Society: Its Origin and Development Part 6

The Episcopal Church in England and in colonial America recognized only the one Biblical cause of unfaithfulness; the more radical Protestants turned over the whole matter to the state. In New England desertion and cruelty were accepted alongside adultery as sufficient grounds for divorce, and the legislature sometimes granted it by special enactment.

81. =Investigation and Legislation in the United States and England.=--The divorce question provoked some discussion in this country about the time of the Civil War, and some statistics were gathered. Twenty years later the National Government was induced by the National Divorce Reform League to take a careful census of marriage and divorce. This was published in 1889, and revised and reissued in 1909. These reports aroused the States which controlled the regulation of marriage and divorce to attempt improved legislation. Almost universally among them divorce was made more difficult instead of easier. The term of residence before divorce could be obtained was lengthened; certain changes were made in the legal grounds for divorce; in less than twenty years fourteen States limited the privilege of divorced persons to remarry until after a specified time had elapsed, varying from three months to two years.

Congress pa.s.sed a uniform marriage law for all the territories. It was believed almost universally that the Const.i.tution should be amended so as to secure a federal divorce law, but experience proved that it was better that individual States should adopt a uniform law. The later tendency has been in this direction.

At the same time, the churches of the country interested themselves in the subject. The Protestant Episcopal Church took strong ground against its ministers remarrying a divorced person, and the National Council of Congregational Churches appointed a special committee which reported in 1907 in favor of strictness. Fourteen Protestant churches combined in an Interchurch Committee to secure united action, and the Federal Council of Churches recorded itself against the prevailing laxness. The purpose of all this group action was to check abuses and to create a more sensitive public opinion, especially among moral and religious leaders.

In Great Britain, on the other hand, divorce had always been difficult. There the strictness of the law led to a demand for a study of the subject and a report to Parliament. The result was the appointment of a Royal Commission on Divorce and Matrimonial Causes, consisting of twelve members, which investigated for three years, and in 1912 presented its report. It recognized the fact that severe restrictions were in force, and a majority of the commission regarding marriage as a legal rather than a sacramental bond, favored easier divorce and a single standard of morality for both s.e.xes. It was proposed that the grounds for legal divorce should be adultery, desertion extending over three years, cruelty, incurable insanity after confinement for five years, habitual drunkenness found incurable after three years, or imprisonment carrying with it a sentence of death. A minority of the committee still regarding marriage as a sacrament, favored no relaxation of the law as it stood.

82. =Proposed Remedies.=--Various remedies have been proposed to stem the tide of excessive divorce. There are many who see in divorce nothing more than a healthy symptom of individual independence, a revolt against conditions of the home that are sometimes almost intolerable. Many others are alarmed at the rapid increase of divorce, especially in the United States, and believe that checks are necessary for the continued existence of the family and the well-being of society. The first reform proposed as a means of prevention of divorce is the revision of the marriage laws on a higher model. The second is a stricter divorce law, made as uniform as possible. The third is the adoption of measures of reconciliation which will remove the causes that provoke divorce.

The proposed laws include such provisions as the prohibition of marriage for those who are criminal, degenerate, or unfitted to perform the s.e.x function; the requirement of six months' publication of matrimonial banns and a physical certificate before marriage; a strictly provisional decree of divorce; the establishment of a court of domestic relations, and a prohibition of remarriage of the defendant during the life of the plaintiff. These are reasonable restrictions and seem likely to be adopted gradually, as practicable improvements over the existing laws. It is also proposed that the merits of every case shall be more carefully considered, and the judicial procedure improved by the appointment of a divorce proctor in connection with every court trying divorce cases, whose business it shall be to make investigations and to a.s.sist in trying or settling specific cases. Experiment has proved the value of such an officer.

83. =Court of Domestic Relations.=--One of the most significant improvements that has taken place is the establishment of a court of domestic relations, which already exists in several cities, and has made an enviable record. In the early experiments it seemed practicable in Kansas to make such a court a branch of the circuit and juvenile courts, so arranged that it would be possible to deal with the relations of the whole family; in Chicago the new tribunal was made a part of the munic.i.p.al court. By means of patient questioning, first by a woman a.s.sistant and then by the judge himself, and by good advice and explicit directions as to conduct, with a warning that failure would be severely treated, it has been possible to unravel hundreds of domestic entanglements.

84. =Tendencies.=--There can be no question that the present tendency is in the direction of greater freedom in the marriage relation.

Society will not continue to sanction inhumanity and immorality in the relations of man to woman. Marriage is ideally a sacred relation, but when it is not so treated, when love is dead and repulsion has taken its place, and especially when physical contact brings disease and suffering, public opinion is likely to consider that marriage is thereby virtually annulled, and to permit ratification of the fact by a decree of divorce. On the other hand, it is probable that increasing emphasis will be put on serious and well-prepared marriage, on the inculcation of a spirit of mutual love and forbearance through the agency of the church, and on the exhaustion of every effort to restore right relations, if they have not been irreparably destroyed, before any grant of divorce will be allowed. In this, as in all problems of the family, the spirit of mutual consideration for the interests of all concerned is that which must be invoked for a speedy and permanent solution. Education of young people in the importance of the family as a social inst.i.tution and in the responsibility which every individual member should feel to make and keep the family pure and strong as a bulwark of social stability, is the surest means of preventing altogether its dissolution.

READING REFERENCES

"Report on Marriage and Divorce," 1906, _Bureau of the Census_, I, pages 272-274, 331-333.

"Reports of the National League for the Protection of the Family."

POST: _Ethics of Marriage and Divorce_, pages 62-84.

DEALEY: _The Family in Its Sociological Aspects_, pages 96-108.

HOWARD: _History of Matrimonial Inst.i.tutions_, III, pages 3-160.

WILLc.o.x: _The Divorce Problem._

CHAPTER XI

THE SOCIAL EVIL

85. =s.e.xual Impurity.=--A prime factor in the breaking up of the home is s.e.xual impurity. The s.e.x pa.s.sion, an elemental instinct of humanity, is sanctified by the marriage relation, but unbridled in those who seek above all else their own pleasure, becomes a curse in body and soul. It is not limited to either s.e.x, but men have been more self-indulgent, and have been treated more leniently than erring women. s.e.xual impurity is wide-spread, but public opinion against it is steadily strengthening, and the tendency is to hold men and women equally responsible. For the sake of clearness it is advisable to distinguish between various forms of impurity, and to observe the proper terms. The s.e.xual evil appears in aggravated form in commercial prost.i.tution, but is more prevalent as an irregularity among non-professionals. s.e.xual intercourse before marriage, or fornication, was not infrequent in colonial days, and in Europe is startlingly common; very frequently among the lower cla.s.ses there is no marriage until a child is born. s.e.xual infidelity after marriage, or adultery, is the cause of the ruin of many homes. In the cities and among the well-to-do cla.s.ses the keeping of mistresses is an occasional practice, but it is far less common than was the case in former days, when it was the regular custom at royal courts and imitated by those lower in the social scale.

86. =Prost.i.tution.=--Prost.i.tution, softened in common speech to "the social evil," is a term for promiscuity of s.e.x relations.h.i.+p for pay or its equivalent. It is a very old practice, and has existed in the East as a part of religious wors.h.i.+p in veneration of the power of generation. In the West it is a frequent accompaniment of intemperance and crime. Modern prost.i.tutes are recruited almost entirely from the lower middle cla.s.s, both in Europe and America. Ignorant and helpless immigrant girls are seduced on the journey, in the streets of American cities, and in the tenements. Domestic servants and employees in factories and department stores seem to be most subject to exploitation, but no cla.s.s or employment is immune. A great many girls, while still in their teens, have begun their destructive career. They are peculiarly susceptible in the evening, after the strain of the day's labor, when they are hunting for fun and excitement in theatres, dance-halls, and moving-picture shows. In summer they are themselves hunted on excursion steamers, and at the parks and recreation grounds. The seduction and exploitation of young women has become a distinct occupation of certain worthless young men, commonly known as cadets, who live upon the earnings of the women they procure. Three-fourths of the prost.i.tutes have such men dependent on them, to whom they remain attached through fear or need of pecuniary relief in case of arrest, or even through a species of affection, though they receive nothing but abuse in return. Once secured, the victim is not permitted to escape. Not many women enter the life of prost.i.tution from choice, but when they have once yielded to temptation or force, they lose their self-respect and usually sink into hopeless degradation, and then do not shrink from soliciting business within doors or on the streets.

87. =Promotion and Regulation of Vice.=--The social evil is centred in houses of ill fame managed by unprincipled women. The business is financed and the profits enjoyed by men who constantly stimulate the trade to make it more profitable. As a result of investigations in New York, it is estimated that the number of prost.i.tutes would be not more than one-fourth of what it is were it not for the ruthless greed of these men. The houses are usually located in the poorer parts of the city, but they are also to be found scattered elsewhere. In cases where public opinion does not warrant rigid enforcement of the law against it, the illicit traffic is disregarded by the police, and often they are willing to share in the gains as the price of their leniency. As a rule the business is kept under cover and not permitted to flaunt itself on the streets. Definite segregation in a particular district has been attempted, and has sometimes been favored as a means of checking vice, but this means is not practised or favored after experiment has shown its uselessness as a check upon the trade. Government regulation by a system of license, with registration of prost.i.tutes and regular though superficial examination of health, is in vogue in parts of western and southern Europe, but it is not favored by vice commissions that have examined into its workings.

88. =Extent of the Social Evil.=--It is probable that estimates as to the number of prost.i.tutes in the great urban centres has been much exaggerated. In the nature of the case it is very difficult to get accurate reports, but when it is remembered that the number of men who frequent the resorts is not less than fifteen times the number of women, and that in most cases the proportion is larger, it is not difficult to conceive of the immense profits to the exploiters, but also of the enormous economic waste, the widely prevalent physical disease, and the untold misery of the women who sin, and of the innocent women at home who are sinned against by those who should be their protectors.

A "white-slave traffic" seems to have developed in recent years that has not only increased the number of local prost.i.tutes, but has united far-distant urban centres. It is very difficult to prove an intercity trade, but investigation has produced sufficient evidence to show that there is an organized business of procuring victims and that they have been exported to distant parts of the world, including South America, South Africa, and the Far East.

89. =The Causes.=--The social evil has usually been blamed upon the perversity of women and their pecuniary need, but investigation makes it plain that the causes go deeper than that. The first cause is the ignorance of girls who are permitted to grow up and go out into the world innocently, unaware of the snares in which they are liable to become enmeshed. Added to this ignorance is the lack of moral and religious training, so that there is often no firm conviction of right and wrong, an evil which is intensified in the city tenements by the conditions of congested population. A third grave cause is the public neglect of persons of defective mentality and morality. Women who are not capable of taking care of themselves are allowed full liberty of conduct, and frequently fall victims to the seducer. An investigation of cases in the New York Reformatory for Women at Bedford in 1913 showed one-third very deficient mentally; the Ma.s.sachusetts Vice Commission in 1914 reported one-half to three-fourths of three hundred cases to be of the same cla.s.s. It seems clear that a large proportion of prost.i.tutes generally belong in this category. It has been estimated that there are now (1915) as many defective women at large in Ma.s.sachusetts as there are in public inst.i.tutions.

Poverty is an important factor in the extension of the s.e.xual evil. It is notorious that thousands of women workers are underpaid. In factories, restaurants, and department stores they frequently receive wages much less than the eight dollars a week required by women to maintain themselves, if dependent on their own resources. The American woman's pride in a good appearance, the natural human love of ease, luxury, and excitement, the craving for relaxation and thrill, after the exacting labor of a long day, all contribute to the welcome of an opportunity for an indulgence that brings money in return. The agency of the dance-hall and the saloon has also an important place in the downfall of the tempted. Intemperance and prost.i.tution go together, and places where they can be enjoyed are factories of vice and crime.

Many so-called hotels with bar attachment are little more than houses of evil resort. Especially notorious for a time were the Raines Law hotels in New York City, designed to check intemperance, but proving nurseries of prost.i.tution. Commercial profit is large from both kinds of traffic, and one stimulates the other.

Among minor causes of the social evil is the postponement or abandonment of marriage by many young people, the celibate life imposed upon students and soldiers, the declaration of some physicians that continence is injurious, and lax opinion, especially in Europe.

90. =The Consequences.=--It is impossible to measure adequately the consequences of s.e.xual indulgence. It is destructive of physical health among women and of morals among both s.e.xes. It results in a weakening of the will and a blunting of moral discernment. It is an economic waste, as is intemperance, for even on the level of economic values it is plain that money could be much better spent for that which would benefit rather than curse. But the great evil that looms large in public view is the legacy of physical disease that falls upon self-indulgent men and their families. The presence of venereal disease in Europe is almost unbelievable; so great has it been in continental armies that governments have become alarmed as to its effects upon the health and morale of the troops. College men have been reckless in sowing wild oats, and have suffered serious physical consequences. Most pathetic is the suffering that is caused to innocent wives and children in blindness, sterility, and frequent abdominal disease. This is a subject that demands the attention of every person interested in human happiness and social welfare.

91. =History of Reform.=--Spasmodic efforts to suppress the social evil have occurred from time to time. The result has been to scatter rather than to suppress it, and after a little it has crept back to its old haunts. Scattering it in tenements and residential districts has been very unfortunate. The cure is not so simple a process.

Neither will segregation help. It is now generally agreed, especially as a result of recent investigations by vice commissioners in the large cities, that there must be a brave, sustained effort at suppression, and then the patient task of reclaiming the fallen and preventing the evil in future.

Organization and investigation are the two words that give the key to the history of reform. International societies are agitating abroad; other a.s.sociations are directly engaged in checking vice in the United States, most prominent of which is the American Vigilance a.s.sociation.

Rescue organizations are scattered through the cities. Especially active have been the commissions of investigation appointed privately and by munic.i.p.al, State, and Federal Governments, which have issued illuminating reports. The United States in 1908 joined in an international treaty to prevent the world-wide traffic in white slaves, and in 1910 Congress pa.s.sed the Mann White Slave Act to prevent interstate traffic in America.

92. =Measures of Prevention and Cure.=--The social evil is one about which there have been all sorts of wild opinions, but the facts are becoming well substantiated by investigations, and these investigations are the basis upon which all scientific conclusions must rest, alike for public education and for constructive legislation. No one remedy is adequate. There are those who believe that the church has it in its power to stir a wave of indignation that would sweep the whole traffic from the land, but it is not so simple a process. It is generally agreed that both education and legislation are necessary to check the evil. The first is necessary for the public health, and to support repressive laws. As a helpful means of repression it is proposed that the social evil, along with questions of social morals, like gambling, excise, and amus.e.m.e.nts, shall be taken out of the hands of the munic.i.p.al police and the politicians, and lodged with an unpaid morals commission, which shall have its own special corps of expert officers and a morals court for the trial of cases appropriate to its jurisdiction. This experiment actually has been tried in Berlin. Measures of prevention as well as measures of repression are needed. Restraint is needed for defectives; protection for immigrants and young people, especially on s.h.i.+pboard, in the tenements, and in the moving-picture houses; better housing, better amus.e.m.e.nts, and better wages for all the people. Finally, the wrecks must be taken care of. Rescue homes and other agencies manage to save a few to reformed lives; homes are needed constantly for temporary residence. Private philanthropy has provided them thus far, but the United States Government has discussed the advisability of building them in sufficient numbers to meet every local need. Many old and hardened offenders need reformatories with farm and hospital where they can be cared for during a long time; some of the States have provided these already. The principles upon which a permanent cure of the social evil must be based are similar to those that underlie all family reform, namely, the rescue as far as possible of those already fallen, the social and moral education of youth to n.o.bler purpose and will, the removal of unfavorable economic and social conditions, and the improvement of family life until it can satisfy the human cravings that legitimately belong to it.

READING REFERENCES

ADDAMS: _A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil._

WILLSON: _The American Boy and the Social Evil._

MORROW: _Social Diseases and Marriage_, pages 331-353.

KNEELAND: _Commercialized Prost.i.tution in New York City_, pages 253-271.

CHAPTER XII

CHARACTERISTICS AND PRINCIPLES

93. =Social Characteristics Ill.u.s.trated by the Family.=--A study of the family such as has been made ill.u.s.trates the characteristics of social life that were noted in the introductory chapter. There is activity in the performance of every domestic, economic, and social function. There is a.s.sociation in various ways for various purposes between all members of the family. Control is exercised by paternal authority, family custom, and personal and family interest. The history of the family shows gradual changes that have produced varieties of organization, and the present situation discloses weaknesses that are precipitating upon society very serious problems.

Present characteristics largely determine future processes; always in planning for the future it is necessary to take into consideration the forces that produce and alter social characteristics. Specific measures meet with much scepticism, and enthusiastic reformers must always reckon with inertia, frequent reactions, and slow social development. In the face of s.e.xualism, divorce, and selfish individualism, it requires patience and optimism to believe that the family will continue to exist and the home be maintained.

94. =Principles of Family Reform.=--It is probably impossible to restore the home life of the past, as it is impossible to turn back the tide of urban migration and growth. But it is possible on the basis of certain fundamental principles to improve the conditions of family life by means of methods that lie at hand. The first principle is that the home must function properly. There must be domestic and economic satisfactions. Without the satisfaction of the s.e.xual and parental instincts and an atmosphere of comfort and freedom from anxiety, the home is emptied of its attractions. The second principle is that social sympathy and service rather than individual independence shall be the controlling motive in the home. As long as every member of the family consults first his own pleasure and comfort and contributes only half-heartedly to create a home atmosphere and to perform his part of the home functions, there can be no real gain in family life. The home is built on love; it can survive on nothing less than mutual consideration.

95. =The Method of Economic Adjustment.=--The first method by which these principles can be worked out is economic adjustment. It is becoming imperative that the family income and the family requirements shall be fitted together. Less extravagance and waste of expenditure and a living wage to meet legitimate needs, are both demanded by students of economic reform. It is not according to the principles of social righteousness that any family should suffer from cold or hunger, nor is it right that any social group should be wasteful of the portion of economic goods that has come to it. There is great need, also, that the expense of living should be reduced while the standards of living shall not be lowered. The business world has been trying to secure economies in production; there is even greater need of economies in distribution. Millions are wasted in advertising and in the profits of middlemen. Some method of co-operative buying and selling will have to be devised to stop this economic leakage. It would relieve the housewife from some of the worries of housekeeping and lighten the heart of the man who pays the bills. A third adjustment is that of the household employee to the remainder of the household. The servant problem is first an economic problem, and questions of wages, hours, and privileges must be based on economic principles; but it is also a social problem. The servant bears a social relation to the family. The family home is her home, and she must have a certain share in home comforts and privileges. A fourth reform is better housing and equipment. Attractive and comfortable houses in a wholesome environment of light, air, and suns.h.i.+ne, built for economical and easy housekeeping, are not only desirable but essential for a permanent and happy family life.

96. =The Method of Social Education.=--A second general method by which the principles of home life may be carried out is social education. Given the material accessories, there must be the education of the family in their use. Children in the home need to know the fundamentals of personal and s.e.x hygiene and the principles of eugenics. In home and in school the emphasis in education should be upon social rather than economic values, on the significance of social relations.h.i.+ps and the opportunities of social intercourse in the home and the community, on the personal and social advantages of intellectual culture, on the importance of moral progress in the elimination of drunkenness, s.e.xualism, poverty, crime, and war, if there is to be future social development, and on the value of such social inst.i.tutions as the home, the school, the church, and the state as agencies for individual happiness and group progress. Especially should there be impressed upon the child mind the transcendent importance of affectionate co-operation in the home circle, parents sacrificing personal preferences and antic.i.p.ations of personal enjoyment for the good of children, and children having consideration for the wishes and convictions of their elders, and recognizing their own responsibility in rendering service for the common good.

Sanctioned by law, by the custom of long tradition, by economic and social valuations, the home calls for personal devotion of will and purpose from every individual for the welfare of the group of which he is a privileged member. The family tie is the most sacred bond that links individuals in human society; to strengthen it is one of the n.o.blest aspirations of human endeavor.

READING REFERENCES