"I do not justify the defects in some of the legal machinery, and to this extent I agree that society is derelict. But what I wish to make clear is that nearly all the legal grounds for divorce in the several states are just and reasonable--substantially the same as in this State--and that the abuses against which they afford relief are such as render the relation of husband and wife intolerable. There are a few vague and lax exceptions such as you have cited, but they are fast disappearing. The real and the salient evil lies in the looseness of administration sanctioned in some jurisdictions, by means of which collusive divorces are obtained by pretended residents, and close scrutiny of the facts is avoided by the courts. To permit legal domicile to be acquired by a residence of three months, as in Dakota, is a flagrant invitation to fraud; but that and kindred abuses are defects in the police power, and have only a collateral bearing on the main issue between us, which is whether democracy can ever be induced to reconsider its decision that it is for the best interests of human nature that the innocent wife or husband, to whom a cruel wrong has been done, should be free to break the bond and marry again. There is the real question, Mr. Prentiss. You as a churchman--a foreign churchman I still claim--demand that the woman whose life has been blighted by a husband's brutality, sentenced for heinous crime, abandonment, or degrading abuse of liquor should remain his wife to the end, though he has killed every spark of love in her soul. The Church will never be able to convince the American people or modern democracy that this is spiritual or just." "And yet a man who has been prohibited by the courts of New York from marrying again has merely to step into New Jersey and his marriage there will be recognized and upheld by the courts of New York. But that you will probably describe as another instance of defect in the police power. The line which you draw is evidently that which any particular body of people--sovereign states I believe they call them--sees fit to establish. The logical outcome of such a theory can only be social chaos. The sanctity of the home is fundamentally imperilled thereby." "And yet," said Gordon, "the family life of the American people compares favorably with that of any nation in affection, morality, and happiness. More than three-fourths of the applicants for divorce in the United States are women. They have thrown off the yoke of docile suffering which the convention of the centuries has fastened upon them." "Some of them," interposed the rector with spirited incisiveness. "The shallow, the self-indulgent, the indelicate, the earthly minded. There are many who are still true to the behests of the spirit," he added significantly. It was doubtless an agreeable reflection to him that the one woman in the world for his antagonist was among the faithful.