DIVORCE IN AMERICA.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 391, 8 October 1880, Page 19

DIVORCE IN AMERICA.

Rhode Island shows, according to a reliable authority, in statistical tables that cover the last nine years, one thousand six hundred and seventy divorces to twenty-one thousand seven hundred and fifteen marriages, giving a ratio of one divorce to thirteen marriages. There is in that State one divorce to about every one thousand and two hundred of its inhabitants. It is estimated that in Connecticut there is one divorce to every eighth Protestant marriage. Massachusetts is not quite so bad, and the other New England States vary, but the figures which recent statistics reveal show that the instability of the marriage relation is rapidly undermining family life. It is doubtful, though that New England is in worse condition than other parts of the country. Everywhere throughout the United States there is a dreadful laxity in regard to marriage. It is not unusual to hear persons who condemn " free love" doctrines uphold the advisability of divorce, and it would be hardly possible to imagine a public sentiment more dangerous to morality than that which exists to-day in this country among respectable Protestants. The Protestant pulpit, by its silence in regard to another social evil, seems to concede that women have that absolute right over their children which under an old Roman law masters possessed over the lives of their slaves. Luther held that marriage is a matter for the civil authorities ; and no thoughtful person can fail to see that the moment the Reformers denied the sacramen al character of marriage, that rrotnent they struck a telling blow at the sacred institution which saves the family from dissolution and society frorr 1 anarchy. It is amazing that intelligent non-Catholics, indifferent as they may be in religious matters, fail to see the end to which this Pagan disregard of the holiest of ties is leading. No nation can stand which is not founded on the family ; this is the teaching of all history. — Catholic Review.

Tanner, the faster, gave out that he was a bachelor, and th'*n a woman out West rose to explain. She has been his wife, she said, but on account of his narrow notions about eating, a case of incompatibility arose, and there was a divorce. Then Tanner took the floor, and observed that the woman had been in the habit of gorging herself with pork and cabbage, doughnuts, crullers, cheese, and several other things, every day, and made him so mad that he had to leave her. "No man." he added, " can live with a woman who eata pork and cabbage three times a day." A new cause of divorce is added to a list that was already pretty long. — Pilot.