The Superstition of DivorceChesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)
Religion
The Superstition of Divorce
Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)
Divorce
I have touched before now on a famous or infamous Royalist who suggested
that the people should eat grass; an unfortunate remark perhaps for a
Royalist to make; since the regimen is only recorded of a Royal
Personage. But there was certainly a simplicity in the solution worthy
of a sultan or even a savage chief; and it is this touch of autocratic
innocence on which I have mainly insisted touching the social reforms of
our day, and especially the social reform known as divorce. I am
primarily more concerned with the arbitrary method than with the
anarchic result. Very much as the old tyrant would turn any number of
men out to grass, so the new tyrant would turn any number of women into
grass-widows. Anyhow, to vary the legendary symbolism, it never seems to
occur to the king in this fairy tale that the gold crown on his head is
a less, and not a more, sacred and settled ornament than the gold ring
on the woman’s finger. This change is being achieved by the summary and
even secret government which we now suffer; and this would be the first
point against it, even if it were really an emancipation; and it is only
in form an emancipation. I will not anticipate the details of its
defence, which can be offered by others, but I will here conclude for
the present by roughly suggesting the practical defences of divorce, as
generally given just at present, under four heads. And I will only ask
the reader to note that they all have one thing in common; the fact that
each argument is also used for all that social reform which plain men
are already calling slavery.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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