The survival of
Canon Law to-day, with the antiquated and ascetic conception of the
subordination of women associated with it, is the chief reason why we
in the twentieth century have not yet progressed so far towards a
reasonable system of marriage as the Romans had reached on the basis of
their law, nearly two thousand years ago.[2] Marriage is conditioned
both by inner impulse and outward pressure. But a healthy impulse
bears within it an order and restraint of its own, while a truly moral
outward pressure is based, not on the demands of mediaeval days, but on
the demands of our own day.
How far this is from being the case yet we find well illustrated by our
divorce methods. All our modern culture favour a sense of the
sacredness of the sexual relations; we cherish a delicate reserve
concerning all the intimacies of personal relationship. But when the
magic word "Divorce" is uttered we fling all our civilisation to the
winds, and in the desecrated name of Law we proceed to an inquisition
which scarcely differs at all from those public tests of mediaeval
law-courts which now we dare not venture even to put into words.
It is true that we are not bound to be consistent when it is an
advantage to be inconsistent. And if there were a method in our madness
it would be justified. But there is no method. From first to last the
history of divorce (read it, for instance, in Howard's _Matrimonial
Institutions_) is an ever shifting record of cruel blunders and
ridiculous absurdities.
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