Whatever the reason is, the law is there, and when the husband has been faithless and refused his wife’s embraces, he has done sufficient to justify the court in calling him guilty of desertion and adultery, and a decree _nisi_ is pronounced. Then, if no evidence of collusion is forthcoming, and the court can make believe that one of the parties at least does _not_ want to be divorced, the decree is made absolute in six months. Can anyone realize that the present divorce law is in such a hopelessly stupid state? There seems no possibility of using common sense in a law court. To get a divorce you must _not_ agree together that it is a desirable step. To get a divorce the innocent person must speak in public of subjects no innocent person would care to mention in private. To get a divorce from a woman you respect at all, you must refuse to live with her, and must openly commit adultery, at the same time making no arrangement with her as to how she is to get rid of you. The old complaint of the inequality of the divorce laws for the sexes is perhaps of importance, but to me it seems a small thing in comparison to the general sordidness of the whole proceeding. Surely the one cause of causes for a divorce is that both the parties want it. Some simple form of procedure, such as separation on the first application, to be followed by divorce in six months if the parties had not made up their differences in the meantime, should be devised. The difficulties would arise in cases in which the parties were not agreed, and I am afraid in those instances the question of money would nearly always be discovered to be the root of the trouble. Ladies would be found to be unaccountably attached to their husband’s cheque-books; and gentlemen unable to separate themselves from a share in their wives’ dividends. But when the question of fortune or wealth enters into the marriage bargain, why not let it be fought out on that ground? Divorce is always brought about because of the weariness and boredom one human being causes another. Cruelty, adultery, temporary desertion, every kind of outrage can be borne if excitement and interest counterbalance suffering. But the devotion of the whipped dog would soon be exhausted if the dog could find something in the world which interested him more than his master. Curiosity once fully satisfied, tenderness balances on the edge of the precipice of boredom, and may topple over at any moment. Of course the insult of being considered a bore would be harder to bear in most instances than the accusation of wickedness, so on the whole it would seem advisable to keep to the good old formula of “incompatibility of temper,” and fight out the money questions on their own merits.