Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 57, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 March 1908 — State Without Divorces. [ARTICLE]

State Without Divorces.

There are domestic tragedies in South Carolina; there is incompatibility; there is unhappiness in some families. But I believe the number of such beclouded homes Is fewer In proportion to population than In any other State. There may be no means of clearly establishing that contention; it ia one of the things on which neither the census nor the encyclopedias throw Hght, but the personal knowledge of many men of wide acquaintance should be accepted as tbe beat evidence of Its truth. The divorce courts In other State* reveal a degree of domestic infelicity there existing; and the increase in the number of divorces recorded is testimony either ot an Increase In Immorality by which the old scriptural warrant for divorce la given or an Increase of Intolerance between husband and wife. Aa the courts hare removed tbe obstacles to separation the petitioners have come with more trivial reason# for severance of the “holy" bonds, i|r What is the case in South Carolina? Tbe eeurts of other States are. of course, open to dtlsens of this commonwealth who desire dlvoroe. Both North Carolina and Georgia are readily accessible and the conditions are not hat'd. Yet I kaow not one divorced mao ->r woman In the “society'* of Columbia, Charleston or any other town In the State. And if there are. in theae quite extensive circles, caaes of grave domtEUc unhappiness. the skeletons are securely ocked alt hip the closets. They are nUuoen to the pubUe.—PahMe Iplnioa _ _