rude Arab tribe had granted divorce for adultery, and the English nation of the nineteenth century followed his example. The result was the most stupid and mischievous law of marriage outside the sphere of the Holy Catholic Church.
English people are proud of their national concern for purity, yet they tolerate, and their priests defend as something sacred, a state of law which is medieval in its crudeness and barbarity. When two people have obeyed our counsel to marry early, and they discover that they have misjudged each other, we tell them that there is no relief for them unless they commit adultery: which, when it is committed, we brand as the darkest sin. To the husband we give the further injunction that he must be cruel to his wife before we will release him. We then, although we take especial pride in the “cleanness” of our press and literature, print whole columns about their conduct in suspicious situations,—sometimes entitling the account, in large type, to attract attention, “A Horrible Case,”—and we ask each other whether England is not in a state of decay and contracting the continental spirit. If there are any who do not choose to commit adultery, or do not choose to have their servants bribed to describe their conduct for the entertainment of the public, we grant them a legal permit to be happy and vicious, or miserable and virtuous, for the remainder of their lives: the thing we call a judicial separation.
This extraordinary situation is certainly a slight
