A History of Matrimonial Institutions, Vol. 3 of 3Howard, George Elliott
History
A History of Matrimonial Institutions, Vol. 3 of 3
Howard, George Elliott
Families; Marriage -- History
preserve which "in all its sacredness, society must take the bitter
medicine labelled 'Divorce.'"[840]
[833] According to CARDINAL GIBBONS there are "two species of
polygamy--simultaneous and successive": "Is Divorce Wrong?" in
_North Am. Rev._, CXLIX, 520.
[834] The epigram of Father Yorke, of San Francisco.
[835] WILHELM V. HUMBOLDT, _Sphere and Duties of Government_:
cited by MILL, _On Liberty_, 185, 186.
[836] For examples see SEWELL, in _Westminster Review_, CXLV,
182 ff., suggesting a form of private contract; and BESANT,
_Marriage_, 19, 20, who asks: "Why should not we take a leaf
out of the Quakers' book, and substitute for the present legal
forms of marriage a simple declaration publicly made?... but
as soon as the laws are moralized, and wives are regarded as
self-possessing human beings, instead of as property, then the
declaration may, with advantage, seek the sanction of the law."
She mentions the well-known cases of Mary Wollstonecraft, her
daughter and Shelley, Richard Carlile, and that of George Henry
Lewes and George Eliot. Mrs. Caird would not go so far. The
state, she concludes, hes no right to interfere in the marriage
contract. "How can it withdraw its interference without causing
social confusion? The answer seems plain. By a gradual widening
of the limitations within which individuals might be allowed to
draw up their private contracts, until, finally, moral standards
had risen sufficiently high to enable the state to cease from
interfering in private concerns altogether."--_The Morality of
Marriage_, 126. DONISTHORPE, "The Future of Marriage," _Fort.
Rev._, LI, 263, recommends a system of free private contract
for one year, renewable at the pleasure of the parties. He is
criticised by MALMSBURY, _ibid._, 272-82. _Cf._ also "Marriage
and Free Thought," _ibid._, L, 275 ff.
[837] TOCQUEVILLE, _La démocratie en Amérique_, II, 215.
[838] LECKY, _Dem. and Liberty_, II, 208.
[839] BRYCE, _Studies in Hist. and Jur._, 850.
[840] WRIGHT, in _Arena_, V, 141, 143. See also his _Practical
Sociology_, 170 ff.; and compare the article of SAVAGE,
"Matrimony and the State," _Forum_, X, 117 ff.; that of JANES,
"Divorce Sociologically Considered," _New Englander_, May, 1891,
395-402; and that of ADLER, "The Ethics of Divorce," in _Ethical
Record_, II, 200-209; III, 1-7.
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