perform the marriage ceremony, or who is an attesting witness thereto, shall forfeit the sum of one hundred dollars.
Another provision requires, that all persons applying for license shall be examined under oath as to their age and residence, and that if they are under the age of twenty-one years, the application for license, must be accompanied by the consent of their parents and guardians, personally given to the license clerk, or certified to in writing by the parents and guardians, duly acknowledged before a notary public.
This enactment would seem to be in the right direction and must be productive of good.
Its object is to prevent improper marriages by minors. Similar provisions have long existed in the New England States, and they ought to exist in every state. One of the fruitful sources of discord in married lives, resulting so often in applications for divorce, must be traced to the manner in which the marriage contract too often is made and carried out. It is time that some general move was made to interpose some preventive remedy against the whole system of divorce that now degrades our land.
The statistics on this subject startle, and appall us! During the year ending the 31st of December, 1884, in the City of Chicago alone, twelve hundred and thirty-six divorce suits were begun; nearly four hundred are now waiting trial; but seven hundred and twenty-nine were granted and the parties divorced. Should one-half the suits now pending be granted, we shall have the sad sight of one thousand divorces accomplished in a single year in one city of our common country!
Can our country's prosperity and happiness last and such a condition of things continue? Can there be any strength in the American Republic when it fails to rest on the solid foundations of God, family, and home. I tell you, brethren of the American Bar Association, our whole divorce law demands a thorough reformation! Stir yourself up, until a uniform divorce system pervades all the thirty-eight states! Uniformity
