Facts And Fictions Of Life Part 11

According to the record, he evaded (somewhat skilfully it must be admitted) the real question; but his reply at least warrants us in saying that he held the view that the marriage relation had nothing whatever to do with another life, but belonged to the province of this world only, and the necessities and duties of human beings toward each other here.

This point is conceded, too, by every church when it permits the widowed to re-marry, and gives them clerical sanction.

Therefore the religious and the civil basis of discussion are logically on the same premises, and in America, at least, where there is no contest as to the established fact that all divorces must be legal and not ecclesiastical, it is clear that the law does not recognize religion at all in the matter. While a religious marriage service may hold in law, a religious divorce would be illegal, in fact, fraudulent. It is conceded on all sides then, as we have seen, that marriage is a matter pertaining strictly to this world. It affects the happiness or misery of men and women in their relations with each other, and not at all in any a.s.sumed relation with another life, or a supposit.i.tious duty to a Deity.

This would logically take marriage, as it has already taken divorce, out of the hands of the clergy, since religion and its duties are based primarily and necessarily upon the relations of human beings to another life and to a supernatural or Supreme Being. The terms of marriage and divorce--so far as the public is concerned--are questions of morals and economics.

That is to say, if there were but one man and one woman in the world it would be for them to say whether they would be married at all, or--having been married--whether they would stay married, if they discovered that the relation was productive of misery to one or both.

They could divorce themselves at will without injury and without fear.

But since humanity is a.s.sociated in groups const.i.tuting what is called society or the state, and since under present conditions men are the chief producers and owners of wealth and the means of livelihood, the support of women and children is a matter which affects the welfare of all so a.s.sociated, in case the parents separate. The question of divorce is, therefore, partly in the field of economics and has to do with the general welfare. This being the case, law and not religion rightly regulates its terms. People marry because they believe that it will promote their happiness to do so. I am talking now of ordinary people under ordinary circ.u.mstances, and not of those victims of inst.i.tutions--such as kings and princesses--who are married for state reasons. Nor am I writing of those still greater victims who are taught that it is their "duty" to marry in order to produce as many of their kind as possible in a world already sadly overpopulated by the very cla.s.s thus influenced and controlled by greed and power. That is to say, they are so taught by those who are benefited by the unintelligent increase of an ignorant population.

Since marriage is the most important, solemn, aed sacred contract into which two people can enter, and since it affects--or may affect--others than themselves, the State requires that it be public, that the form of contract be legal and that its terms be respected by both parties, to the end that others may not be deceived or left helpless.

But if the parties to this contract learn to their sorrow that the a.s.sociation is productive of misery, if they grow to loathe each other, if instead of happiness, it results in sorrow or ill health, then surely the State is not interested in forcing those two people to continue in a condition which is opposed to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is however, concerned in the terms of the separation since these do or may affect others than the two princ.i.p.als, and since one or both of these, having entered into a contract (in which the State was a witness) and now being desirous of terminating said contract, may be defrauded in a manner which vitally affects society. It can hardly be claimed that society is benefited by forcing two people to live in the same house and become the parents of children, when these two people have for each other only loathing or contempt. If it cannot benefit society, then who is benefited by the forced continuance of the marriage relation? The children? Can any rational person believe that it is well to rear children in an atmosphere of hatred, of contention, of rebellion?

Do not our penal inst.i.tutions answer this question? Are the inmates of these from homes where harmony reigned? Statistics show plainly that they are not; and they also show that an enormous per cent, of them come from the families of those who are not allowed by their church the relief of divorce from bonds grown galling. Children conceived by hatred and fear, overpowered by the lowest grade of pa.s.sion known to the world (which cannot be called brutal, because the brutes are not guilty of it), bred in an atmosphere of contention, deception, and dread, are fit material for, and statistics prove that they are the cla.s.s from which are recruited the inmates of, the reformatory and penal inst.i.tutions.

Is it fair to a child that it be so reared? Is it not right--is it not the duty of the State to secure, so far as it may, quite the opposite conditions of life for its helpless future citizens? Are the highest and best types of character bred in discord? Is the State interested in the high character of its future citizens? All these questions and many others are involved.

But setting aside these most important features I would like to ask who is benefited by keeping together those whom hate has separated? The wife? Not at all. She is simply degraded below the frail creatures of the street whom men deride. She becomes the helpless instrument of her own degradation. The woman of the street may own herself, she may change her life, she may refuse to continue in the course which has lost her her self-respect. The unwilling wife is helpless. She has lost all.

She has no refuge. She is a more degraded slave than ever felt the lash, for her slavery is one which sears her soul and will, if she becomes a mother, sear the bodies and souls of children borne by her unwillingly.

It can hardly be urged that it could add to the dignity or honor of womanhood for a tie to be indissoluble which in itself, under such conditions, is a degradation and an insult. Take for example a drunken, a dissolute or a brutal husband. Can it be said to strike at anything dear or n.o.ble for womankind that some wife is absolutely freed from such companions.h.i.+p? That she be no longer forced to bear his society or even his name? Surely no good end can be served by the outward continuance of a tie already broken in fact. No one can be made better, no one happier.

If it is urged that a G.o.d is to be considered, surely such a state of things could hardly excite his pleasure or admiration. If marriages are made in heaven those that prove a misfit--so to speak--can scarcely be claimed by believers in an all-wise ruler to emanate from there.

Religious people will, I fancy, be the last to a.s.sert that wrong had its source in such a locality; while people who look upon this question as wholly outside of sacramental lines will be slow to see beauty or good in a relation which is a servitude and a degradation on the one side and a brutal domination on the other.

How does the question stand then? The wife is degraded, the children are brutalized--are born with evil tendencies--a G.o.d can hardly be overjoyed; society is endangered and robbed, is deprived from its very cradle of its inalienable right to happiness. Who is left to be considered? The husband?

Would any man worthy the name wish to be the husband of an unwilling wife? If he has a spark of honor or manhood in him could such a relations.h.i.+p, held by force, give him happiness? Would it not be unendurable to him?

If he is so far below the brutes in his relations.h.i.+p with his mate that he can hold his position only by force is he a fit father of children?

Is the State interested in reproducing his kind?

It is true that there are several reasons why divorce is far more important to women than to men--notwithstanding which fact the question is usually discussed in the Press and Legislature by men only, the other interested party not being supposed to have enough at stake to be consulted or heard in the matter at all. But it is also true that an uncongenial marriage deprives a man of all of the best that is in him; it reduces his home to a mere den of discomfort and wretchedness; it forces him to be either a hypocrite at or an absentee from his own hearthstone and deprives him of the blessedness and sympathy--the holy tenderness and beauty--that should be the star in the crown of every man ent.i.tled to the name of husband and father.

But he still owns his own body. He cannot be made an unwilling father of timid, diseased, or brutalized children; he is not a financial dependent. For these and other reasons an unhappy marriage can never mean to a man what it must always mean to a woman.

There is an argument frequently put forward that divorce is wrong and unfair to the children of those so separated in case the divorced parties remarry and other children are added to the family. One great Prelate asked in his article on this subject: "Can we look with anything short of horror upon such a condition of things? Here is a family, we will say, composed of the children of three divorced fathers--all by one mother."

This is an extreme and not a pleasing case, we may admit; but suppose the divorce were by death would the distinguished Prelate be so shocked?

Is it especially uncommon, indeed, for the most devout men and women to marry three times? Are "half" brothers and sisters and "step" children a subject of moral shock to the most rigid religionists? Jesus appeared to approve of a woman marrying seven times. How about a mixed family there?

Does the distinguished Prelate take issue with his Lord? No, the whole question hinges on the continuance of the life of the parties separated or divorced. If one of them dies the mixed family relation is not counted either a sin or a shame. If they live and the divorce is granted by law instead of by nature it is p.r.o.nounced both.

In whose interest is this distinction maintained? We have seen that it is not for the honor of the wife that a loathsome marriage relation be indissoluble, that it can lend neither dignity nor happiness to the husband, that it is one of the fruitful causes of diseased and criminal childhood and that it is, therefore, necessarily, a menace to society.

Legally, morally, economically, then, it is a mistake, and it is productive of great misery. Who then is benefited? Why is the attempt so strongly made to revise the laws and check the growing liberality in divorce legislation?

Who are the movers in that direction and upon what do they base their arguments? What is the final appeal of these combatants? I shall answer the two last questions first. The orthodox clergy and their followers, basing their arguments on the Bible as the final appeal, demand that this reform go backward. Why?

Because their creeds and tenets have always claimed that marriage is a sacrament and not a legal contract, that it is or should be under the control of the clergy, and that the Bible and St. Paul say so and so about it. The Catholic Church has, by keeping control of the marriage of its believers, made sure of the children--their education--and therefore insured to itself their future adherence. It has perpetuated itself and its power by this means. It is, therefore, not difficult to see why that church so warmly opposes any movement which can only result in disaster to its growth and power. Her communicants are taught that it is their duty to increase and multiply, and this in spite of the fact that poverty and crime, want and ignorance stare in the face a large per cent, of the very cla.s.s which it is thus sought to swell. The Catholics are the most prolific and furnish _by far_ the largest per cent, of both paupers and criminals of any other cla.s.s of the community. With them marriage is a sacrament; divorce is not allowed, or if allowed, remarriage is prohibited. Children are born with astounding frequency of subject mothers to brutal fathers. They are bred in a constant atmosphere of contention, bickering, and in short, warfare. The result is inevitable. Contest--war--brings out all the worst elements and pa.s.sions in human nature. This fact is well understood where war is conducted between large bodies of men; but in such case there is supposed to be a motive--some patriotic principle involved to stir and call out, also, some of the better nature; but in the petty warfare of the wretched household there is nothing to redeem life from the basest.

But suppose all this is true, say the advocates of the forced continuance of the marriage relation; the Bible--our creeds--teach us to refuse the relief of divorce, and we are bound at any cost to sustain the indissolubility of the marriage bond. True, for those who accept these creeds or the Bible as a finality; but to those who do not, the State owes a duty. Church and State are separated in America, it is claimed. A magistrate can marry a man and woman, just as he can draw up another contract. When the State went that far it told the people that it did not hold marriage as a sacrament. It then and there took the ground that it was a legal contract, and had no necessary connection with religious belief or observance. It logically follows, then, that if the State deals with marriage as a thing not touched by religious belief or Biblical injunction, that the question of divorce--the terms of the contract--are also quite outside of the province of the clergy. This being the case, it appears as futile and as foolish to discuss this question--making of it a religious one--from the basis of the creeds or the Bible, as it would be to discuss the rate of interest on money or the wages per day for labor, from the same outlook.

Believers in the finality of Biblical teaching are at liberty to hold their marriages as indissoluble, but have no right to insist upon forcing their religious dogmas upon others, nor to attempt to crystalize them into law for those who believe otherwise. No doubt the Bible gave the best light of the Jews, in the day in which it was written, on these and other subjects. We are quite willing to suppose that the various creeds and usages of the churches did the same, for the people whom they represented, but the creeds and the Bible have nothing whatever to do with the social and economic problems of our day, nor with the legal questions of our time.

The more they are dragged into places where they do not belong, the more it is discovered that "revision" is necessary. The old creeds and the Bible are fast undergoing revision and are recut to fit the people and the present. It is quite impossible to revise and recut the people and the present to fit the old creeds and the literature of the Jews.

Let us have done with such trifling with the serious problems of the day. It is not at all a question of whether St. Paul said or thought this or that about divorce. It is not at all important what some dead and gone Potentate said; the question before us is: What is best for society as it is now? Indeed it appears to me futile to discuss this subject at all if it is to be done from a theological basis. Every fairly intelligent person knows what the church teaches in the matter.

One paragraph and a half dozen Biblical references with a notable name appended is all the s.p.a.ce necessary to consume. We all know that in substance the Catholic church's answer to the question "Is Divorce wrong?" is emphatically, "Yes."

We are also aware that that church revises its opinions more slowly than does any other.

It is equally well known to the intelligent reader that the variations from the emphatic Yes of the Catholic church, run the scale in the Protestant denominations from a moderately firm yes to a distinctly audible no. Given the denomination and a slight knowledge of its history--whether it claims to be infallible and divine, as the Catholic and Episcopal, or only partly so as the Methodist, Presbyterian, and Congregational, or whether as the Unitarian and Universalist they claim to be human only--and you are prepared to state what the adherents of those churches will hold as to the marriage and divorce questions without resort to long papers or circ.u.mlocution. Now, for the various sects to teach or believe what they please on this and other subjects is their undoubted right so long as they do not attempt to control other people in matters which are outside of the province of the church, and so long as their own adherents are satisfied to abide by the decisions of the communion to which they belong.

The question is, then, what is best for society as it is and as it is likely to be? What is best for society as it is now? Who is benefited or who harmed by the continuance of a loathesome relations.h.i.+p? Is the State and are the people interested in refusing to allow two people to correct a mistake once made? Is it for the good of anyone to make mistakes perpetual?

I repeat that it is a question in economics and morals. It has nothing whatever to do with religion.

Let us keep our minds clear of rubbish, and above all let us request that our legislators do not tamper with a question of such vital importance to women, in any manner (as is just now proposed) to crystalize the divorce laws into national form and application, until women be heard in the matter, freely and fully, without fear or intimidation. If it were proposed to make a national law for railroads without giving a hearing to but one side of the question; if it were suggested that Congress pa.s.s an educational bill of universal application without permitting any but its friends to be heard; if a general measure to control interest on money were up, and none of the money-lenders were given a hearing--only borrowers--there would be a great stir made about the injustice and inequity of such legislation.

But it is deliberately proposed to pa.s.s a national marriage and divorce law, to regulate the one condition of life which is absolutely vital to women under present conditions, and to make this law a part of the national Const.i.tution, without taking the trouble to hear one word from her on the subject. Let us agitate this question thoroughly. Let us discuss it on the basis where it belongs; where our laws have already put it--the economic, and moral, and social basis. Let us clear the track of both sentimentality and superst.i.tion. Let us hear from both sides--from both parties interested. We do not drag religion into the interstate commerce debate. When a bill comes up for street-paving, n.o.body inquires what kind of stone St. Paul was interested in having put down. When the Chinese bill is before us, it is not necessary to know what St. Sebastian thought of the laundry business. Their views may have been sound; but they do not apply. I repeat, therefore, let us keep to the subject, keep the subject on the basis where it belongs, have our conclusions at least blood relatives of our premises, and let us hear from both sides of the fireplace. And finally, let us discuss this matter thoroughly but let us keep clear of pa.s.sing a national law until both parties to the contract be heard, not only in the press, but in the legislative deliberations.

A recent writer of one of the ablest and clearest papers yet contributed on this subject, in arguing in favor of an amendment to the Const.i.tution, which shall make divorce laws uniform, says: "Let it clearly be shown that Congress can best legislate in the interests of the _whole people_ (the italics are mine) upon the subject, and the people, and their representatives, the legislative a.s.semblies, can be trusted to authorize it." It does not occur to even this able writer that half of the "whole people" will have no representation in either the legislative a.s.semblies nor in Congress, and that on this subject above all others, this unrepresented half has far more at stake than has the other, and that when an amendment to the national Const.i.tution is accomplished, it is a very much more difficult thing to correct any blunder it may contain, than it would be if the blunder were not made a part of that instrument.

All men appear to agree that marriage is preeminently woman's "sphere."

Certainly under existing conditions, and under conditions as they are likely to be for some time to come, it is the one field open to her--it is her "lot." At present she has nothing to say as to the laws which control--as to the terms of this single contract of her life--the one disposition she is free to make of herself and still retain her social status and secure support. It would seem only humane to place no farther thorns in her path. Until she has a voice--is represented--the "whole people" cannot amend the Const.i.tution in respect to marriage and divorce--in respect to the "one sphere" which all men concede is woman's one peculiar right.

No laws on these subjects--above all others--should be crystalized into national form and appended to the Const.i.tution until it is done by the help and with the consent of the half of the people whom it will most seriously affect.

LAWSUIT OR LEGACY

Many of the worst features in Life a.s.surance contracts or policies, mentioned in this essay, have been amended or corrected since its publication, but there remain enough other conditions of doubtful fairness to the policy holder to, I think, justify including this essay in this book.

Among these conditions, is the clause, in all Tontine policies,--and nearly all policies now issued are Tontine in one form or another,--which puts all acc.u.mulations on policies derived from "dividends," premiums, etc., on lapsed policies etc., into the hands of directors or officers of the companies, to do with as they choose, the policy holder being made, by the terms of his contract or policy, to agree to accept whatever proportion of surplus there may be "apportioned by the Society" or Company, to his policy, when it shall have matured. That is, the policy holder is not represented as against the Company, in the determining of what, if any surplus, his policy is or should be ent.i.tled to. "At the end of the Tontine Period, if the person proposed for a.s.surance be then living, and the policy in force, the policy shall partic.i.p.ate in the acc.u.mulated surplus, derived from policies on the Free Tontine plan, both existing and discontinued, as may then be apportioned by the Society."

(Italics mine.) This leaves the policy holder absolutely at the mercy of the Company, or its actuary who is, or may be, the instrument of the officers of the Company. And it will not do to reply that "the policy holders are the Company"

for it is well known, at least among insurance experts, that this is one of the fictions of the business in its practical management.

In ill.u.s.tration of certain other abuses in the management of this beneficent and important business, I have also included, brief, humorous sketch, which touches some of these, a propoi of the fictions versus the facts.

Within the past twenty years the business of life-insurance has grown with such wonderful rapidity, and changed so radically in its methods and contracts, that it is to-day as unlike its old self as the railway-car is unlike the stage-coach.

The old life-insurance contract undertook to define burglary, riot, and rebellion, and the companies held themselves free from obligations which they had deliberately a.s.sumed, if the other party to the contract did not conform to the rules of conduct laid down under their definition and requirements. Nowhere else in the history of large business organizations has the debtor regulated his obligation by the morals of his creditor and liquidated his debt by acknowledging its existence, and then simply charging moral obliquity on the part of said creditor as the reason for not paying it.

If A owes B fifty dollars, and B is known to be a thief or a murderer, it does not liquidate A's debt to simply show that fact. But life-insurance companies have held, and some of them still claim, the right to so indemnify creditors, and, strange to say, they have been able to conduct business on that basis. They have even gone further, and said that a debt to B's heirs is forfeited in like manner--thus making the destruction of a man's reputation after his death of pecuniary advantage to the company. They have been enabled to do this because many men do not read the insurance contract which they sign, and hence have no idea of its complicated and, in many cases, unfair nature. If men insisted upon understanding the contract before they sign it, as they do in other business, the more unfair features would necessarily disappear from all insurance contracts.