CHAPTER XIX.

DIVORCE.
The question of divorce must be regarded as purely inci- dental to this discussion of marriage.
The primary object, in this connection, is to state the law of attraction. It is not to discuss the negation of that law.
Modern science has accustomed us to speak of the law of "attraction and repulsion." Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a law of repulsion between individual entities. There is but one universal law of evolution, viz., the law of attraction. The law of attraction is the one and only principle of positive, generative, formative and creative energy. When attraction ceases between any two entities, whether those entities be atoms or organisms or individuals, it is because stronger attractions draw them apart. It does not matter whether that stronger at- traction is another atom or organism or individual, or whether it is simply the attraction of a more congenial environment. The action of heat even is no exception.
The chemist demonstrates this very clearly in the mineral world. For illustration, oxygen and hydrogen do not separate until Nature furnishes a substance which possesses closer vibra- tory affinities with the one or the other.
Repulsion, therefore, in its proper scientific sense, is simply the expression of a closer affinity or a new attraction elsewhere. The effort of the mineral atom is not to separate itself from its fellow atom. The effort is merely to unite with another atom in closer vibratory correspondence with itself.
Legal divorce represents the same general principle. Men and women seeking self-adjustment are misled into unions which
366
DIVORCE. 367
furnish but a temporary and imperfect correspondence. The struggle for self-completion or happiness soon impels them to separation. .The natural law of affinity continually operates to render the bond intolerable. Those stronger attractions which impel separation may be a place, a person, an ambition, or it may be merely the natural love of liberty for the pursuit of happiness.
Unnatural human marriage engenders strife, resentment and mutual dislike. In this particular human marriage is unique in the kingdoms of Nature. Two animals mate and divorce them- selves without engendering mutual dislike and hate. This is because they instantly respond to the natural law of attraction which draws them elsewhere. They instantly obey the dictates of those lower elements which go to make up animal nature.
In human marriage, however, the responsibilities and obli- gations growing out of a higher element in Nature have created legal and moral barriers to unrestrained divorce. In human society the individual is not permitted to follow the dictates of new attractions. He is bound to an inharmonious mate until natural inharmony is deepened into a definite and aggressive dis- like.
The phenomenon of "repulsion/' like the law of attraction, is accentuated in each higher kingdom. The so-called "repul- sion" which occurs between two atoms is a different thing from that which obtains between two rational beings forcibly bound in an intimate relation. Chemical atoms are continually seek- ing closer affinities. Chemical "repulsion" is, therefore, but an unconscious incident in the operation of the law of attraction. Even in animal life separation appears as merely a part of the process by which the animal forms a more desirable association. It is an act apparently without individual hostility or moral sig- nificance.
•
In human marriage "repulsion" is intensified, first, by the energies of a higher element, and next, by the legal restraint im- posed after natural separation has occurred. The introduction of this highest soul element into marriage intensifies both attrac-
368 HARMONICS OF EVOLUTION.
tion and "repulsion" and adds moral responsibility to both the act of separation and that of legal divorce.
Thus, the very element which transforms marriage into a ra- tional and moral relation is the same element which imposes legal restraint and causes unhappiness where the marriage is inharmonious. The animal frees himself so easily from an un- desired relation that he suffers nothing from his experiment. In legal marriage, however, the natural inharmony of two na- tures is aggravated by restraint into an active and individual hostility. While the animal is free to follow the natural law of affinity, the individual man or woman is bound to an object which directly bars the way to the pursuit of happiness in an- other direction.
Though the law of attraction operates in human life with increased energy, man himself has erected barriers which restrict the free and public expression of that law. Man responds to the general law of affinity as readily as the animal, but he also recognizes the responsibilities which his own higher human na- ture has imposed. Because of such recognition he undertakes to regulate those general laws for the best good of other rational beings like himself. In this effort he formulates laws, marks out duties and raises barriers which would seem to interfere with Nature.
It must be remembered, however, that the rational operations of the human mind are just as natural as those general laws to which the lower entities in Nature so readily yield.
For this reason legal marriage and legal divorce are just as natural as are the free selections and separations of animals. While the dissolution of marriage in lower nature is either an unconscious or an intuitional act, legal divorce in human life is a voluntary and rational act directly chargeable to the contracting parties.
It is true that both human and animal divorce are acts inci- dental to the same universal principle, viz., that principle which impels every entity to seek vibratory correspondence in another
DIVORCE. 369
like entity of opposite polarity. Nevertheless, human and animal divorce must be considered from points of view as widely different as are the controlling elements in the life of man and that of animals.
It is true that the general purpose of animal and human mar- riage is the same, viz., the completion of the individual. It is also true that the individual purpose is identical, viz., self-com- pletion. • At the same time, the higher intelligence and the moral nature of man furnish an element in both marriage and divorce which calls for particular laws and particular regulations and restraints. Though the general purposes of individual life, whether of man or animal, are always the same, viz., self-adjust- ment; the effects, however, of individual acts, are as widely different in the two kingdoms as are man and animal in physical appearance, intellectual power and moral capacity.
Legal divorce is the concession made by the general intelli- gence of society to individuals who are mismated. Legal di- vorce is admission of the fact that a natural separation has already occurred between the legally bound. The difficulties with which legal divorce is attended go to show that the law is considering the obligations of marriage rather than the desires of the individual for liberty.
Legal divorce is one of the expressions of the rational soul which has risen to the consideration and control of its own affairs. This is in conformity to Nature, for each great kingdom of Nature is directly governed by its own highest element. Hu- man affairs, therefore, bear the impress of the soul element and must be measured and regulated and judged from the human instead of the animal plane. A man is more than an atom or a plant or an animal. He is all these and more. He combines the elements and energies of all lower entities, but in addition enjoys the potencies, powers and responsibilities of a distinctly higher element.
Man, therefore, mates and divorces in terms of this highest 24
370 HARMONICS OF EVOLUTION.
nature as well as in those of the lower. Thus, human marriage and divorce produce effects which are far more varied and more important than the matings and separations of animals.
Man is a mammal and something more. He is a living soul, endowed with self-consciousness, the consciousness of other selves, with reason and memory, with an individual will and de- sire and the powers of their execution.
Self-consciousness, together with memory, involves the con- sciousness of other selves. This consciousness of others, to- gether with memory and reason, gives rise to what we know as the sense of an individual moral responsibility.
Thus, Nature imposes upon man alone that knowledge of his own acts and their effects, which constitutes him a morally re- sponsible being. Self-consciousness, consciousness of other selves, and the sense of individual responsibility, are the essen- tial phenomena of the soul element. No living soul, normally conditioned, escapes the consequences of this highest element in himself. No normal man escapes the knowledge of his own acts, their results, and his own responsibility for them. In this one element we find the causes of differentiation between man and animal. Here are the factors which confer greater happi- ness and at the same time the capacity for greater suffering. Here are the higher powers which impose individual responsi- bility and invoke penalties when such responsibility is evaded.
Civil law is distinctly the outgrowth of these higher human capacities, and every code of laws stands for the general recog- nition of an individual responsibility. It is only the lowest of human beings who would be a law unto himself. The very first step man takes in the direction of law and order is a surrender of some of the things he has heretofore held as individual rights. He recognizes the fact that individual concession means the general betterment of the community. He sees himself as a part of that community, enjoying certain other privileges which com- pensate for his concessions.
This, in fact, is law and the intent of law, viz., to secure the
DIVORCE. 371
general good through individual concession and individual re- straint.
The law of marriage is based upon the effort to regulate the sex relation for the best interests of society. The law of divorce is based upon exactly the same intent. It is, therefore, a law looking, not to the happiness of the individual, but to the best material and moral interests of society. Divorce, therefore, must be viewed from the point of individual responsibility to society and not from the point of an individual personal happiness.
Civil law implies that the good of society demands, primarily, the proper care and rearing of its children. It therefore assumes that the natural parents are the proper legal custodians and pro- tectors of their own children.
Just here, in this relation of parents to children, arises that moral responsibility which must take precedence of all ques- tions as to the happiness or unhappiness of parents. Here is in- volved an issue that does not obtain in animal life, but is of vast importance in human society. It may be true that the individual man and woman were impelled to union by a temporary or im- perfect correspondence of impulse such as moves the animal to union. There may also arise the same "repulsion" which would immediately separate animals. This impulse for separation is as natural to humans as to animals when the natural principle of harmony is outraged.
Here, however, but not as with the animals, a higher element asserts itself, new considerations enter in and a new principle is evoked for the government of Nature's higher marriages. Animal marriage and separation represent the intuitional, and therefore irrational and irresponsible obedience to a general law of affinity. Human legal marriage may include the same intui- tional, irrational and irresponsible impulses, but in addition it represents an independent, rational contract, imposing present and future obligations. This legal contract implies, not merely the mutual loyalty of the two who unite, but it also implies an obligation to the children of that union and to society in general.
372 HARMONICS OF EVOLUTION.
It will be seen, therefore, that while animal mating and sep- aration are purely egoistic in their nature, the intent of legal marriage and legal divorce is purely altruistic. Legal divorce is regulated for the good of society alone, and the law holds that the best good of society rests with the proper care and training of children. Because of this fact it finally comes to mean that the question of divorce must be regulated for the good of the child, and not by later impulses, passions or desires of the parents.
A human infant is something more than a digestive appa- ratus. A child is something more than a mammal with a better cerebral development than a horse or a dog. If a child were nothing more than a mammal with a better brain than a young puppy or monkey the law of divorce might be simplified. If human parentage did not involve other responsibilities toward offspring than nutrition and physical comfort, our complicated divorce system might well be amended. If a child were merely a mammal like any other, the question of nutrition and physical well-being would, at best, cover the obligation of parents. If such were the case men and women could mate and separate as do the animals. If such were the fact children might well be assigned to the care of public officers and "reared by the state."
A child, however, is something vastly more than a mammal with physical functions and cerebral activities. It is, instead, a living soul destined to live here and hereafter. It is a spiritual being with infinite possibilities for good or for evil, for develop- ment or for degeneracy. More than this, this human infant has been brought into this world by the self-conscious, voluntary, and therefore responsible act of its parents. It appears in re- sponse to a natural law that has been evoked by two intelligent beings fully acquainted with the consequences of the law. This fixes an obligation which does and should take precedence, in both law and conscience, of every personal desire and demand.
This recognition of moral responsibility to offspring separates human from animal intelligence and raises human life immeasur- ably beyond the life of the animal.
DIVORCE. 373
Parental responsibility is read from the book of Nature with equal clearness by science, by law and by religion. Modern physical science demonstrates physical responsibility in heredity. The proved facts of heredity show that a large proportion of children born are the victims of parental deformity and disease. The Law, which represents the rational intelligence of man, holds that parents are responsible for the physical, material and in- tellectual well-being of their own children. Religion, which represents the spiritual intuitions and moral principles in man, declares that parents are as responsible for the moral training of their children as for their physical and material comfort or their intellectual development.
With the several findings of science, law and religion, Natural Science and its correlated philosophy agree. Both science and Nature declare that every human infant has certain natural and inalienable rights, viz.:
(1) A perfect physical body and a normal brain.
(2) Material care and provision until old enough to be self- sustaining.
(3) Intellectual and moral training under the daily, per- sonal and loving supervision of both parents.
When the average intelligence rises to a clear perception of the moral obligation to children the demand for divorce will decrease in proportion. That is to say, when the average man and woman recognize their full moral obligation to their own children they will seek to fulfill rather than to evade that duty. This they will do irrespective of present personal desires and impulses. This moral 'obligation will preserve the marriage tie, in form at least, even when the relation falls short of the ideal.
It is safe to say that this mutual obligation to children, rather than mutual love, binds a majority of married pairs even at the present time. In thousands of households the physical rela- tion of husband and wife is dissolved, while the relation of father and mother safeguards the children in their material and moral rights.
374 HARMONICS OF EVOLUTION.
There are, of course, flagrant breaches of loyalty and of de- cency and of marital duties which justify and necessitate divorce. For such cases the law to-day amply provides.
More than this, certain of our own states have gone so far as to recognize that there is a spiritual as well as a physical and financial relation in marriage. When "Incompatibility" was added to the statutory grounds for divorce, the legal mind had come to recognize a higher principle in marriage than either physical fitness or chattel rights. "Incompatibility of temper," means neither physical disloyalty, criminal conduct, nor failure to meet the material obligations.
Instead, it means temperamental friction and conflict of na- tures in the higher intellectual and moral life. "Incompatibility" stands for discordant vibratory conditions and for an inharmoni- ous alliance between two intelligent souls. This is one of the legal grounds of divorce which could be avoided through the mutual intelligence and self-control of any two individuals. No matter whether they love, or do not love, in the sense of husband and wife, any two people may adjust themselves to a mutually respectful and mutually friendly relation. This it is their duty to do when the best interests of their children are involved.
Except for the mutual obligation to children, the law might profitably divorce mismated pairs upon their mutual request. The breaking of a burdensome contract between a childless couple would in no sense be detrimental to society. On the con- trary, it would benefit the individuals, giving them fresh oppor- tunities for self-development.
Neither science, law, religion nor society is conserved by the forced intimate association of any one man and woman who are without children. In such cases the "collusion" of such a pair, instead of being a legal offense, should be the one proper reason and condition of divorce.
The civil marriage codes of the superior nations are in per- fect accord with Nature's intent. That is, they grant every subject man and woman a prior right to free selection in mar-
DIVORCE. 375
riage. At this point the law joins with Nature to furnish every soul the opportunity to secure its individual happiness. After that choice is made the law, again reflecting the higher nature of man, binds those voluntary partners to a full responsibility for all of the consequences of that contract.
When once that choice is made and the contract signed the individual man and woman have then passed from an egoistic to an altruistic obligation. Their relation is no longer an indi- vidual question. It is one that affects society in general.
There are some palliatives for our present marital inharmo- nies. None of these, however, is a more lax or more stringent divorce law. Criticism and denunciation of our divorce system are both illogical and unjust, so long as there is almost no legal restraint put upon the marriage of youth, upon ignorance and inexperience, or upon poverty, deformity, disease and crime.
Here, at the root of the evil, and not in the flower and fruit, should legislation strike. With our almost unrestrained mar- riage system and the almost total ignorance of the true prin- ciples involved in marriage, our liberal divorce laws are simply preventive of still more flagrant offenses.
It were far better for the nation, society, the family and the individual that our legislators turn to the framing of better marriage laws, rather than to restrictions or amendments of the divorce law.
A prominent reformer of New York City is reported as hav- ing said that fully one-third of the married population of New York is disloyal to the physical obligation. If this be true of the purely physical relation, who would undertake to calculate the intellectual and moral "incompatibility" of the other two- thirds? The force of this suggestion will not be lost upon any one who has studied married life, who has been the confidant of married people, or who has had much personal experience.
Even with our present lax marriage laws, there are yet other preventives and other remedies for marital inharmony, viz.:
376 HARMONICS OF EVOLUTION.
(1) The study and intelligent comprehension of the universal principle of affinity which is involved in the true relation.
(2) The honest and intelligent effort of young men and young women to marry in conformity to that principle.
(3) The honest endeavor of the married to fulfill to the utter- most all self-imposed obligations, especially those which relate to the personal supervision and training of their children.
It is impossible to discuss legal divorce without reference to the Ecclesiastical Codes, which are felt by a large number of people to be even more binding than the legal contract. Eccle- siastical marriage has been universally more oppressive than the civil codes. This is especially true of the Catholic Church. The church, Protestant and Catholic, recognize the spiritual re- lation in marriage as well as a physical one. The church recog- nizes monogamous and indissoluble union as the spiritual ideal.
In this the church is right.
It errs, however, when it sets the seal of spirituality upon all of the marriages it sanctions. Without regard to either physical, intellectual or moral fitness, it joins in an indissoluble union every shade and grade of humanity. Without knowledge of, or regard for, the conditions and motives which lead to marriage, it pronounces as spiritual every union it is asked to solemnize.
Ecclesiastical codes, past and present, have sanctioned and continue to bless every shade of unnatural, immoral and debas- ing union. It imposes the mockery of a "divine benediction" upon marriages contracted from the most unworthy motives in all human nature. It holds as "spiritually indissoluble" mar- riages which mock religion and stultify the individual honor of the men and women concerned.
Such are the marriages contracted from political, financial or social considerations ; or in fact, from countless other motives than mutual respect and love.
Having declared all marriage a spiritual and indissoluble bond, the Catholic Church is particularly oppressive in maintain- ing those relations. Through and by the threatened penalty of
DIVORCE. 377
excommunication, it holds countless men and women in legal bondage, even after crime and brutality have made physical sep- aration necessary.
Thus, while the Catholic Church recognizes a spiritual prin- ciple in marriage, it fails to recognize the mistakes of men and women in entering into that relation, and makes no provision for such mistakes.
"No divorce" is as iniquitous as too easy divorce. There are marriage relations which it is both immoral and dangerous to sustain. A separation that is not legalized is a blight to any life. "No divorce" is more conducive to general immorality than is an easy divorce system.
Between the good of society and the natural rights of the indi- vidual the law should endeavor to deal equitably. The divorce laws of our many states are fair representatives of the various stages of development and the sectional differences which ob- tain in the several legal jurisdictions.
It is a commentary upon the "no divorce" system of certain southern states to note the fact that a large proportion of its colored population is mulatto. Of course, it is known that whites and blacks cannot legally marry in the south. The gen- eral morality prevailing in certain of our northwestern states noted for lax divorce laws, will compare favorably with the gen- eral morality of those southern states in question.
From all that has been said, it must appear that the intent of law, as well as of nature, is monogamous and indissoluble union. It must be seen that divorce is the legal recognition of failure of Nature's purpose. Legal divorce, therefore, testifies to the vio- lation of natural law, as well as the violation of a legal contract. It must be recognized as an expedient and a compromise. It must be accepted as one of those penalties which man is per- petually paying through ignorant experiment in natural law.
Nature's effort is to effect indissoluble union. Divorce rep- resents the protest of the individual against unnatural relations which he has ignorantly assumed. The demand for divorce is
378 HARMONICS OF EVOLUTION.
simply a demand for individual liberty in the pursuit of happiness.
Divorce, in itself, is not a factor in development. It is no part of either intellectual or moral progress. One may suffer smallpox from having unwittingly exposed himself. That ex- perience, however, is valueless except by way of warning to avoid contagious disease. Smallpox weakens and mars the physical body and, temporarily at least, interferes with all of the interests and activities of life.
There are certain classes of experiences which tend to weaken or to harden and demoralize, rather than to develop and im- prove men and women. The conditions which necessitate di- vorce are among such experiences. For this reason, divorce, like smallpox, is to be avoided if possible. As with smallpox, divorce is also more easily escaped by prior avoidance of ex- posure.
What the world needs to-day are better marriage laws. To these, and not to more stringent divorce legislation, must we look for improvement in the marriage relation.
The first object of law should be the regulation of marriage with the view of decreasing the number of false and mistaken marriages. Such legislation is the true province of law, since it directly benefits the nation, society, the family and the individual. While it is true that a keener sense of moral responsibility would decrease the number of divorces, it would not lessen the number of young men and women who are permitted to ignorantly bind themselves in unnatural and loveless marriage.
Such legal enactments, however, would not effect this im- provement if prematurely forced upon society. The mere enact- ment of a statutory law does not necessarily compel the improve- ment which it implies. The improvement of human relations comes, in reality, through the gradual improvement and self- development of individual men and women. Human beings are restrained, but they are no «.ade better nor wiser nor happier, by mere acts of law.
Nor is the proper development of law possible until the
DIVORCE. 379
average intelligence and the average morality demand revision and amendment. Neither marriage nor divorce can be legally improved to any extent until public sentiment warrants reform.
This being true, science and philosophy look, primarily, for such reform, to the individual men and women who are the creators of public opinion and public morality. The prevention of false relations and consequent suffering and divorce rests upon marriage which conforms to Nature's law. That is to say, it rests upon marriage which fulfills the universal, spiritual law of affinity or love.
Our present stage of intellectual and moral development promises these improved relations for our younger generations. The slow processes of evolution have already brought the highest type of men and women into an approach to the true sex equi- librium. To the most advanced of both sexes marriage has come to be recognized as a spiritual relationship which must be contracted and guarded and fulfilled intelligently under the laws of both Nature and man.
To such as these an intelligent understanding of this philoso- phy is a necessity. Such as these would soon be prepared either to teach or to exemplify the law.
It is the part of science to state the principle involved in natural marriage. It is the part of philosophy to explain the effects. It is the duty of civil law, of society, and of the indi- vidual, to consider the findings of science and to accept the suggestions of philosophy.
Science lays down a principle of natural marriage and ex- plains the conditions which produce discord and compel divorce. It rests with the general intelligence to accept or reject these deductions. It rests with the individual whether he will seek to so inform himself that he may personally know and prove the law.
It remains to be seen whether legislators will consider these principles in law, whether educators will incorporate them in
380 HARMONICS OF EVOLUTION.
educational systems, or whether parents and guardians will fortify and guard the young with a knowledge of these truths.
There is but one natural and just preventive of legal divorce. That is marriage which fulfills the law of love. There is but one path to perfect marriage, viz., through a rational knowledge of the principle governing true marriage and through the honest endeavor of free men and women to seek union in accordance with that perfect law.