A reversion to free love would be more than the undoing of the evolution from animal to man. It would completely change the basis of human society. And in proportion as any divorce law encourages the conception of a temporary contract this dangerous instability of home-life is threatened. Americans sometimes describe their own laws as approaching the "ideal." "The question will soon be," wrote a journalist describing the American "smart set," "who is to be your husband next year?"--or, "Has your last season's wife re-married yet?" This is of course an exaggeration; but it is a warning as to logical developments. In fact, divorce tends to create itself. Divorce is only applied for where the marriage is unhappy. A fair proportion of unhappy marriages arise because they have been hastily entered into; with due inquiry many of them could have been prevented. But the easier divorce is to obtain, the more incentive will be given to enter into these hasty marriages--the type of union which so often gives rise to divorce. On the other hand, whatever their cause, there are marriages in which all trace of love has disappeared, and it may fairly be argued that the union is dead. Thus a husband may, in later years, become incurably insane or habitually drunk. There are many unions in which the one party has married in blind infatuation only to discover that the partner is so contemptible a creature as to destroy all vestige of love. Such unions remain marriages in formality only; their pretended existence is a sacrilege, particularly if there are no children and the husband and wife are not therefore co-related as parents. For all such cases the Catholic Church permits divorce (_a mensa et thoro_)--or separation, as it is known in civil law, without permission to re-marry. The issue, therefore, becomes simply a question as to whether it is right to expect the parties so separated to remain celibate.