Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 February 1917 — Civilization of United States Menaced by Abnormal Growth of Divorce Evil [ARTICLE]

Civilization of United States Menaced by Abnormal Growth of Divorce Evil

By MRS. JANE DELETER RIPPIN

Chief Probation Officer Philadelphia Municipal Court

What is the reason for the abnormal increase in divorce ? Undoubtedly it is because of the universal condition of social unrest that maintains today in this country and throughout the world,—This condition of social invest engenders a situation where we find people ignoring the fixed customs of society and flouting the conventions that bind together a stable civilization. • - Just these conditions —starting with the overthrow of the home and spreading like a conflagration to the uprooting of human societybrought about the collapse of the great civilizations. Go back over history. Read between the lines of the rise and fall of Babylon, of Athens, of Rome. And now what of the United States? We face a critical situation; we must solve these sociological problems or go down as the other civilizations have done. / What shall we do? Well, in divorce we must take a leaf from Denmark. There it requires two years to get a divorce. A couple desiring permanent separation must apply first to the church where they were wedded. The pastor or pri|st considers the case for a year. Then the legal authorities conduct an inquiry for a year. Finally the government must sanction the remarriage of divorced persons. ~ In states where divorce is so easy we can enact laws that make tt more difficult to secure 8 divorce. That would be a beginning. - ■ ? '.. ' ( . «