An Equal Standard of Morals Practical ethics knows no distinction of sex. Present ethical tendencies are making effective demand for an equal standard of morals for both sexes. The social inferiority of women in all ages, due chiefly to their economic dependence, is largely responsible for the rise and the persistence of a dual standard. Under penalty of starvation for one class, and fear of a less luxurious support in idleness for another, wives have often submitted to a double standard of morals repugnant to all their finer sensibilities and sense of justice. With the change in the social status of women the necessity for the toleration of such discrimination is passing away. Married women are compelled to-day, neither by economic necessity to obtain a living, nor by the force of public opinion out of deference to the institution, to submit to indignities that compromise their womanhood. According to our present standards it is neither religious nor moral to maintain a relation that involves injustice and inequality. The woman, therefore, who rebels at the tyranny which would impose upon her the necessity of tolerating, under the guise of marriage duty, conduct repulsive to her moral sensibilities, finds vindication and justification in the judgment of an enlightened public conscience. So far as the second class is concerned, we are persuaded that the number who value self-respect above mere convenience, who prefer to sacrifice social position rather than condone moral duplicity, is on the increase. Higher Ideals of Domestic Happiness Ideals compatible with the nature of the economic family of necessity are inadequate under our changed conditions. As the family ministers less to the necessities of life it ministers more to its amenities. The home is more than a place in which to eat and sleep and work. It is a school of affection and of spiritual discipline. It is a society for mutual helpfulness. If it ceases to be that, its function has largely passed away and its form ought not and will not much longer endure. If agreeable and helpful companionship cannot be maintained within the home there are few other reasons to-day for its existence. Comfortable bachelorhood is preferable to infelicitous wedlock. Hence a state of disharmony, a relation deficient in the higher ethical values, easily endured in the family whose coherence rested chiefly upon its economic advantage, may furnish the strongest motive for disintegration in the family based upon mutual happiness and helpfulness. Nor do we think the argument for the maintenance of the unhappy family is strengthened by the claim often made in respect to the care of children. We are quite persuaded in our own mind, a conviction strengthened by observation and inquiry, that in the vast majority of cases the children fare much better and their chances for arriving at a career of happiness and usefulness are greatly enhanced if given into the custody of either parent than if compelled to be reared in the atmosphere of discord and contention. The New Basis of Sexual Morality Perhaps the chief effect of the causes we are considering is manifest in the development of the new basis of sexual morality. As the function of the family undergoes the transformation from that of practical expediency to the higher conception of mutual interest and affection, uncongeniality and incompatibility become much more serious matters. They are quite as capable of destroying the purpose of marriage as were much graver difficulties under the old régime. Ethical values come to reside in those qualities of mutual attraction and preference which are coming to constitute the basis of marriage. Aside from certain modifying limitations of social utility "the acceptance of a sincere love between a man and a woman who would live together and be parents, as the only workable and decent foundation of the marriage relation," is coming to be regarded by society as the ideal. It is from this point of view that we begin to regard all marriage based upon economic or social advantage as a bargain in sex and a form of legalized prostitution. And furthermore, that coercion, whether on the part of church or state, which compels one person to live with another person of the opposite sex in repugnant conjugal 1 Giddings, The Twentieth Century, March, 1906, p. 18. relations, does violence to all the higher ethical instincts of the soul and thus comes to be regarded as a species of despotism incompatible with free institutions. Thus it has come about, not by conscious planning, but by the transformations wrought by social forces, that the restraint formerly imposed by institutional religion is giving place to the favorable impetus afforded by practical ethics. Popular moral sentiment which more than ever regards the ideal marriage as the supreme method of realizing the perpetuity and education of the race, nevertheless recognizes worse evils than divorce, and has come not only to approve, but to encourage, the breaking of the conventional marriage tie in preference to the crushing of the human spirit. 63. THE NEED OF PRINCIPLES IN DIVORCE LEGISLATION 1 We have now dealt with the five new grounds for divorce which our colleagues recommend should be established. There is one distinctive mark on them all. They are purely empirical in the sense that they are tentative, experimental, dependent upon qualification and degree. Desertion for three years is chosen, but we are told that if the well-to-do only were concerned four years would have been recommended. Under pressure of sufficient hard cases it might equally easily become two. Insanity is to be a cause, not only under conditions of time, but also of the age of the parties. Imprisonment under a commuted death sentence for, say, 20 years is to suffice, but not penal servitude for 10 or 15 years. Cruelty is to be a cause, but it needs to be defined, and is defined in a set of words which may mean anything from gross personal violence to the continuous exercise of a sharp 1 From the Minority Report of the Royal Commission on Divorce and Matrimonial Causes, by Cosmo Ebor, William Anson, and Lewis T. Dibdin. Report of the Commission, pp. 184-188, London, 1912. 2 The Majority Report recommended that the following causes be made legal grounds for divorce: adultery, willful desertion for three years or more, cruelty, incurable insanity after five years' confinement, habitual drunkenness found incurable after three years from first order, imprisonment under commuted death ED. sentence. tongue or the habitual indulgence in a surly temper. Inebriety is to be a cause, but the proposed definition of it leaves much to the discretion of the court and is admitted to be open to criticism. Some witnesses are in favor of drunkenness being a ground of divorce, but against penal servitude being so, and vice versa. It is obvious that proposals like these have not even the semblance of finality. They are frankly opportunist, designed to meet what are supposed to be the practical needs of the moment, and capable of expansion in any direction under the pressure for further facilities, which concession is almost certain to produce. They must be judged, not only by their immediate and intended results, but by their inevitable sequel. If the State is to maintain any clear attitude as to divorce, it must take its stand upon some guiding principle. There is one principle, and, so far as witnesses, many of whom seek to deal with the question, have been able to help us, only one, which seems to include the various proposed extensions of the grounds of divorce. Each one of these is said to predicate a state of circumstances which proves that the purposes for which the marriage contract was entered into have been defeated, with the consequence that the combined life which it was the purpose of that contract to establish is in fact, and finally, determined. We suppose that this is what is meant by our colleagues when they recommend that divorce should be permitted for causes which "are generally and properly recognized as leading to the break-up of married life," or, as they elsewhere describe it, the "de facto termination of married life." What is to be regarded as "breaking up" married life? Is it separation? The separated parties may come together. Is it drunkenness ? The drunkard may reform. Is it penal servitude? The prisoner may return better and chastened by punishment. Is it physical disability? Then permanent paralysis of the body may frustrate the objects of marriage as fully as paralysis of the brain. Moreover, if we accept this principle it must carry us much further than is now proposed. The conditions of the marriage contract are not only that the parties will live together and cohabit without exposing each other to bodily suffering. They promise to love one another, to take one another "for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health" during their joint lives; and these promises are as much of the essence of the matter as any of the other obligations of the marriage state. The united life described in these familiar words may be fatally wounded and swept away without desertion, or cruelty, or insanity, or inebriety, or imprisonment. Who can judge, for example, the effect of unkind words, or studied neglect and indifference, offenses which no court can grapple with, but which, nevertheless, may be destructive of real union? That union is determined when husband and wife have ceased to love one another. If, therefore, we are to adopt the principle we have stated, it follows that divorce ought to be permitted when it is clear that the parties have irreparably lost affection for each other, or, indeed, when either party has become permanently alienated from the other. The dilemma that presents itself is this. On the one hand, it is in the highest degree dangerous and unstatesmanlike to deal with so momentous a matter as marriage and divorce on notions of present expediency, without any governing principle to guide us; on the other hand, the only principle suggested is one which requires that divorce should be granted on the mutual consent of both parties, and on proof of the invincible aversion of either of them for the other. The Majority Report, it is true, does "not recommend these two causes as grounds of divorce." The reason assigned is significant. It is stated thus: "These suggestions have met with little support from any of the numerous witnesses who have been called before us and are not likely to meet with any substantial support at the present day in England." In other words, divorce for incompatibility and divorce by mutual consent are laid aside, not because they violate any principle on which the Majority Report is based, but merely because, for the moment, no effective demand for them can be discerned. But the inevitable conclusion of the premises adopted by our colleagues cannot be evaded. The evidence of several witnesses of distinction in different ways shows that they, at any rate, accept the position. Thus, Sir John Macdonell, at the very outset of the inquiry, advocated divorce by mutual consent, provided it be suitably safeguarded. Mr. Plowden, the police magistrate, thought that marriage |