In the closing years of the nineteenth century, a marked increase in the number of divorces was already discernible. For instance, in the years 1894-1899 the number rose from 7,502 to 9,433. It was at that time believed that the increase depended upon the fact that in most of the countries of the German Confederation the new Civil Code made divorce more difficult, and that for this reason as many people as possible were seeking divorce before the new Code came into action. It is true that the number of divorces diminished after the Civil Code passed into operation. In the year 1900 the divorces numbered 7,922, and in the year 1901, 7,892. =Since then, however, there has once more been a marked increase=, so that =the figure for the year 1904 is 2,990 in excess of that for the year 1901, an increase of 38 per cent=. This increase is principally to be referred to the fact that the so-called =relative grounds for divorce=, enumerated in § 1568 of the Civil Code,[182] appear to have justified a great number of demands for divorce. The marked extensibility of the sections of this paragraph leaves the judge very wide discretion in its application. To what an extent the increase in the number of divorces influences the existing marriages is seen as soon as we compare the number of divorces with the number of marriages. It appears that in the years 1900 and 1901, for every 10,000 marriages, there were 8·1 divorces; in 1902, 9·3 divorces; in 1903, 10·1 divorces; and in 1904, 11·1 divorces. Thus in the year 1904, there were 3 more divorces per 10,000 marriages than in the year 1901. I have already referred to the enormous importance of divorce in relation to the recognition on the part of the State of the temporary character of every marriage, whereby, in principle, free love, which is no more than a temporary marriage, receives a civil justification, and is legitimized. This fact stands out still more clearly when we recognize the legal possibility of =repeated= divorces on the part of one and the same person. Numerous actual examples of this can be given. Thus a well-known author was divorced no less than =four= times, and of his four wives one, on her side, had been divorced by other men. Two divorces on both sides are by no means rare. If we consider the matter openly and unemotionally, it must be admitted that this is nothing else than the much-opposed “free love,” the bugbear of all honest Philistines, =a free love which has already received the official sanction of the State=. When four or five divorces are possible to the same individual by official decree, when, that is to say, this procedure has received civil sanction, the number may for theoretical purposes be multiplied at discretion.