that, faulty as are our divorce laws, our marriage laws are far worse; while our apathy, our carelessness and levity, regarding the safeguards of the matrimonial institution are well-nigh incredible. ”

“ A new cause of full divorce, analogous to that [54] allowed in some of the New England states, appears in 1812. When a man renounces the marriage agreement and refuses to live with his wife in conjugal relation "by uniting himself to any sect whose creed, rules, or doctrines require a renunciation of the marriage covenant, or forbid a man and wife to dwell and cohabit together," the aggrieved woman may have a full release; the offender is forbidden to remarry during the former's lifetime; or the wife may claim separate alimony and maintenance without divorce. ”

“ The report that any person has obtained a divorce for any cause but the most serious generally sends a shudder through any American social circle which calls itself respectable. Even husbands and wives whose own marital experiences have{267} not been as joyous as was expected, are shocked by the legal disruption of a family—the spectacle of the wifeless husband whose wife really lives, or the woman without mate or protector whose husband nevertheless is not yet dead. ”

“ It is more likely that unless the urban attitude changes, in time the country will come to feel toward divorces much as city people do at present.
It is important to notice that, although legal divorce is frowned upon, there is often a considerable social indifference to the loose living together of men and women. Two clergymen at work in a rural community of about a thousand people recently stated that there were in the community at least forty unmarried people living together as husband and wife. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Another way in which the community may affect the popular conception of marriage is in the administration of civil marriage. Lack of care in enforcing the laws and lack of gravity in performing the ceremonies may have a decided reaction on respect for those laws and for the institution itself. Similarly, the administration of divorce laws may affect the popular conception of marriage. One entire neighborhood condoned the situation in which a deserted wife immediately went to live with another man, on the ground that "if they had been rich, they could have got a divorce." ”

“ An attempt to reconcile the couple is made, but if that fails, the old men decide who is at fault, and assess the expenses of the gathering to that one. If blame attaches to the husband, he must complete any part of the marriage price still due; but if the woman is guilty, her parents and relatives must return the gifts distributed at the time of the engagement. The chief causes for divorce are cruelty or laziness on the part of the man, or unfaithfulness of the woman. ”

“ They might reflect whether this increase, like that of the criminals and the insane, did not afford a possible subject of legislation, but I doubt whether even a regenerate state government would reach any very quick or satisfactory conclusions in respect to this matter. Public opinion does not appear to have decided whether the social fact of divorce abounding is to be considered as an abuse or as a fulfillment of the existing institution of marriage. ”

“ It is probable that this inevitable change will be brought about partly by the voluntary action of individuals, and in greater measure by the gradual and awkward method of shifting and ever freer divorce laws. The slow disintegration of State-regulated marriage from the latter cause may be observed now throughout the United States, where there is, on the whole, a developing tendency to frequency and facility of divorce. ”