There are in relation to this subject many provisions which wrong men and women alike; and, if there are any which especially wrong woman, they wrong man in a still higher degree through her. As an example of the former class, we may take the impossibility of release from a hopelessly insane partner, which makes the point of the wonderful story of "Jane Eyre." Now, several things are quite evident to the eye of common sense:-- _First_, That the insane partner should be properly provided for during life, in the upper classes, by the sane partner; in the lower, by the parish or state. _Second_, That as it is a sin against God and society to bring children into the world, born of a hopelessly insane parent; so, on the other hand, it is a sin against God and society to compel any man or woman to a life of hopeless celibacy. _Third_, That, if the law does use this compulsion, it is responsible for the vicious connections that inevitably grow out of it; "_car les mauvaises lois produisent les mauvaises moeurs_."[35] I should not turn aside from my main point to consider this, even for a moment, if it were not a striking instance of the want of common _sense_ which afflicts the common _law_, and if I had not in my own experience been made aware of its frightful results. Within the limits of one small parish in the city of Toronto, Canada West, I found four instances in which men of the middle class had taken the right of divorce into their own hands, and were illegally married a second time. These persons, if not markedly religious, were respectable, orderly members of society, living properly in their families, supporting the wives they had left, and justifying the course they had taken. Two of them had left England on account of the hopeless insanity of their wives, and two on account of their hopeless immorality; the latter, cases in which the law would have granted a divorce, but at an expense which the husband could not pay. When I first heard this account of one person, I resented it as a slander, and went to console the afflicted wife, who was overwhelmed by the supposed rumor. The husband met me at the door, with an honest, unabashed, but distressed face. "Don't deny it to her," said he. "I never committed but one sin, and that was when I kept it from her. She was a sweet, pious creature; and I feared she would not consent." This man told me that he sent six hundred dollars yearly to his insane wife; that this kept her better than he could afford to keep himself and his family: "but," said he, "her station was always higher than mine." In the other cases, the men had told their stories, and the wives had consented to the arrangement. It is obvious, that, if a wife wished to withdraw from a husband in this manner, she could not do it, on account of property restrictions, and the common unfitness for self-support.[36]