The Superstition of DivorceChesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)
Religion
The Superstition of Divorce
Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)
Divorce
It is futile to talk of reform without reference to form. To take a
case from my own taste and fancy, there is nothing I feel to be so
beautiful and wonderful as a window. All casements are magic casements,
whether they open on the foam or the front-garden; they lie close to
the ultimate mystery and paradox of limitation and liberty. But if I
followed my instinct towards an infinite number of windows, it would
end in having no walls. It would also (it may be added incidentally)
end in having no windows either; for a window makes a picture by making
a picture-frame. But there is a simpler way of stating my more simple
and fatal error. It is that I have wanted a window, without considering
whether I wanted a house. Now many appeals are being made to us to-day
on behalf of that light and liberty that might well be symbolised by
windows; especially as so many of them concern the enlightenment and
liberation of the house, in the sense of the home. Many quite
disinterested people urge many quite reasonable considerations in the
case of divorce, as a type of domestic liberation; but in the
journalistic and general discussion of the matter there is far too much
of the mind that works backwards and at random, in the manner of all
windows and no walls. Such people say they want divorce, without asking
themselves whether they want marriage. Even in order to be divorced it
has generally been found necessary to go through the preliminary
formality of being married; and unless the nature of this initial act
be considered, we might as well be discussing haircutting for the bald
or spectacles for the blind. To be divorced is to be in the literal
sense unmarried; and there is no sense in a thing being undone when we
do not know if it is done.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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