THE INCREASE OF DIVORCE 20$ 



man on small salary is worse oflf after marriage. If the marriage results 

 in children, it may be that he will be unable to maintain his home in 

 those parts of the city where he lived before marriage, for in many of the 

 desirable sections of the great cities houses will not be rented to families 

 with children. This is especially true of New York City. 



The economic disadvantage of marriage is somewhat intensified by 

 the current matrimonial ideal. This ideal is in part the result of the 

 great increase of wealth in the United States during the last two or 

 three decades. The middle class has become rich and a great multitude 

 of women have had leisure thrust upon them. As far as the home is 

 concerned, wealth transmutes itself into the maintenance of an estab- 

 lishment. Hence the idea now so prevalent that a home means a 

 servant and leisure for the wife to devote herself to more or less elaborate 

 social functions. This entails an additional expense upon the husband 

 which he is not always able to bear and brings him to a fuller realization 

 of the economic burden involved in marriage. It is not difficult for 

 persons married and having but a small income, and desiring to reaHze 

 the more ambitious matrimonial ideal to think of divorce when the 

 family ship begins to encounter the storms of the matrimonial sea. 



Some of the more conservative forces tending to maintain the coher- 

 ence of the family have been considerably weakened by the social 

 changes incident to modern progress. PubHc opinion which formerly 

 frowned severely upon easy dissolution of marriage has changed very 

 much in its attitude on this question during the last half-century. Along 

 with the amazing development of the idea of individual Hberty it has 

 been impossible for pubhc sentiment to recognize such a movement as 

 the independence of woman and not at the same time sanction divorce 

 more often than in the earher times. Consequently, the force of pubHc 

 sentiment tending to hold the family together has weakened. 



In former times the church had much to do with strengthening 

 family ties, and it is still powerful in this respect though not in the same 

 degree as in the past. The Catholic church sanctions no cause of divorce 

 and the Protestant church but one. Though the influence of the church 

 in this respect has weakened, it is clear that were it not for the pressure 

 brought to bear upon them by the religious agencies, many families 



