The law must bear equally upon the two
sexes. This condition of safety, once established, may determine toward
marriage a certain number of women at present deterred by what they know
of the manner in which our unjust laws now work.
Secondly, Divorce Law Reform in the right interests of women and the
future must involve the complete protection of both from, for instance,
the drunken husband. The male inebriate is on all grounds unfitted to be
a father, and the laws of divorce must ensure that if he be married, his
wife and therefore the future shall be protected from him. Those of us
who believe in the movement for Women Suffrage will be grievously
disappointed if, when that movement at last succeeds, such fundamental
and urgent reforms as these are not promptly effected.
A Royal Commission is now sitting in England upon this subject of
Divorce Law Reform, and I wish to repeat here with all the emphasis
possible what has been already said in indirect contribution to the
evidence laid before that Commission. It is that the first principle of
judgment in all such matters is the Eugenic one. Primarily marriage is
an invention for serving the future by buttressing motherhood with
fatherhood. The judgment of all our methods of marriage and divorce lies
with their products. "By their fruits ye shall know them." If there were
any antagonism between the interests of the individual and those of the
race we should indeed be in a quandary, but as I have shown a hundred
times there is no such antagonism.
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