distasteful a thing as sexual union. Yet when a majority of the Commissioners recommend that people should be free to remarry if the desertion, cruelty, insanity, or imprisonment of one spouse defrauds the State of its supply of little citizens, the bishops raise their crosiers. Even so ascetic and anti-feminist a divine as St. Augustine could not deny that a man had a right to take a concubine when his wife proved sterile. Our divines speak much more fervently than St. Augustine did of our social interest, yet they forbid us to consult it.
In sum, we have generally rejected the view that marriage ought to be indissoluble, and we pride ourselves on curbing the influence of priests; but our whole attitude toward divorce is shaped by the old superstition and the clergy. In the name of that superstition we condemn large numbers of our fellow-citizens to live in deep and acute misery. Which of our social interests would be prejudiced by granting relief to the man or woman whose life is embittered by the desertion, incurable insanity, cruelty, or criminal conduct of his or her partner? The suggestion is preposterous; and, if we do not grant this relief, adultery is in their case a venial offence, if not a right.
Some explain that they fear “the thin edge of the wedge.” As if wedges had a way of pressing deeper by their own weight, once we have admitted them! If England chooses to grant these reforms, and no others, she need not be deterred by empty phrases. But I believe that the alert and resolute
