Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 September 1890 — SHOCKING DIVORCE FACTS. [ARTICLE]

SHOCKING DIVORCE FACTS.

Enormous Growth of the Evil of Broken Marriages. Indiana recognizes seven reasons, any one at which is sufficient for divorce; Illinois. 8; Idaho, 6; Georgia, 9; Delaware, ; Dakota, 6; Connecticut, 8; Colorado, 9; California, 6; Arkansas, 7; Arizona 9; Alabama, 8; Kansas, 10; Maine, 6; Massachusetts, 9; Michigan, 6; Mississippi, 8; Missouri, 11; Nebraska, 7; Nevada. 7: New Mexico, 3; North Carolina, 4: Ohio, 10; Oregon, 6; Pennsylvania, 9: Rhode Island, 8; Tennessee, j 9; Utah. 6. South Carolina has repealed her divorce laws. Frank Wright, whose opportunities as an official of the Township Trustee’s office, authorized to investigate all the ills that ftail humanity is subject to. hAs been considering the evils that have grown up under the divorcedaws. He sees in thp war a beginning of the divorce mania, which has been epidemic since 1865. He says: “The ease with which divorces may bo obtained encourages vice. I know of a case in this city where, after adivorce had been obtained, the young man, not yet a voter, made the remark that he had married expecting to Obtain a divorce; that it was Cheap. How many marriages occur where one or both the parties keep a divorce in reservation? “The distance from the "marriage license desk to the order-book of the divorce court is easily measured by five dollars. “Tbo laws of Indiana recognize these as causes for divorce: Infidelity, impotency, abandonment, cruel treatment, failure to provide, drunkenness, conviction subsequent to marriage of infamous crime. But under these heads creep in many things. It is no: at all unusual for divorce complainants to allege, among ' the causes for divorce, that the defendant keeps improper hours: goes to resorts, to wine rooms and dance-houses; comes home after being gone all night; comes home with improper company; curses and. Swears; talks loud and threatens; dobs ’ not provide enough, nor according to means; drinks some; drinks more; drinks too often; drinks too much; frequents saloons; pawns goods for liquor; islazy; convicted of crime before marriage and after marriage. One petition was filed in the local courts, in which the wife alleged that the husband was too lazy to come home. One charged her husband with cruel treatment in that he would persist in flirting with other women in her presence, One man asked for a divorce from his wife for the reason that she was a rebel, while he was loyal to the Government, and that there was no hope of reconciliation, since there was no reconciliation between the North and South. One divorce petition charged that the husband had been seen to stagger on the street.

“But there is another curious thing. Sometimes a husband alleges marriage in Pennsylvania, and then when he came to Indiana, his wife abandoned him, and she is still in Pennsylvania while he is here. There is no word from the wife on the subject. She is not here to tell why ,she ‘abandoned’ him. Probably she is glad of it. Then the complaint always sets out particularly that the plaintiff has resided in this State for two years (required by statute), and four times out of five he admits, when questioned, that he filed his complaint as soon as he had been here two years. There is a woman in this city who has not yet gained a legal residence for any purpose; she could not even vote were ;she a man. She came here from a distant State to get a divorce. Her attorney told her the law required a two-years’residence before she could secure a divorce, and advised her to return to her native State. ‘But I did not care to bother about, that,’ she said, ‘so I just sent my papers on to Colorado and got my ■ divorce there. It’s all right, too, and will stand good in any State. I got judgment for alimony, and my husband writes me that he expects to send me the first installment in a few days.’ “There was, not long ago, a plan laid by a husband and wife, by which a diyorce was to he procured by the wife, she to marry another man, secure his money, and then remarry her first husband. The divorce was obtained and the marriage of the woman did take place; but—and it was but the logical sequence—the wife and the first husband were later sent to prison for separate crimes, and up to this time they have never been remarried. Another well-known trade of wives by two men for a money consideration! is not yet forgotten in this but both households are now broken up, one by death, the other by internal strife; and this is again a logical sequence. Another cash is called to mind where the husband and wife were divorced in order to enable one of them to inherit some property under’ a will left by an eccentric relative who did not like their union. For seven years they were divorced and when the day arrived which ended the limit of their separation, they came together in the farm wagon, secured a marriage license and were soon reunited by a peace justice. It was a queer spectacle. Two people old enough to be grandparents, so avaricious and yet so well pleased with each other. “If a man or woman Is married before reaching legal age, it must be with I the consent of a parent or guardiah. There is now a case in the city where the parents of a girl threatened to prosecute somebody if their fourteenyear old daughter was furnished with a license to marry a certain boy. But the Fcense was procured and there was i no Effort was made to secure -jn indictment for perjury against one vs the parties who made the affidavit that the girl was of age, but it came to naught “A few years ago a xnan was sfint to the Pcorhouse after ibtpeuaary

doctors had patched up, hi* vile body so As to make It safe and possible to send him there. He made love to a ”eak minded girl who was also an inmate of the lnstitution, and in the spring they came out, procured a m license —it was nobody’s business—were married, and in a short week they demanded public charity, rent, moving, fuel, clothing and feed. In a few months the man burned a mill. His wife furnished part of the evidence 'upon which he was indicted. He was sent to prison, and then she took the child that had come in the meantime, and went back to the potirhouse. All because it was nobody’s business to prevedt the series of calamities.' “But what of the Judge on the bench, when these cases come before him? Here is a case: The man asking for divorce on proof of abandonment. and the wife a non-resident. The Court has no means of finding if the wife did abandon the husband. If he writes to her he get an “answer, for such men would tell the Court a lie under oath as to the wife s residence as readily as about any other point. If the Court finds a loop hole for escape from granting the divorce it is rarely granted, but if the case fails hi one court it is certain to appear in another If the courts refuse the divorce may be filed in any other county in six months. Such is not the law in other cases. The courts mean well, but the statute is against them. 11. is the experience of every Judge in th® local courts that they are ■ compelled to sit in judgment on such cases and grant' divorces to parties whojhey are satisfied are not entitled to them. I'he plaintiff proceeds to make bu t ber ease and the husband sits quietly by, takes no part in the proceedings, assentsAo.the truth of the charges and so the divorce is granted. Several cases are known where it wasujie deliberate plan of both order that each might be remarried to to another, supposed to be more congenial. In one case a gentleman who had been threatened with divorce, and knowing this meant a heavy judgment for alimony, waited till he caught bis wife in a compromising situation and then gave her permission to sue for divorce, charging him with what she pleased, provided she asked for alimony under a certain amount. She did this, as she knew he would otherwis iaue for divorce and charge her with infidelity. The husband sat in the court and assented to the truth of her charges, and said not a word against her. After a few months both had remarried. What could the court do? “Be it remembered that the court must be unprejudiced, the court must not take cognizance of certain things not in the pleadings, because it is not legal etiquette. If a complaint says the husband has abandoned his wife and has failed to provide, and if the wife and one or two of her bosom friends will swear to the same state of affairs, and if the husband, under oath, upon the -query of the court says ‘yes, it’s just as she says,’ the court may think what it pleases when Court is nbt in session, but the judge upon the bench must be governed by the facts in the case, and the surface indications, though they be overwhelming, are not facts, and must not be taken into consideration. •- - . “A serious consideration of the question of divorce will result in the conclusion that nothing but the Scrip tural reasons for divorce should be embodied in the civil laws. The whole thing is iniquitous. “The divorce business does not pay. First-class lawyers rarely undertake divorce cases. Sometimes they are compelled to do so, but they do not like it. This divorce business occupies a peculiar position in the courts. It is the only class of cases where the wife husian.d....Qr_thahusband against the wife. In all other business the law will exempt either party from testifying against the other, and they always take advantage of it. Even in the Criminal Court the wife will sometimes commit perjury to save a scoundrelly husband. But when the parties go into the divorce courts the legal bars are jet down—in fact, the whole fence torn away. Then the wife and the-husband make the effort of their lives in the- way of piling up evidence against each other. • Out of something over 3,500 or 4,000 divorces granted in the courts of Marion county during the past thirty years, over 90 per cent, of the parties have been people with bad records and of immoral character.”