Popular Law-making: A study of the origin, history, and present tendencies of law-making by statuteStimson, Frederic Jesup
History
Popular Law-making: A study of the origin, history, and present tendencies of law-making by statute
Stimson, Frederic Jesup
Legislation -- United States
French and Roman Catholic), and Connecticut--ten of the original
thirteen States. Only New Hampshire and Rhode Island, the latter for
obvious reasons, stand low down in the column; the last State having
about three hundred divorces as against Montana's five hundred. South
Carolina, having no divorces at all, does not appear.
The next observation one is compelled to make is that divorces are
most numerous in the women's suffrage States, or in the States
neighboring, where "women's rights" notions are most prevalent.
Montana, Colorado, Wyoming, and Idaho stand second, third, sixth, and
eighth, respectively, among the fifty States and Territories comprised
in the table.[1] On succeeding pages are graphic maps showing the
conditions which in this particular prevail for a number of years.
There is little change of these in the thirty years from 1870 to 1900.
The Atlantic seaboard and Southern States in 1870 are left white, with
the exception of New England, which is slightly shaded; that is,
they have less than twenty-five divorces per hundred thousand of
inhabitants. In 1880 the black belt States and Territories--having one
hundred and over--extends from Wyoming over Montana, Colorado, Utah,
and Nevada. In 1900 it covers the entire far West and Southwest, with
the exception of New Mexico (Roman Catholic) and Utah (Mormon). The
chart showing the relation of divorces to number of married population
does not materially differ. Now these figures, ranging from five
hundred divorces per hundred thousand married population per year, or
three hundred in the more lax States, down to less than fifty in the
stricter States, compare with other countries as follows:
[Footnote 1: Census Reports, 1909, "Marriage and Divorce," part I, p.
15.]
Only Japan shows a number of divorces approaching these figures.
She has two hundred and fifteen per one hundred thousand of general
population,--about the same as Indiana, which stands eighth in the
order of States. But with the exception of Japan no civilized country
shows anything like the proportion of divorces that the American
States do. Thus, in Great Britain and Ireland there are but two per
hundred thousand of population; in Scotland, four; in the German
Empire, fifteen; in France, twenty-three, and in the highest country
of all, Switzerland, thirty-two, while the average of the entire
United States is seventy-three.
The census figures as to the trades or professions in which divorce
is most prevalent are amusing, but probably not very significant. It
appears, as might be expected, that actors and actresses stand at the
head, and next musicians or teachers of music; while clergymen stand
very near the bottom of the list, only excelled in this good record
by bar-tenders (in Rhode Island) and, throughout the country, by
agricultural laborers.
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