130 The Conjugal Condition 



education in the fact of 243 women signing with marks for 

 every 100 men. The proportion in England and Wales is 

 about 149 to 100. 



These are the most prominent of the general and special 

 facts disclosed by the Census^ illustrative of the conjugal 

 condition of this colony as contrasted with that of the mother 

 country ; and it can scarcely be considered a rash position to 

 maintain that^ if any statistics have a practical value as a 

 guide in legislation^ these are pre-eminently entitled to at- 

 tentive consideration in connection with the question — Whe- 

 ther an experimental measurCj supposed to be adapted to a 

 country circumstanced as Great Britain is^ may not^ in some 

 respectSj be unsuitable to this ? Uniformity in laws, though 

 desirable in the abstract, is rendered impossible by the force 

 of nature, by difference in climate, variety of natural pro- 

 ductions, dissimilarity of industrial pursuits, and by the 

 habits and sentiments engendered by varied physical and 

 moral circumstances. It is, perhaps, sound in policy 

 that as near an approach to uniformity as is consistent 

 with their peculiarities should be adopted by all nations 

 in their institutions, especially by all the di^dsions of the 

 same empire ; but it should also be kept in mind, that 

 to follow blindly is not to follow wisely. Divergence, sooner 

 or later, seems inevitable, because legislation is never ending, 

 experience having shown that regulations well adapted to one 

 period are sure to become inconvenient in another, and that 

 laws imported from one community are found unsuitable to 

 the other. 



Legislation affecting the marriage state, one of the most 

 important branches of which is that relating to the dissolution 

 of the contract itself, if contrived barely with a view to meet 

 the circumstances of the British Isles, and not designed 

 to meet all cases, can scarcely be altogether applicable 

 to Victoria. The probability that there exists a larger 

 amount, comparatively speaking, of disunion in married life 

 in this country than in Britain (and the daily revelations in 

 our courts, as well as the numerous advertisements in our 

 papers respecting wives who have deserted their homes, 

 seem but too confirmatory of the inference deducible 

 from our statistics — of the existence of much social de- 

 rangement) points to the greater need of a measure of 

 relief j but it also points to the greater necessity of 

 repressive conditions being conjoined with such I'clief, 

 inasmuch as numerous instances of desertion, whether on the 



