In such event, "without any severance of friendship between the parties, a separation may be made, the least injurious to them and the most beneficial to the interests of society."[796] In fine, Robert Owen's book, although often vague in expression and violent in tone, contains in its statements, and still more in its suggestions, practically the whole program of later socialistic writings on the subject of marriage and the family, except the argument based on historical evolution.[797] [793] OWEN, _Marriages of the Priesthood of the Old Immoral World_, 54: "I resume the subject of marriage because it is the source of more demoralization, crime, and misery, than any other single cause, with the exception of religion and private property; and these three together form the great trinity of causes of crime and immorality among mankind." For examples of the bitter denunciations which Owen's doctrines naturally provoked see the tract of BRINDLEY, _The Marriage System of Socialism_ (Chester, 1840); and that of BOWES, _The 'Social Beasts'_ (Liverpool, 1840). [794] For examples see _Marriages of the Priesthood_, 41, 43, 44, 81. [795] OWEN, _op. cit._, 81. [796] _Ibid._, 86, 87, giving an extract from his six lectures delivered at Manchester in 1837. [797] Owen's book was written in 1835, just before the passage of the new civil-marriage law; and the violence of its tone may in part have been provoked by the injustice and intolerance sanctioned by the Hardwicke act of 1753, at that time in force. In 1840 he declared, as regards the _form_ of marriage, that the law of 1836 had "exactly" met his "ideas and wishes;" and that all which he then desired was "to see another law enacted, by which _Divorces_, under wise arrangements, and on principles of common sense, may be obtained equally for rich and poor."--_Op. cit._, 90. He himself outlines marriage and divorce laws which possess some excellent features: _ibid._, 88-90. Robert Dale Owen followed in his father's footsteps. He finds even the Haytian institution of "placement"--an informal union made and dissolved at the pleasure of the contracting persons--far superior in its morality and its stability to the sacramental marriage which exists by its side.[798] [798] ROBERT DALE OWEN, "Marriage and Placement," _Free Inquirer_, May 28, 1831; and his letter to Thomas Whittemore, editor of the Boston _Trumpet_, May, 1831; both quoted by BESANT, _Marriage_, 23, 24, 26, 27. The _Free Inquirer_ was founded in New York city by Robert Dale Owen and Frances Wright in 1829: JOHNSON, _Woman and the Republic_, 121.