English people are proud of their national concern for purity, yet they tolerate, and their priests defend as something sacred, a state of law which is medieval in its crudeness and barbarity. When two people have obeyed our counsel to marry early, and they discover that they have misjudged each other, we tell them that there is no relief for them unless they commit adultery: which, when it is committed, we brand as the darkest sin. To the husband we give the further injunction that he must be cruel to his wife before we will release him. We then, although we take especial pride in the "cleanness" of our press and literature, print whole columns about their conduct in suspicious situations,--sometimes entitling the account, in large type, to attract attention, "A Horrible Case,"--and we ask each other whether England is not in a state of decay and contracting the continental spirit. If there are any who do not choose to commit adultery, or do not choose to have their servants bribed to describe their conduct for the entertainment of the public, we grant them a legal permit to be happy and vicious, or miserable and virtuous, for the remainder of their lives: the thing we call a judicial separation. This extraordinary situation is certainly a slight improvement on indissoluble marriage, but the pride of our bishops and puritans in it is peculiar. One may not expect them to take into account the suffering which hundreds of thousands endure under the law, but the adultery to which it leads would seem to be a proper subject for their consideration. As a rule, they entreat us to maintain religion, whether it be true or no, in the name of morality: here they ask us to maintain immorality in the name of religion,--in the name of a supposed Christian precept,--and we obey even more readily. When a Royal Commission recommends that our law be brought into line with the law of other civilised nations, they burn with indignation and inspire a Minority Report: a remarkable mixture of contradictions, worthless quotations, and irrelevant rhetoric. The question of immorality they shirk; and to the unhappiness which large numbers of our people endure under the present law they are so insensitive that they hardly mention it.