2o6 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



would long since have sought the divorce courts. The increase of indi- 

 vidual Hberty of thought and action, however, has made the modem 

 world heed in lessening degree the commands of ecclesiastical authority. 



Such are the principal causes that are said to be weakening family 

 ties and leading to an increase in the number of divorces. Whatever 

 the effects of these causes, it is clear that the number of divorces has 

 greatly increased. This increase is not confined to any one country, 

 but hke the diminishing birth-rate is a phenomenon common to all 

 civiHzed nations during the last half-century. 



From 1867 to 1886, the only time in which divorce statistics for the 

 United States have been collected, the number of divorces increased 

 about 350 per cent, in Belgium, 200 per cent, in England, 100 per cent, 

 in France, and 157 per cent. here. During the same period our popu- 

 lation increased about 60 per cent.' It is thus apparent that divorces 

 have increased much more rapidly than population both in this and in 

 other countries. 



Number of Divorced Persons to Every 100,000 of the Population* 



Statistics for 1886 



Ireland .28 



Italy (1885) 3 



England and Wales 3 



Canada 4 



Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania .... 1 1 



German Empire 25 



France 32 



Switzerland 64 



United States 88 



Japan 608 



The most curious feature of this table is the variation in the divorce 

 rate. CathoUc Ireland has the lowest rate and although Protestant 

 United States has been popularly supposed to excel in affording oppor- 

 tunities for the severance of the family tie, it is surpassed by non-Chris- 

 tian Japan. During the year 1886 there were 315,311 marriages cele- 

 brated in Japan and during the same year 117,964 divorces were granted. ^ 

 The number of divorces exceeded one-third of the number of marriages. 



' Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1889, Marriage and Divorce, pp. 140,998, 1007, 1017. In Massa- 

 chusetts, from i860 to 1904, population increased 140 per cent., marriages 109 per cent., and divorces 598 

 per cent. Mass. Labor Bulletin No. 44, p. 460 (December, 1906). 



' WiLLCOX, "Vital Statistics," Pol. Science Quarterly, Vol. VIII, p. 78 (March, 1893). 



'Ibid. 



