The same applies to divorce on account of “hatred and ill-will.” Before a court which cannot test the reasons that have most spiritual weight, but only the evidence that has most to say, all the details of married life have to be dragged forth, all its wounds inspected. The evidence which, as a rule, is decisive is that of servants! The profoundest spiritual concerns of educated people are thus made to depend upon the opinion of uneducated persons on all the complicated circumstances of an unhappy marriage. And not only this: the result in most cases is determined by the indelicacy with which the husband and wife have drawn their servants and their acquaintances into the conflict. If husband or wife has summoned the servants to witness violent behaviour, then that party is in a much better position in an action for divorce than the one who has sought to the utmost to preserve the dignity of their marriage. There are, moreover, some sufferings of which no proof can be produced. Such, for instance, is misuse of “conjugal rights”; another is the power of either party, under forms of outward politeness, to make life entirely worthless to the other; a third, the constant opposition of two conflicting views of life. It is only in the case of the grossest and most palpable evils that it is now possible to furnish the necessary evidence without such difficulties as—both in the granting of divorce and in the disposal of the children—may give rise to the grossest injustice. And all this is only a part of the humiliations and sufferings which now—especially for the wife—attend a divorce. Finally, an action for divorce is sufficiently expensive to render it on this account alone a matter of great difficulty for many people in poor circumstances to obtain justice. Such a system of divorce—which makes either partner dependent on the worst qualities of the other; which calls forth all that is indelicate in the nature of both; which drags their weaknesses and sufferings before the eyes of strangers, and which, nevertheless, provides no real protection for the children—such a system ought to give no thoughtful person peace until its degrading and deteriorating influence is abolished and a new system, which shall protect both personal dignity and the children, introduced. In looking back upon the preceding, it would seem to result clearly that nothing that has been said here contemplates the establishment of a single form—recognised as the only moral one—for sexual life. But since only the fixity possessed by the law is capable of transforming in a profound and permanent manner the feelings and customs of the majority, there is need, for the present, of a new law to support the growth of the higher feelings which will finally render any marriage law unnecessary.