Hitman Physiology. 283 



honourably withdraw from his relation to her, and enter upon 

 another, when she still loves him, and is ready to fulfil her part 

 of the contract? Laws cannot very well provide for mistakes. 

 If the distaste for each other be mutual, andbodi parties desire 

 to separate, a separation may of course be permitted, but it is a 

 serious question whether two such persons can go into the 

 world and find new partners, with justice to the rest. The law 

 which permits of no divorce certainly bears hard upon indivi- 

 dual cases, but if it leads to greater seriousness and care in 

 forming such relations, it may be, on the whole, the best thing 

 for society that it should be strictly observed. Those who have 

 made a mistake, by their own fault, or misfortune, and are 

 obliged to separate, are no worse off than the millions who are 

 never able to marry at all; and when marriage is regarded as a 

 religious rite, a real sacrament, it is evident that it cannot be 

 lightly dealt with. The death of one party alone can termi- 

 nate the mystical relationship. 



But considered merely as a civil institution or contract, it is 

 not desirable that there should be facility of divorce. Free 

 divorce means legalised adultery. Free divorce is simply giving 

 the sanction of the law to licentious promiscuity or a modified 

 polygamy and polyandry, and neither of these can be tolerated 

 in a well ordered society, since they are opposed to the interests 

 of parents and children and destructive of families; and we 

 have but to imagine the effect of such a state of things in any 

 community men and women meeting their ex-wives and ex- 

 husbands in society ; young people forming the acquaintance 

 of their half brothers and half sisters, and the incestuous rela- 

 tionships that would be sure to follow. We have only to 

 imagine the social and moral consequences of such freedom o/ 

 divorce as some of our philosophers and reformers are advo- 

 cating to see how abhorrent they would be to the instincts of 

 morality. 



