[841] The following newspaper paragraph relating to a notorious wedding resort in Michigan illustrates the shocking frivolity with which the most important of human relations is sometimes treated: "It is estimated that fully 20,000 people will visit this city tomorrow to attend the third annual Maccabees' county picnic.... It is thought tomorrow will prove to be the greatest day in the history of St. Joseph as the Gretna Green of Chicago.... Fully forty-four bridal couples will arrive from Chicago to take advantage of being married free, as is offered by the Maccabees in a part of their program. The parties with matrimonial intentions, upon calling at Marriage Temple, will be furnished by County Clerk Needham with their license and a handsome marriage certificate, free of charge, provided they consent to be married in public from the verandah of the hotels. Any clergyman in the city, upon request ... , will officiate. Hundreds of excursionists from Indiana will come for the express purpose of witnessing the ceremonies." On this point read the interesting article of DENDY, "Marriage in East London," _Cont. Rev._, LXV, 427-32. [842] ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS, "Women's Views of Divorce," _North Am. Rev._, CL, 130, 131. It is vain to conceal from ourselves the fact that here is a real menace to society. Marriages thus formed are almost sure to be miserable failures from the start. It is the simple truth, as earnest writers have insisted, that often under such conditions the nuptial ceremony is but a legal sanction of "prostitution within the marriage bond," whose fruit is wrecked motherhood and the feeble, base-born children of unbridled lust. The command to "be fruitful and multiply," under the selfish and thoughtless interpretation which has been given it, has become a heavy curse to womanhood and a peril to the human race.[843] On the face of it, is it not grotesque to call such unions holy or to demand that they shall be indissoluble? What chance is there under such circumstances for a happy family life or for worthy home-building? In sanctioning divorce the welfare of the children may well cause the state anxiety; but are there not thousands of so-called "homes" from whose corrupting and blighting shadow the sooner a child escapes the better for both it and society?