448 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



tain re-arrangements in the household, but unfortunately, it is 

 whether that home shall continue to exist. The instability of 

 American family life has become so great that we not only lead 

 all civilized countries in the number of our divorces, but we have 

 more divorces than all the rest of the civilized world put together. 

 In 1885, when we had 23,472 divorces in the United States, Eng- 

 land had but 508, France 6,245, Germany 6,161. Later statistics 

 show even greater discrepancy. In 1900, when Great Britain had 

 but 728, France 7,157, and Germany 8,000, we had over 50,000 di- 

 vorces in the United States. Moreover, divorces in the United 

 States are increasing more than two and one-half times as fast 

 as the population is increasing. In 1867, when divorce statistics 

 first began to be kept, there were 9,587 divorces in the United 

 States, and by 1886 the number had increased to 25,535, an increase 

 of 157 per cent., while in the meantime, the population had in- 

 creased only 60 per cent. In that twenty years, 1867-1886, there 

 had been granted a total of 328,716 divorces; but in the twenty 

 years following, 1887-1906, the statistics of which are now tabu- 

 lated by the Census Bureau, the number of divorces granted in the 

 United States increased to the enormous total of nearly 1,000,000, 

 rising from 25,000 in 1886 to about 65,000 in 1906. This was an 

 increase again of over 150 per cent., while the population increased 

 less than 50 per cent. In 1870, 3.5 per cent, of all marriages were 

 terminated by divorce; in 1880, 4.8 per cent.; in 1886, 6.2 per cent., 

 while now it is estimated 10 per cent, of all marriages in the United 

 States are terminated by divorce. Should divorce continue to in- 

 crease in the United States at the present rate, by 1950 one-fourth 

 of all marriages will be terminated by divorce, and by 1990, one- 

 half. It is evident that the real problem of the American home is 

 whether it shall continue to exist. 



Moreover, in certain communities in the United States the con- 

 ditions which we can foresee for the whole country a half century 

 hence, if present tendencies continue, have actually been approxi- 

 mated. In Indiana, in 1900, there was one divorce to every six 

 marriages; in Maine, in 1902, one divorce to every six marriages; 

 in California, in 1905, one divorce to every seven marriages. More- 

 over, this condition is not remote from us. While the divorce rate 

 in Missouri seems to be about one divorce to every twelve mar- 

 riages, in Kansas City, in 1903, according to the United States 

 Census, there was one divorce to every four marriages, while in 

 San Francisco there was one divorce to every three marriages. 



