Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937: A Study of Literary Reflections of Social Influences [Reprint 2016 ed.] 9781512814156

Citation preview

DIVORCE AND T H E AMERICAN DIVORCE NOVEL 1858-1937 A Study in Literary Reflections of Social Influences

A DISSERTATION IN SOCIOLOGY PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE U N I V E R S I T Y OF PENNSYLVANIA IN PARTIAL F U L F I L L M E N T OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR T H E

DEGREE

O F DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

JAMES HARWOOD BARNETT

PHILADELPHIA

1939

COPYRIGHT, 1 9 3 9 BY JAMES Η . BARNETT

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It is a t once an academic devoir and a pleasure to acknowledge the assistance one has obtained from various individuals in the process of writing a study of this type. I have enjoyed and profited from several lengthy discussions of the American family with Willard Waller of Barnard College. Miss Elsie Marsh of the University of Connecticut Library staff rendered invaluable assistance in locating little-known works and in obtaining these from scattered sources. Miss Paula Weinstein, a student of the University of Connecticut, did much of the preliminary reading of titles which madfe it possible to narrow down the group of novels to be thoroughly studied and assisted in compiling analyses of the divorce novels discovered. W. Rex Crawford, Chairman of the Sociology Department of the University of Pennsylvania, gave intellectual and administrative help and encouragement at a time when both were sadly needed. The manuscript profited from the incisive criticism of Dr. Sculley Bradley of the Department of English of the University of Pennsylvania. I t is my good fortune to be able to record the fact that my greatest help has come from Esther Dodge Barnett, my wife, who assisted not only in the preparation of the manuscript but in the organization and development of the materials covered in this study. It is, of course, apparent that those mentioned above are in no way responsible for the errors and inadequacies which undoubtedly exist in this work. The minor items of courtesy and assistance I have received from individuals and libraries are too numerous to mention but are none the less deeply appreciated. JAMES H .

BARNETT

University of Connecticut Storrs, Conn., 1939

TABLE

OF

CONTENTS PAGB

INTRODUCTION:

CHAPTER

I.

CHAPTER

II.

A

P R O B L E M IN T H E SOCIOLOGY OF L I T E R A T U R E

7

D I V O R C E L E G I S L A T I O N AND T R E N D S

15

P U B L I C A T T I T U D E S ON D I V O R C E

33

CHAPTER I I I .

EARLY DIVORCE

CHAPTER I V .

D E V E L O P M E N T OF T H E D I V O R C E N O V E L , 1 8 9 4 - 1 9 2 8

93

CHAPTER

D E V E L O P M E N T OF T H E D I V O R C E N O V E L , 1 9 2 8 - 1 9 3 7

116

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

135

V.

CHAPTER V I .

NOVELS, 1 8 5 8 - 1 8 8 7

69

N O T E ON M E T H O D

141

BIBLIOGRAPHY

146

APPENDICES

163

INTRODUCTION A

P R O B L E M IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF L I T E R A T U R E

Since the publication of H. Taine's Introduction to the History of English Literature in 1863 students of both society and literature have sought a confirmation or correction of Taine's thesis that a literature is the product of racial, environmental and temporal factors. This search for the causal relations between a society and its literature has continued without reaching any definite conclusions or laws, even though much excellent work has been done. Perhaps the complexity and indefiniteness of subject matter will only permit of ascertainment of generalized patterns of relations not amenable to exact description or measurement. The relations of literature to the society and culture which nurture it are so intimate, pervasive and intertwined that neither can be adequately understood without reference to the other. This fact presents difficulties of method to one seeking to isolate either factor for purposes of study and analysis. Thus to study any phase of the literature of a people requires a degree of removal or abstraction of this body of data from its social, temporal and physical environment for the purpose of viewing it with some degree of objectivity. Such necessary procedures admit of uncomfortable margins of error, but the method is necessary for the scientific study of literature. In their excellent article on Literature in the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Max Lerner and Edward Mims, Jr., have made the most cogent statement of the inter-relations of literature and society known to the writer. It would be difficult to improve on their statement that: "Certainly the range of social influences on literature is as broad as the entire range of operative social forces; the prevailing system of social organization—including. the class structure, the economic system, the political organization and the deeply rooted institutions; the dominant ideas; the characteristic emotional tone; the sense of the past and the pattern of the future; the driving aspirations and the 'myths,' and their relation to the contem-

8

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

porary realities. There is nothing in the compass of social life that does not {day its part—small or large, directly or by deflection, immediately or by varying removes—in giving literature the impress of its surrounding world."*

If one accepts the above view of the impact of society upon literature, and further recognizes that literature transmits its own impulses back into the social body, then the problem posed is to demonstrate this causal nexus in a specific manner. The nature of the causal relations between the two artificially isolated variables becomes a matter of theoretic importance and requires more than verbal assent to the proposition that society and literature interact and reciprocally influence each other. I Of recent years several good studies have appeared in the sociology of literature or in fields marginal to it. In France Guyau's L'Art au point de vue sociologique, 1930, made a typical French attempt to disclose the emotional springs of art as rooted in social solidarity. Guyau emphasizes the social factors involved in romantic novels and poetry. In 1895 Kuno Franke published an English translation of his famous History of German Literature, as Determined by Social Forces, in which he traced the political and cultural history of the German people as these are manifested in German literature. William H. Bruford published his Germany in the Eighteenth Century, 1935, with the subscript "The Social Background of the Literary Revival." In this able work the author describes the political organization of Germany during that century, the economy, social classes, types of architecture, towns and court life, and seeks to determine or trace the influences of given conditions upon the literary products of the time. A significant item in sociological studies of literature appeared in 1937 when Ernst Kohn-Bramstedt published Aristocracy and the Middle Classes in Germany, Social Types in German Literature 1830-1900. In discussing the value of the novel as an index of social life, Dr. Kohn-Bramstedt well says: "By means of par* Reprinted by permission of Macmillan Co., New York.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

9

ticular instances and sequences of events it can portray the specific character of social situations or of social types and illustrate even the smallest features of everyday life."1 Dr. Kohn-Bramstedt's book is a telling proof of the correctness of this statement, and his use of literary materials illuminates the relations of social classes in 19th century Germany. In the United States, V. L. Parrington's Main Currents in American Thought, 1927-1930, constitutes a signal contribution to the socio-literary history of American life. Granville Hicks in The Great Tradition, 1933, has written an able, though strongly partisan, study of a special phase of American literature. Pitirim Sorokin published his large-scale work on Social and Cultural Dynamics in 1937, and has devoted an entire volume to a consideration of the sociology of art. In this volume, one section is devoted to an analysis of the fluctuations of types of literature, but is painted on so broad a canvas that verification or correction of Sorokin's views is difficult. American social historians have paid considerable attention to literature as a source of data in writing the History of American Life series. This work is significant to the sociologist as well as to students of history and literature. An American critic and writer, Mr. Bernard DeVoto, in an address before the American Historical Society in 1936, took professional historians to task for their failure to utilize the resources of American periodicals and fiction in studying certain phases of the history of the United States. While Mr. DeVoto's point of view as regards the proper use of literature by the historian is generally acceptable, the point made in the following quotation is especially pertinent to the problem attacked in this study, and so is here reproduced: " I t (literature) is the most dependable guide to ethics and morals, to the process of change in them, and to the implications of change. If not the most dependable guide, it is as dependable a guide as any as to what society accepts, what it excuses and what it forbids."'

Mr. DeVoto's contention will be examined in connection with the Έ . Kohn-Bramstedt, Aristocracy and the Middle Classes in Germany, p. 2. 'William E. Lingelbach, editor, Approaches to American Social History, p. 54.

10

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

use of the American novel as a "reflector" of sentiment and practice with reference to divorce in the United States. The sociological approach to literature is burdened with numerous difficulties and is subject to much error. A consequence of this fallibility is that significant historical data must buttress and coincide with facts that literature indicates. For this reason, the study of divorce as reflected in the American novel is preceded by pertinent factual material on the history of divorce legislation, divorce statistics and changes in public attitudes. Against this background of facts, the development of the divorce novel is illuminating and can be interpreted with considerable validity. II

As has been intimated above, the specific purpose of this study is to examine the inter-relations of a specific social phenomenon —divorce—and the portrayal of this phenomenon in the American novel.* Divorce as used in this study is absolute and civil in nature; separation from bed and board is not included. The literary medium in which this institution is studied is the American novel. The novel has been selected "as the particular vehicle through which to trace social changes in divorce because it offers a looser form and a wider mass of detail and documentation. Also there is more of the element of autobiography in the novel than in poetry, the drama or the short story. As Edgar Stoll has well said in his article, "Literature and Life Again": " . . . Or, from art itself and especially from literature we can gain some idea of the life of a period when much of the evidence is of one accord. Even without much study of history, we could surely put together a pretty shrewd notion of the democratic upheaval and humanitarian reform of the nineteenth century from a wide reading of the novels, particularly the mediocre ones. But the novel is not drama—it is ampler, looser, less conventional in structure, has ordinarily undergone far less of the process of imaginative transformation and transposition, is much more nearly a transcript of life."' *i. e., Novels written by American authors utilizing American characters and usually American scenes. *E. E. Stoll, "Literature and Life Again," Publications of the Modern LanIMage Association, Vol. 47, p. 298.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

11

So much is the novel a transcript of actual life that critics have bewailed the autobiographic note in the works of certain late American novelists such as Thomas Wolfe and Theodore Dreiser. Regrettable as this phase of novel writing may be from a literary standpoint, to the sociologist concerned with literature such novels are all the more pertinent for their autobiographic content. This study has used only those novels published in book form and does not cover serial fiction published in magazines and newspapers. See the Note on Method for discussion of this point. It is obvious that this approach is committed to the study of the American novel as a "reflector" of social conditions rather than as a generator of changes in individuals and society. This is not to say that such a viewpoint is the only or the most valid approach to the study of literature, for it obviously ignores the counter influences which emanate from literature to the social order. It is suggested that this approach opens the way to further studies in this field and may lead to the development of means of establishing the influence of literature on public ideas and individual behavior. This latter aim lies beyond the bounds of the present work, which is concerned with that aspect of the problem which offers some promise of solution. Ill With the above purpose of the study in mind, the plan of this work is briefly: to trace the development of divorce legislation, to provide pertinent statistics on divorce and evidences of the gradual shift in public attitudes on this topic." Against this background of historical preparation is projected an analysis of the plots and material of fifty divorce novels which constitute the main body of American divorce novels. There follows a relating of the types of characters, attitudes towards divorce, and shifting emphasis in divorce to this background material. It is believed that such a method will reveal the inter-relations of the phenomenon of divorce and the depiction of divorce in novels. A note on method will indicate specific devices used to select

12

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

novels for this study, and sources of titles. There is appended a list of novels on family problems, and material on early divorce practices in the United States. Here it will suffice to say that only novels in which divorce actually occurs or is specifically indicated are included in this study. It is the belief of the writer that the use of this actual event in the novel is an important reflection of actual practices and of the public attitudes towards the possibility of divorce. Prior to the first divorce novel, The Hand But Not the Heart, 1858, by T. S. Arthur, divorce was not generally regarded as a logical device for plot development nor as an event which should be permitted in a novel. The number of novels in which divorce takes place is surprisingly small, considering the long established popularity of the novel in the United States and the large number of novels written. This fact became apparent as the search for divorce novels progressed. It would have been impossible to study all the novels in which domestic discord appeared and was handled in one manner or another. The decision to use only those works in which a divorce occurs was based both upon expediency and on the belief that this element marked a significant step in the literary reflection of changes in public attitudes. It remains to remark that this study of the relation of divorce to its novelized treatment is but one part of a larger problem: that is, the literary treatment of the family and the institution of marriage in the United States. Shifts in divorce practices are but one aspect of the slow and continuous redefinition of the marriage relation which has been occurring in the United States, especially since the middle of the 19th century. Large problems must sometimes be attacked in piecemeal fashion, and such is the intent of this work. Important information might develop from a comparison of a number of novels devoted to marital problems in which some solve problems through the divorce device while others meet the crisis by other methods. I t is an unhappy result of research that study of any one problem always raises more questions than it answers. I t must be admitted that this study may not have located the first divorce novel written by an American author, but it is sub-

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

13

mitted that such novels could have appeared rarely, if at all, before Arthur's The Hand Bui Not the Heart in 1858, because the historical scene was not set for such themes and plot devices. Such a popular writer as Mrs. E. D. Ε. N. Southworthf may have written divorce novels ten years before Arthur's book. The fact of importance is that divorce novels were scarce in the 19th century, even though they began to appear with a fair degree of regularity subsequent to Howells' A Modern Instance, 1881. Be it said further that the writer has consciously eliminated certain "pot boiler" divorce novels as of no special importance to the study. Samples of these novels have been included in the analyses. Some popular authors have written four or five novels of husband and wife alienation, and one novel by such a writer provides the kernel of his probable contribution to the divorce novel. The writer is reasonably sure that the majority of important American novels in which divorce is either the central theme or constitutes an important part of the plot structure have been included in this study. t A collection of the complete works of T. S. Arthur or Mrs. Southworth cannot be located.

CHAPTER I DIVORCE LEGISLATION AND TRENDS

The early settlers of Massachusetts and Connecticut regarded marriage as a civil contract which largely concerned the contracting parties. The colonial authorities of New England placed no great obstacle in the path of those who wished to dissolve the marriage bond. Divorces were not numerically large in Colonial times, but from the figures available through the careful work of Howard 1 there is a record of some forty actions for divorce or annulment brought in the Massachusetts Bay colony for the years 1639-1692. The majority of these divorces do not sound significantly different from those offered in modern cases; desertion, adultery, and bigamy appear as well as failure to provide and cruelty. Usually the marriage was dissolved or the decree granted; in one case a separation from bed and board was decreed. Howard 2 has pointed out that the history of divorce in the Massachusetts Bay colony is a blank for the years 1692-1739, but that documents are available for the years 1739-1760, during which time eleven cases are recorded, and for 1760-1786, for which period ninety-six cases are recorded. It is noticeable that in the records of cases tried between 1760 and 1786 the cause most frequently alleged is that of adultery.* The significance of this may not be established by any simple acceptance of the grounds as representative of the facts of the case. Grounds for divorce action are often selected with a view to facilitating court proceedings rather than to set forth the facts in the case. The Court of Assistants and General Courts granted divorces in the Massachusetts Colony4 and this system of legal procedure was followed by New Hampshire, the Plymouth and New Haven 1 G. H. Howard, History of Matrimonial * Ibid., p. 341. ' Ibid., p. 342 f. 4 Ibid., p. 331.

Institutions,

11:333.

16

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

Colonies,' which adopted laws and legal organization similar to those of Massachusetts. Connecticut early established laws and adequate procedural machinery for handling divorce petitions.* Authorities have commented on the excellence of Connecticut laws and their early development. Both the Court of Assistants and the legislature granted divorces in Connecticut beginning about the middle of the 17th century. 7 Legislative divorces continued in Connecticut until the middle of the 19th century. Rhode Island, to round out the New England picture, granted divorces through its legislature. In 1851 this duty was transferred from the legislature to the Supreme Court of the State by legislative act. 8 Absolute divorce was rare in the Southern Colonies as there were no courts with power to grant such divorces,· but separations from bed and board are recorded by Howard. The lack of courts and the presumption that colonies operate under the laws of the mother country—which were strict on the issue of divorce—made absolute divorce an almost unheard of phenomenon. This condition prevailed in Virginia, probably in Maryland, in the Carolinas and in Georgia. Non-legal separations did occur and common law governed the granting of legal separations by colonial legislatures. Complete evidence on the granting of divorces in these colonies is lacking. It is evident that the southern colonies were much more conservative in their views of marriage and divorce than were the New England colonies. This fact is supported by realization that the southern colonies lacked laws empowering any body of the government to grant absolute divorces. In the absence of such laws, southern colonists held to the view that only ecclesiastical tribunals had the requisite power to grant even legal separations. Divorce legislation continued to be more conservative in the southern colonies and states on into the 19th century. I t appears that the Middle Colonies of New York, New Jer»Ibid., «Ibid., 1 Ibid., «Ibid., • Ibid.,

p. 348. p. 353. p. 355. p. 365. pp. 366-374.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

17

sey and Pennsylvania were in general more conservative than liberal in their handling of divorce. 10 New York and New Jersey in colonial times had no divorce statutes, and divorces, if granted, must have derived from acts of the legislature or through action of the executive in the person of the colonial governors. 11 Divorce from bed and board probably occurred during pre-Revolutionary times rather infrequently if we can trust the usual authorities. The colony of Pennsylvania enacted laws which permitted divorce on scriptural grounds; the Pennsylvania legislature granted divorces during the latter part of the 18th century and remarriage was permitted by grant of the absolute divorce, which was considered to have entirely abolished the prior marriage. 12 The above will indicate in brief the advance of the New England colonies over the others in matters of divorce legislation. This arose from the fact that the New England colonists regarded marriage as a strictly civil ceremony 13 —notwithstanding the solemnization by a clergyman—and established laws and agencies to dissolve marriages by civil action. The New England colonies, as they developed into states, generally retained their early liberality in divorce matters, and Connecticut was the subject of much adverse comment in the middle 19th century because of its lax divorce laws. Divorce Legislation in the States After the War of Independence divorce legislation and agencies of the newly created states underwent drastic changes in most states of the Union, New York State, perhaps, excepted. A detailed discussion of the ramifications of divorce legislation of the United States for the period from 1800 to 1870 would be impossible here, so an attempt will be made to indicate certain main trends that characterized divorce in the country at large. A careful perusal of the authorities and of publications of this period indicates that in those states already possessed of divorce " Ibid., p. 376. » Ibid., p. 384. » Hid., p. 385. " Ibid., p. 127.

18

Divorce and the American Divorce Νονά, 1858-1937

statutes, the chief change was in the direction of an increase in the number of grounds on which petitions for divorce might be entered. To desertion, adultery, intemperance were added imprisonment for a major crime, cruelty, physical or mental, failure to provide and insanity. The decree nisi1* was introduced in the Massachusetts law in 1867 and several other states added this provision during the first three-quarters of the century. Along with the introduction of the nisi decree went the gradual abandonment of the practice of the old English ecclesiastical divorce known as divorce from bed and board, which was practically the only type of divorce granted in the southern states prior to the Revolutionary War. The limited divorce was displaced by the absolute divorce, but interestingly enough came into some favor again after the turn of the 20th century. In 1927 twenty-seven jurisdictions had statutes permitting this limited form of divorce." The gradual and sometimes reluctant yielding by the legislature of its prerogative to grant divorce is another interesting phenomenon of this period. It appears that the majority of state legislatures had abandoned this practice by the year 1850, though a few continued it for some years after. I t was in the south 1 ' in particular that this type of decree was usually granted and in which it did the greatest amount of harm. This was due in part to the fact that the south had yet to frame divorce legislation after the year 1800. T h a t legislative divorces were frequent and widespread is attested by the following figures: LEGISLATIVE STATE

Maryland Maryland Alabama Alabama Alabama Louisiana Kentucky Washington

DIVORCES17 YEAR

NUMBER OF DIVORCES GRANTED

1835 1837 1843 1844 1849 1827 1843 1841 1860

31 36 23 24 67 46 37 11 15

14 Howard, 111:9. " Chester G. Vernier, American Family Laws, 11:342. "Howard, op. cit., p. 31. 17 Compiled from Howard, 111:35, 39, 41, 42, 98, 99.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

19

As the business of the state legislatures became heavier, divorce cases became more annoying and less important to the legislators than other matters. Acts were passed by the legislatures vesting certain courts with powers to grant divorces to those petitioning under given conditions. In some instances, an amendment to the state constitution was passed to deprive the legislature of this power and to place this jurisdiction in the hands of the courts. As a matter of fact the Connecticut legislature continued to grant divorces, 18 though few in number, as late as the 1840's even though the superior courts of the state had already been empowered to hear and determine such petitions. The years under discussion constituted the period of the famous omnibus clauses in the divorce statutes of several states. 1 * These clauses, which varied little from state to state, provided broad general grounds on which divorce might be granted in addition to several specific causes recognized by the statute. Below is reproduced the Indiana divorce statute 20 containing the famous omnibus clause against which Horace Greeley fulminated so furiously: "7. Divorce shall be decreed, upon application of the injured party, for the following clauses: 1. Adultery, except as hereinafter provided 2. Impotency 3. Abandonment for one year 4. Cruel treatment of either party by the other 5. Habitual drunkenness of either party, or the failure of the husband to make reasonable provision for his family 6. The conviction, subsequent to the marriage, in any country, of either party of an infamous crime 7. Any other cause for which the court shall deem it proper that a divorce should be granted." (Italics mine)

The Indiana omnibus clause went into effect in 1824 and 18 Ibid., p. 13. " Karl Llewellyn, "Behind the Law of Divorce," Columbia Law 33:256 note. " Horace Greeley, Recollections of a Busy Life, p. 617 f.

Review,

20

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

remained on the statute books until 1873 when a wave of counter-divorce sentiment led to restriction of divorce legislation11 throughout the country and brought into existence the movement for uniform divorce laws. The state of Illinois added an omnibus clause in 1832, and Washington one which endured from 1860 to 1885. Connecticut's omnibus clause was in effect from 1849 to 1878 and led one novelist of the 1880's to have her villain get a "Connecticut divorce" when he left his unhappy wife. Utah placed an omnibus clause on its statute books in 1852 and was another of the divorce colonies in the seventies. Maine, Louisiana and Arizona also had omnibus clauses which were later repealed. There was great hue and cry against the omnibus clauses, which were undoubtedly misused. This clause in practice permitted the courts and legislatures to grant divorces almost at their discretion. Another characteristic of the 19th century divorce legislation is that it witnessed, in nearly all states and territories, a relaxation of limitations upon remarriage of the divorced parties.12 This was especially true as regards the innocent party, who was usually permitted to remarry immediately or within a very brief period of time. The laws were more severe where the guilty party was concerned. It is interesting that there has been a slight reversal on this issue in present-day United States, for today at least thirty-six jurisdictions have on the statute books various restrictive provisions regarding remarriage after divorce.1* The limitations of these provisions are to some degree avoided by both migratory marriages and divorces. Attempts were made in the session laws enacted by the various legislatures to determine conditions of residence, the granting of alimony, and custody of children. The first seventy years of the 19th century were a period during which divorce legislation—save in the New England states— was devised, tested and slowly moulded into such statutes as appeared to suit the public mood and needs. It is worthy of *> Llewellyn, op. cit., p. 257 note. »Howard, 111:145-160. "Vernier, 11:174-179.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

21

note that most of the omnibus clauses on the statute books of the several states were repealed in the 1870's. Karl Llewellyn has argued that this represented a wave of post-Civil War conservatism and reaction against the misuses of carelessly framed divorce legislation.24 Whether his contention is correct is difficult to say, though some data support his belief, but the facts of the conservative trend in legislation are established. In the following chapter there will be portrayed some of the concomitant changes in public attitudes and values of this period. This may throw some light on the retrenchment in liberality of divorce legislation of this decade. A few additional items of information will indicate the experimental nature of the divorce legislation of the 1800-1870 period. In 1802 the state of Georgia utilized a system whereby a jury was impaneled to investigate petitions for divorce coming to the Superior Courts of that state. 25 This procedure is somewhat similar to that of a court of Family Relations. Also worthy of note is the fact that the state of South Carolina, proud disclaimer of divorce in any form whatsoever, experimented with a divorce statute from 1872 to 1878.M Legislative divorces were granted in South Carolina during the years 1869-1870.27 One notes in divorce statutes a reflection of current social movements in that the states of New Hampshire and Massachusetts in 1830 increased their grounds for divorce to include joining a religious society which regarded the married state as unlawful. This clause was aimed directly at the Shaker 28 communities, which numbered many discontented wives among their members. It is apparent that divorce legislation, which had taken so liberal a turn in the first seventy years of the century, changed its direction after 1870. The country turned its attention from the Civil War, and a trend towards repeal of previous liberal legislation is unmistakable. This is true with regard to the several state omnibus clauses which were repealed by Indiana in M

Llewellyn, op. cil., 33:257 note. » H o w a r d , 111:43-44. "Ibid., pp. 76-77.

» Ibid., p. 38. " Ibid., p. 17.

22

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

1873, Connecticut in 1878, Maine in 1883 and by Louisiana and Arizona in 1877. The state of South Carolina returned to its former condition of divorcelessness in 1878 when it repealed its conservative statute of six years' duration. There was also noticeable a general tightening of residence requirements and postponement of granting the final decree in certain states. This tendency was not uniform throughout the country, for the western states of Washington, Oregon and Wyoming continued in the direction of liberal legislation after the seventies. However, a general conservative trend in legislative policy with regard to divorce is apparent after the Civil War. Cahen, writing in 1932, summarized the situation thus: "A detailed analysis and summary of divorce legislation from the Civil War to the present time shows that the number of changes has been many, but their importance slight, because the divorce laws of today are not substantially different from those of sixty-three years ago. However, there has been a minor tendency towards increasing strictness. Since the divorce rate has multiplied fivefold notwithstanding, the legal influences were evidently negligible.""

An explanation of this legislative trend is difficult but one is inclined to think that Llewellyn's thesis of a post-war conservative reaction, based upon tangible evidences of divorce increase, is as near the truth as we are able to arrive at the present time. Llewellyn's thesis briefly is that the thirties, forties and fifties were expansionist, pioneer and agrarian. Divorce legislation and divorces granted during these decades reflected the dynamic and release nature of this period. People were experimenting in the field of marriage and familial relations as well as in the sphere of economic and political organization. At the close of the 1850 decade, the results of omnibus clauses, desertions of wives by husbands who had sought success on the frontier, and extension of grounds for divorce begair to be felt. The moral and religious forces of the country began to awake to this challenge to the most fundamental of our national institutions—the family. The immediate assumption that stricter legislation would reduce the «' Alfred Cahen, Statistical Analysis of Divorce, p. 92.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

23

divorce rate was acted upon and it was many years before careful studies revealed the futility of this procedure. 30 It is interesting to note that migratory divorces and divorce colonies were common early in the 19th century. Apparently Indiana was the first state which offered divorce under such conditions of residence that citizens of other states went there for divorces. Horace Greeley in his lengthy and inconclusive exchange of letters with Robert Dale Owen on this topic31 charged the state of Indiana with resembling nothing so much as a free love colony because of its divorce laws. Carlier, writing about 1860, reproduces a letter to a citizen of New York state from a District Recorder of Indiana concerning the gentleman's inquiry as to whether or not his wife had instituted proceedings for divorce against him in the Indiana courts. The reply32 was illuminating as to divorce practice and the use to which Indiana laws were put by citizens of other states: "Indiana, Sep't. 18, 1858 Dear Sir:— There has not yet been an application for divorce made to our court in the name of ; but I think we have divorced half of the citizens of your State, so that if we continue in the same train, I imagine, in a few years, we shall exhaust the marriages of New York and Massachusetts. Awaiting opportunity to be of service to you, I am, etc."

The states of Utah, Connecticut and South Dakota became divorce colonies at later dates and set the pattern which Nevada best exemplifies at present. Extension of grounds and reduction of length of time necessary to establish residence were the usual means utilized to attract those of other states desirous of severing the bonds of matrimony. Divorce Statistics Prior to 1867 Very little is known as to the number of divorces prior to 1867. " Ibid., p. 92. " Greeley, op. cit.. pp. 571-618. B Auguste Carlier, Marriage in the United States, p. 113.

24

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

Accurate figures are lacking for any large number of jurisdictions and one must rely on newspaper reports and occasional articles based on examination of court records. The duplication of divorce procedure by legislative and judicial processes likewise complicates the problem. Records were not kept by all courts, so any assertions as to the national divorce trend before 1867— when Federal statistics on marriage and divorce began—are guesses. However, certain data indicate that the trend of divorce was definitely upward in the decade of 1850 and that the increase probably began a decade earlier. Reliable data are not available to support this statement, but studies made of divorces granted in particular states, if typical, point to an early rise in the number of divorces as well as in the rate of divorce. Though unreliable, Carlier's citation" of newspaper accounts during the 1850 decade is of interest and of some slight statistical value. Writing near the close of the decade of 1850 he estimated that the number of divorces granted annually in the United States was 3,000 and stated that this figure was probably an underestimate. There were 9,937 divorces reported for 1867 at the first Federal Census. According to Carlier the New York Herald for March 25, 1850, spoke of the hundreds of applications for divorce then before the legislatures of the states and asserted that Maryland and Pennsylvania led all other states in the number of petitions. The same writer cites the Boston Journal for April 20, 1857, as reporting that the Supreme Court of Massachusetts had granted seven divorces in two days for the County of Middlesex alone. The Philadelphia Ledger reported in its issue of March 5, 1856, that the Supreme Court of Vermont granted nine applications for divorce to the small County of Rutland during a single session. He further notes that the Courier des Etats- Unis, a French paper published in the United States, stated in its issue of December 5, 1855, that the Supreme Court of Rhode Island granted thirtysix divorces in its last session and this number was granted to applicants from a single county. «Ibid., p. 176 f.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

25

Calhoun in discussing the incidence of divorce in the United States during the first half of the 19th century cites Brown in his America, 1849,*4 as declaring t h a t : "There are more divorces in one year in the state of Ohio than there are in ten in the United Kingdom. In the year 1843 there were 447 bills of divorcement sued out in the state, and they were principally at the suit of women whose husbands had neglected them, behaved ill or run away."

According to Carlier, even the south had its share of divorces notwithstanding its conservative domestic traditions. He cites a news item from the Baltimore Sun for February 22, 1856, to the effect that Alabama granted over a hundred divorces annually through its legislature, without counting those granted by the courts. In 1866, the Reverend H. Loomis published a discerning and careful article in the New Englander magazine on "Divorce in Connecticut"3® in which he gave a statistical analysis of divorces granted in Connecticut since the year 1849 and presented an able argument against the divorce statute of that time. Loomis asserted that there was no noticeable increase in Connecticut divorces until the year 1843 when two new grounds for divorce were added to the state law. These new and troublesome grounds were habitual intemperance and intolerable cruelty. Further, according to Loomis, in 1849 the legislature added as causes, imprisonment for life and conviction of an infamous crime. According to this surprisingly careful writer, the number of applicants rose annually after this year. It was also in the year 1849 that the famous omnibus clause was added to previously existing grounds. This clause added to the Connecticut divorce statute, the words: " . . . and any such misconduct as permanently destroys the happiness of the petitioner and defeats the purpose of the marriage relation."'·

M u

Arthur Calhoun, Social History of the American Family, 11:45. H. Loomis, "Divorce Legislation in Connecticut," The New Engländer. 25:436-447, July, 1866. »Ibid., p. 441.

26

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

This same year saw the legislature delegate the power to grant divorces to the Superior Courts of the state with apparent relief at thus escaping the burden of considering divorce applications. Loomis, working directly with the court records for the several Connecticut counties, presented data on the number of divorces granted by counties for Connecticut during the years 1849-1865. Below, his annual figures for Connecticut are presented as one instance of the early increase of divorces in a single state. Connecticut was typical of the increase that appeared common throughout New England, even with corrections made for increase in population. Whether this increase was national cannot be stated. The probability is that the absolute and relative increase in the divorce rate was widespread and began perhaps twenty years before the date of the first Federal divorce statistics in 1867. According to Loomis, the Connecticut figures are as follows: YEAR

DIVORCES GRANTED

1849 185 0 185 1 185 2 185 3

91 129 165 159 186

185 4 185 5 185 6 185 7 185 8

216 208 215 232 256

185 9 1860 186 1 186 2 1863

292 282 272 258 289

1864 1865

434 54 (two mouths only) Total

3,745

In 1864 in Connecticut the grounds on which most applications for divorce were made were, in order: adultery, desertion, intemperance and general misconduct. This last cause was held responsible by Loomis and others for a greater proportion of the

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

27

divorces than were actually sought under this specific provision. The trend apparent in the table above indicates that the number of divorces in Connecticut began to increase after 1849 and rose steadily until the Civil War, then decreased slightly for one year, rose and continued until the notably large increase in divorces in the year 1864. This war-time shift in number of divorces granted is characteristic of the effects of a war on the divorce rate. Connecticut was not the only New England state with a rising divorce rate as is indicated by an article in the Church Review for July, 1868, "Frequent Divorce in New England," which bemoaned the supposed increase in divorce in these words: "We refer to the great and alarming frequency in divorce. This has grown to be a portentous evil. It is certainly one of the most significant signs of the real condition of our Domestic Life. It is communicating a sad coloring to the whole inner life of the people. It is working its way from the lower strata of society upward, and exerting a decided influence in the control of public opinion. Its progress is increasing, and at the present rate, a time seems to be rapidly approaching when the public sentiment on this point shall be almost wholly d e b a u c h e d . " "

Utilizing rather dubious statistical procedures, the writer of the above article asserted that in the years just prior to the time of publication (1868) the ratio of divorces to marriages in Vermont had reached the appalling figure of one divorce to 19 marriages, in Massachusetts one divorce to 37 marriages, and in Connecticut one divorce to 10 marriages. Maine was estimated as having about the same proportion of divorces and marriages as had Vermont. The number of divorces for Vermont for the years 1862-1866 is also given and the author insisted that the increase could not be accounted for by growth of population, for this factor had remained stationary. YEAR

DIVORCES GRANTED BY S T A T E O F V E R M O N T

186 2 1863 1864 186 5 186 6

91 105 101 141 155

" Church Review, July, 1868, "Frequent Divorce in New England," p. 214.

28

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

Such evidence of frequent divorce as the above began to alarm the more conservative citizens as early as the 1860 decade even though the figures were local in nature. Divorce statutes had become more liberal, procedure both in courts and legislatures was relaxed and there was an increasing pressure on these agencies to grant divorces. However, changes in laws and procedures were not responsible for the divorce increase. The demand for divorces was not a function of a legal system but of social forces operating in a dynamic society. Indeed one fact demonstrated by the history of divorce legislation and divorce rates in the United States is that legislation has not seriously affected the divorce rate. The most pertinent summary of the divorce situation in the United States through the Civil War period has been made by Cole in The Irrepressible Conflict, 1850-1865, in which he says: "The increasing frequency of divorce was widely deplored as a sign of declining morality. Courts and legislatures seemed to be besieged by applicants for matrimonial relief. Divorce laws varied from complete prohibition in certain Southern states to the easy processes of nearly every Western state and territory. Indiana had a statute which a local judge declared was virtually all that the advocates of free love could ask. Introduced by the idealist Robert Dale Owen, this law had made that state free soil for unhappy wives and husbands, while outsiders went there to dissolve undesirable unions. (1) In Nebraska a divorce could be had from the legislature for the asking. The probate courts of Utah had full and unlimited power to issue divorces. (2) In New York, on the other hand, divorces were granted only upon proof of adultery. This seemed to many unduly drastic; in 1858 and successive years bills were introduced into the legislature to make willful desertion, separation for a term of years, or cruel or inhuman treatment by a husband endangering life, cause for divorce. When these efforts failed, divorce lawyers advertised in the daily papers their services in obtaining without publicity or change of residence legal divorces from some other state." 58 *

Thus several strands of evidence, suggestive though not completely reliable, indicated as early as the decade of 1850 that divorces were becoming more frequent. Isolated instances such * Reprinted by permission of Macmillan Co., New York. «Arthur C. Cole, The Irrepressible Conflict 1850-1865, p. 171 f.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

29

as the increase in divorces in Connecticut were reliably established and confirmed by the later Federal Census reports. The trend of increase in the divorce rate that was to continue until the decade of 1930 was already becoming apparent. The legislative changes which began in the 1870 decade were unsuccessful in an attempt to stem the tide of increasing divorce. There was reflection of these trends in marriage and divorce practices in the newspapers and magazines of the 1850 and 1860 decades and in 1858 there appeared the first divorce novel, The Hand But Not the Heart, by T. S. Arthur, and the American novel had a new theme. The Divorce Trend After 1867 The place of divorce in our national life can be studied with reasonable accuracy since Wright's report in 1889 on marriage and divorce statistics for 1867-1886. This report was brought up to date in 1908-1909 by another Census report covering the years 1887-1906. A gap of ten years followed until another report appeared in 1916. Several annual reports were issued between 1916 and 1929. Thus a considerable body of data exists for interpreting the divorce trend in the United States since 1867. Students of marriage and divorce are familiar with certain generalizations that have been established through study of divorce in the United States. Of the more important trends as background for interpreting the divorce theme in literature, certain items should be noted. The increase in divorce in the United States has been both absolute and relative; that is, the annual number of divorces has increased since 1867 and the increase has been greater than would be explained by either the increase in population or by the number of married persons in the population. Also, the rate of increase advanced at about a 3 per cent annual increment during the past sixty years." This has been established by the studies of Lichtenberger, Cahen, Ogburn and Groves, Stouffer and Spencer, who utilized United States Census data as well as local studies. " C a h e n , op. tit., p. 21.

30

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

The above authorities have established the increase in the divorce rate, the variation in rates for geographic areas and the increasing number of divorces which occur within the early years of marriage. Cahen states that the United States now exhibits a marriage fatality of about 18 per cent. 40 There has also been established an inverse relation between presence and number of children and likelihood of divorce. 41 For purposes of background it will be desirable to present a few statistical items to demonstrate the incidence, increase and distribution of divorces in the United States as well as to indicate the trend since the first Federal Census. The following table from Lichtenberger's Divorce42 indicates the increased divorce rate for the United States by geographic regions from 1870 to 1929. D I V O R C E S PER 1 , 0 0 0 OF THE TOTAL POPULATION BY GEOGRAPHIC D I V I S I O N S * .

DIVISION

United States New England Middle Atlantic East North Central West North Central South Atlantic East South Central West South Central Mountain Pacific

1929 1926 1922 1916 1906 1900 1890 1880 1870 1.66 0.97 0.62 2.15 1.83 0.98 1.68 2.80 3.01 2.84

1.54 0.92 0.61 1.98 1.75 0.95 1.66 2.57 2.18 2.86

1.35 0.94 0.57 1.69 1.68 0.76 1.42 2.23 2.09 2.33

1.12 0.80 0.43 1.47 1.32 0.59 1.16 1.74 1.88 2.10

0.84 0.65 0.32 1.12 1.03 0.43 1.03 1.31 1.35 1.54

0.73 0.67 0.28 1.00 0.91 0.33 0.80 1.12 1.29 1.29

0.53 0.55 0.22 0.73 0.67 0.21 0.56 0.69 1.22 0.93

0.38 0.53 0.18 0.60 0.45 0.13 0.33 0.39 0.95 0.85

0.29 0.49 0.16 0.48 0.31 0.08 0.15 0.17 0.58 0.57

In terms of numbers of divorces annually, the figures have risen from 9,937 in 1867 to an estimated 250,000 in 1937, and both the absolute number of divorces and the rate is higher in the year 1937 than at any previous year in the history of the • F o r the years 1870-1900 the figures are annual averages for the fiveyear periods of which the census year is the median year. For the years 1906-1929 the figures are for the years given. Reprinted by permission of McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc. •· Ibid., p. 25. « Ibid., p. 114. 41 J. P. Lichtenberger, Divorce—-A Social Interpretation, p. 113.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

31

country." Authorities have demonstrated that the divorce rate has generally been higher in urban than in rural areas in the proportion of about two to one. It has been shown above that the rate of divorces per 1,000 population is lowest (.62) in the Middle Atlantic states, low (.97) in the New England and South Atlantic (.98) states, and highest (3.01) in the Mountain states of the west. Such data demonstrate that the explanation of differential divorce rates is not easy and cannot be attributed to any one phenomenon such as urbanism or industrialism, since the highest rates do not invariably occur in urbanized and industrialized areas. Students of divorce have dispelled several false notions regarding divorce through careful factual studies. One notion concerns the proportion of migratory divorces to all divorces. Some have thought that divorce colonies such as Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and Reno, Nevada, accounted for a large proportion of all divorces. Actually, it has been fairly well established that not more than 3 per cent of all divorces granted annually in the United States are migratory.44 This means that about 7,500 of the estimated 250,000 divorces granted in 1937 were migratory. Thus most divorces are obtained in the states wherein the applicants usually reside. It is also pertinent to note that the authorities are not agreed on the proportion of divorced partners who remarry. Due to the fact that there is no adequate census enumeration of the divorced in the population, it has been impossible to determine the proportion of the divorced who remarry. Rubinow estimates that five-sixths of those who were divorced remarried but other authorities such as Cahen, Waller and Ogburn consider this figure too high and generally agree that about one-third of those who obtain divorces remarry.46 This item is cited here with reference to a later consideration of divorce novels which concern the remarriage of divorced persons. "Samuel A. Stouffer and Lyle M. Spencer, "Recent Increases in Marriage and Divorce," American Journal oj Sociology, Vol. X L I V , No. 4, January, 1939, p. 552. 44 Cahen, op. ext., p. 67. 46 Ibid., Chapter 7.

32

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

It is not the purpose of this study to offer an explanation of the divorce trend or to seek to disentangle those factors associated with this historic phenomenon. This has been done elsewhere by more able students of the subject. However, one must note several attributes of the society in which divorce has occurred and entered the literature as a theme. It must be realized that the social conception of the nature of marriage has greatly altered and that modern marriage is increasingly regarded, by the middle classes especially, as a highly personal relationship, rather than as an institutional, social relationship. Concomitant with this changed view of marriage, or perhaps as a cause of this new conception of marriage, have gone changes in the socio-economic organization of American society. This reorganization and alteration of institutions has witnessed a loss of functions by the family, a change in the position of woman towards greater freedom, a lessening of the controls of religion and the traditional sexual mores. One cannot ignore the undoubted influence of contraceptive devices on marital relations as well as on the birth rate and family stability. This chapter has attempted to sketch in broad outline the development of divorce legislation from colonial times until the present and to relate to this legislation divorce facts and figures in so far as they are available and pertinent to the material to follow. The chapter following this one attempts to trace the shift in public attitudes towards divorce and to indicate the more strictly social aspects of the divorce trend which was objectively expressed in divorce legislation and statistics. It is hoped that this chapter and the following one will serve as backgrounds for understanding the treatment of divorce in the American novel.

CHAPTFR

II

P U B L I C ATTITUDES ON DIVORCE

Divorce legislation developed with marked rapidity in 19th century United States. Rates of divorce rose by leaps and bounds. Divorce figures increased absolutely and in relation to population. That these developments were accompanied by widespread public concern cannot be doubted. This chapter will attempt to trace the general course of this reaction. The amount of material on divorce demands a highly selective use to illustrate various phases of the public mind on this subject. Much available data has not been assessed though Howard, Calhoun, and Lichtenberger have done valuable pioneer work in the collection and interpretation of materials in this field.1 Most works on American history are strangely silent on the topics of marriage, divorce and the family. It is only with the publication of the several volumes of the History of American Life series2 that marriage and divorce have received more than passing treatment at the hands of academic historians. Data on these topics abound in the periodical literature after the 1850's and a considerable amount of newspaper material must have appeared, as may be inferred from citations of such sources in periodicals and books.3 The minutes of the annual conventions of the various American Protestant bodies are especially rich in actions and resolutions which reflect the mind of the church on marriage and divorce. 4 These formal actions express the concern of the conservative, church-going elements of the country for the maintenance of marriage in American society. The notebooks of European travelers, diaries, memoirs, articles and books by such people as DeTocqueville 5 and Car1 See G. H. Howard, History of Matrimonial Institutions, 3 vols.; Arthur W. Calhoun, Social History of the American Family, and J. P. Lichtenberger, Divorce—A Social Interpretation* See works by Cole, Fish, Nevins and Schlesinger in Section 3 of the Bibliography. 5 See Carlier, Marriage in the United States, p. 176-177. 4 Lichtenberger, Divorce, 1931, pp. 212-237, and Calhoun, Social History of the American Family, Vol. 2, Chap. 2. * See the names listed in index to Calhoun, op. cit.

34

Divorce and Pie American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

lier of France, Harriet Martineau and Charles Dickens of England offer many pertinent observations on the subject of marital relations in the United States and not infrequently refer to the topic of divorce. In this study, use will be made of articles in the "class"· magazines, the occasional worthwhile books on divorce, actions 'of "bodies such as the National Divorce Reform League and discussions of divorce by the several authors of the History *of American Life series as well as new material, discovered by the writer, to illustrate the currents of the American mind on the subject of divorce. It is well to remember that the discussion of divorce, artificially separated from marriage, is arbitrary and due to the necessary limitations of this study. This chapter, with the previous one on divorce legislation and statistics, is developed as background against which to project the novelistic treatment of divorce in the United States. Perhaps some of the material will also fill in occasional gaps in the strictly historical aspects of the subject. Evidences from Literature A few facts which indicate the interest in divorce may be found in Poole's Index to Periodical Literature. A table compiled from Poole's using the grouping of years in which the volumes were issued, shows the following: Articles on Divorce in the United States Listed in Poole's Index. PERIOD OF YEARS

1802-1881 1887-1891 1892-1896 1897-1902 1902-1906 1905-1909 1910-1914 1915-1918 1919-1921 1922-1924 1925-1928 1929-1932 1932-1935 1936-1938

NO. O F R E F E R E N C E S O N DIVORCE

Reader's Reader's Reader's Reader's Reader's Reader's Reader's Reader's Reader's

Guide Guide Guide Guide Guide Guide Guide Guide Guide

27 (1st divorce article, 1854) 38 36 14 (Spanish-American War) 35 76 84 21 (World War) 26 33 72 71 27 32

•The term "class" as applied to magazines in the United States indicates those which have a superior social and intellectual reputation.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

35

It should be noted here that many magazines were not and are not today indexed in Poole's or the present Readers' Guide.1 However, it is likely that the majority of magazines which would discuss divorce are indexed in this publication. In view of the fact that the first article on divorce indexed in Poole's was published in the year 1854 in the Southern Quarterly Review, this date gives an indication of the period when divorce became a topic of public interest and discussion in the better type of American magazines. The span from 1854 to 1881, with twenty-seven articles published during this period, would average about one article a year on divorce. From 1887 through 1891, a period of five years, there appeared thirty-eight references to divorce in the United States. This gives an average of over seven articles a year. Such is, in a rough way, a magazine index of the increase in public interest and attention to divorce. Interest waned during the years of the SpanishAmerican War, resumed an upward trend after the war and rose to an average of fifteen references a year during the 1905-1909 period. The increase continued until the World War was well under way, and the years from 1915 to 1918 show the first decrease in interest as measured by this rough index. After the World War interest was low, averaging only eight references a year, but this number grew until the annual average in the 1925-1928 and 1929-1932 periods was over sixteen articles. The period from 1932-1935 saw a decided drop, probably due to the impact of the economic depression and its effect on divorce prospects, to about nine references a year. Figures for the years since 1935 give an average of about eleven references annually. An interesting literary item showing the late entrance of divorce into the field of letters is found in Duyckinck's Cyclopedia of American Literature.8 The first edition of this work, published in 1855, contained no reference to the terms marriage, divorce or the family, while the second edition, 1875, contains 7 Poole's Index was published as the Reader's Guide beginning in the year 1905. There is a one-year overlapping between the last issue of Poole's Index, 1902-1906, and the first volume of the Reader's Guide, 190S-1909. • E. A. Duyckinck, Cyclopedia of American Literature, 2 vols., New York, 1855.

36

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

a selection from the pen of C. M. Sedgwick, "Married or Single," and one entitled "Married Women" by Lydia Μ. Child. The following table' reproduced from the section on "Attitudes" by Hornell Hart in Recent Social Trends provides additional literary evidence of public interest in divorce. A rough correspondence will be noted to the indexing from Poole's cited above. S E X AND F A M I L Y T O P I C S IN M A G A Z I N E S ,

1905-1931

(Ratio to all articles indexed in Reader's Guide)

A R T I C L E S P E R THOUSAND I N D E X E D

TOPICS

1905- 1910- 1915- 1919- 1922- 1925- 19291909 1914 1918 1921 1924 1928 1930

19301931

Prostitution.... 0.16 Birth Control.. . .00 Divorce .63 .21 Sex Morals, etc.. Family, home, marriage, e t c . . . . 4.16

1.23 .12 .78 .39

0.31 .55 .21 .29

0.07 .10 .34 .20

0.17 .21 .44 .49

0.10 .38 .67 .54

0.10 .54 .54 .49

0.18 1.09 .69 .65

4.78

2.78

2.50

2.60

4.06

4.58

5.61

5.16

7.30

4.14

3.21

3.91

5.75

6.25

8.22

Total

Reprinted from Recent Social Trends by permission of McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc.

This table indicates as well the general trend of increase in the discussion of topics such as birth control, sex morals, family, home and marriage. The topic of prostitution is the only one which did not increase between the years 1905 and 1931 as measured by this device. The New York Times Index,1· cited by Hart in this same study, gives essentially the same picture with the minimum number of items on divorce occurring during the war period and starting a climb after the cessation of hostilities, reaching a peak during the period 1925-1927. Likewise, the figures cited by Hart, utilizing certain refined indicators of attitudes of approval and disapproval, placed the amount of approval of easy divorce at a low point during the World War • Hornell Hart, Recent Social Trends, Chap. 8, p. 414. »Ibid., p. 416.

Divorce and the American Divorce Navel, 1858-1937

37

and at a peak during the 1922-1929 period." Approval of easy divorce decreased in the years 1930-1931, dropping from an index of 52 in 1922-1929 to 39 in 1930-1931. The Churches and Divorce The churches of the United States have been both powerful moulders and reflectors of opinions of moment to the entire country. Church leaders such as Benjamin Trumbull, Timothy Dwight and Theodore Woolsey first called public attention to the increasing practice of divorce in the United States during the 19th century. 11 Ministers were powerful influences in the formulation and crystallization of opinions on many topics during the last century and they fulminated against divorce frequently. What numbers of individual ministers thought and said on divorce cannot be established but formal actions of ecclesiastical bodies are available as evidences of attitudes of the clergy. In so far as these official statements of church bodies may be regarded as an index of the attitude and practice of the various ecclesiastical groups in the United States, there has been slight change in their attitudes on divorce for over a century. Notwithstanding traditional opposition of both Protestant and Catholic bodies to divorce, the Protestant groups in the United States considered it necessary to issue periodic warnings on the subject as early as 1860. These warnings and official utterances continued at intervals of four to eight years until the present. A summary of the historical utterances of Protestant churches in the United States appears in Lichtenberger's Divorce" and for purposes of comparison and development, there appears below a summary and adaptation of the dates and nature of the more prominent actions of the Protestant bodies.

" Ibid., p. 417. " S e e Benjamin Trumbull, An Appeal to the Public, New Haven, Conn., 1788; Thomas E. Cochran, The Divorce Problem in the United States, pp. 3·5; Η. Loomis, "Divorce Legislation in Connecticut," The New Engländer, Vol. 25, p. 440 f., 1866. u J. P. Lichtenberger, Divorce—A Social Interpretation, McGraw-Hill, Whittlesey House, 1931.

38

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

Adapted from L I C H T E N B E R G E R , Divorce—a Social Interpretation New York, 1931, pp. 212-237. (By permission of McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc.)

DENOMINATION

DATE OF ACTION

Protestant Episcopal.

1868

Protestant Episcopal. Protestant Episcopal.

1874 1886

Protestant Episcopal.

1901

Protestant Episcopal.

1904

Protestant Episcopal.

1913

Protestant Episcopal. Protestant Episcopal.

1919 1925

Protestant Episcopal.

1931

Presbyterian

1643

Presbyterian Presbyterian Presbyterian Presbyterian Presbyterian

1872 1883 1890 1902 1903

Presbyterian Presbyterian

1908 1913

Presbyterian Presbyterian

1914 1916

Presbyterian Presbyterian Presbyterian

1921 1924 1929

Methodist Episcopal Methodist Episcopal

1860 1868 1876 1880

NATURE OF ACTION

No remarriage of divorced parties except innocent party (adultery). No essential change. Committee appointed to memorialize Congress on need of reliable information on divorce. Joint commission appointed to confer with other bodies on uniform practices on Holy Matrimony and divorce. Demanded civil evidences of divorce before minister may remarry innocent divorced party. Approved amendment to constitution providing for uniform marriage and divorce laws. Reaffirmed previous actions. Joint commission appointed to study subject. Remarry either party to divorce, if former marriage declared void by ecclesiastical court. (Recent Social Trends, p. 1016.) Admits adultery and desertion as grounds for dissolving marriage. Protest against free granting of divorce. Same. Same. Protest against free granting of divorce. Ministers ordered not to remarry divorced individuals except innocent parties. Reaffirmed previous utterances. Urged ministers to study problem of marriage and divorce and approved uniform legislation among states. Favored federal divorce law. Approved cooperation with lawyers to devise better (stricter) codes on marriage and divorce. Viewed increasing divorce with alarm. Reaffirmation of previous utterances. Commission appointed to study subject. Divorce permitted by reason of adultery only. Remarriage possible on this ground alone. Consideration—no action.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

DENOMINATION

DATE O F ACTION

Methodist Episcopal. .

1884

Methodist Episcopal..

1904

Methodist Methodist Methodist Methodist

1912 1916 1924 1928

Episcopal. Episcopal. Episcopal. Episcopal.

. . . .

1905 1907 Lutheran

1928

F e d e r a l C o u n c i l of Churches' Statement approved a t Quadrennial meeting

1932

1930

39

N A T U R E O F ACTION

Reaffirmed action of 1860 and expressed interest in uniform divorce laws. Remarriage permitted to innocent party of divorce on grounds of adultery and divorced parties seeking remarriage. Insisted marriage more than civil contract. Sought federal divorce law. Same. Recognized State's right to determine grounds for valid divorce. Commission appointed to study divorce. Recognized adultery and malicious desertion as grounds for remarriage of innocent party in divorce. Report by committee on moral and social welfare, but no action recommended. "Divorce or separation may be preferable to t h e enforced continuance of a relation which has no true basis in mutual respect and affection as far as the two individuals concerned are involved, but the effect on children, the family, and society must never be ignored or minimized." (Social Ideals of the Churches, p. 15.) Marriage a sacrament—no divorce. Casti Connubii, Pope Pius XI—Marriage is a sacrament t h a t carries with it perpetual and indissoluble bond (annulments are granted). (Recent Social Trends, p. 1016.)

From the above one notes that the early statement of position of the several church bodies on divorce has not been altered in any considerable degree since the pronouncements of the 1860's and 70's. The churches exhibited great reluctance to alter traditional views and constantly postponed action by appointing commissions to study and report back to the annual conventions. The most important changes which occurred were those which permitted ministers of the several Protestant bodies to remarry first the innocent party to a divorce, then either the innocent or the guilty party, after proper ecclesiastical authorities were consulted. It remains a matter of uncertainty how completely practice followed precept.

40

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

The Roman Catholic church has consistently refused to sanction divorce and continues to regard marriage as an indissoluble bond which, on occasion, may be annulled by action of high authorities, but which may not be dissolved by divorce. The statement issued in 1930 under the title, "Casti Connubii," 14 reaffirmed the long-held Catholic view that marriage is a sacrament and therefore constitutes a human relationship divine in nature and not affected by civil law. How rigidly this view is applied is a matter of uncertainty. Popular opinion has it that the practice and doctrine of the Roman Catholic church are in agreement. The Protestant churches, representing a solid body of conservative opinion in this country, have maintained a consistent view of the institution of marriage and have only altered established attitudes and practices in response to the impact of altered secular views. Slowly the Protestant religious groups have lessened the rigidity of their views on divorce and acknowledged divorce as a phenomenon which must be regretted but accepted. This concession on the part of the Protestant churches is an evidence of the rise of a new conception both of marriage and of divorce. The Feminist

Movement and

Divorce

About the middle of the 19th century the feminist movement, then in its infancy, gave early indication of the importance which this group attached to divorce in the United States. At the Seneca Falls Convention held in 1848, the feminist body uttered a Declaration of Sentiments, modeled after the Declaration of Independence, in which the following statement of divorce was made: "He (man) has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what shall be the proper causes, and in case of separation, to whom the guardianship of the children shall be given, as to be wholly regardless of the happiness of woman—the law in all cases going upon a false supposition of the supremacy of man, and giving all power into his hands."" M u

Recent Social Trends, p. 1016. Calhoun, op. «/., 11:119.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

41

That this rebellious attitude on the part of the feminists was concerned with fundamentals is evidenced by the assertion made in the same Declaration of Sentiments, with regard to marriage, that— "In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming to all intents and purposes her master—the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty and to administer chastisement." 1 ·

The interest of the feminists in marriage and divorce legislation was a logical part of their concern to elevate woman's civil position and to secure for her abrogation of obvious inequalities in economic and political rights. Their practical aim was to obtain the right of suffrage, though they found it expedient to advance along all fronts in the attempt to better the position of the women of America. The doughty champion of woman's rights, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, entered into debate with Judge Noah Davis in an issue of the North American Review in 1884 and bettered the learned justice in their discussion of the topic, "The Need of Liberal Divorce Laws." 17 Said Mrs. Stanton, in one of her pointed paragraphs: "When we appreciate the fact that the vast majority of applications for divorce are made by women, that liberal divorce laws for oppressed wives are what Canada was for Southern slaves, it is clearly a work of supererogation, for learned men to demand 'more stringent laws for women's protection!' —protection such as the eagle gives the lamb he carries to his eyrie! Alas, for the wrongs that woman has suffered under the specious plea of protection!"1«

In the 1840 decade several states granted equal property rights to women and the divorce laws of Massachusetts were liberalized. 19 These concessions were wrung from a man-dominated government partly through the courageous lobbeying and work of the feminists. "Ibid. " North American Review, 1884, Vol. 139, pp. 236-244. "Ibid., p. 243. " E . Douglas Branch, The Sentimental Years, p. 217.

42

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

The decades of the thirties, forties and fifties witnessed a widespread revolt against certain customs and the rise and development of movements which saw their fruition within the century. These were the decades of the Bloomer fad, Utopian communities, Graham bread, hydrotherapy, mesmerism and other f a d s . " Women sought to enter industry and to work side by side with men, as well as to cast ballots with men and to hold office. A redefinition of the institution of marriage and of marital rights was regarded as essential by the feminists. Divorce they saw as a corollary of the existing marriage institution, which they regarded as man-made. So the campaign for women's freedom included change and liberalization of the divorce laws as a logical part of their attack on the privileged position of men. I t would be difficult to estimate the influence of the feminist movement on the law and practice of divorce. T h a t it was considerable is evidenced by the fact that the period of the women's rights movements saw an increase in the number of grounds on which divorce might be granted. 41 This was an issue on which women of that time were particularly vocal. However, their influence in remoulding attitudes on marriage and divorce was far greater than any mere change in laws might indicate. Public Figures on Divorce and Liberal Divorce Laws Ministers, editors and public spirited citizens early became alarmed over the frequent occurrence of divorce. Benjamin Trumbull, pastor of a prominent New Haven, Connecticut, church, issued a blast against divorce which appeared in print in 1788. Trumbull entitled his statement, which was delivered as a sermon and then issued as a pamphlet: "An appeal to the public, especially to the learned with respect to the unlawfulness of divorces, in all cases, excepting those of incontinency . . .

His arguments were based on scripture and proceeded on the ** Ibid., pp. 207-220; also see summaries of social backgrounds at beginning of 11chapters in Gilbert Seldes, The Stammering Century. See Howard, op. tit., 111:17 ff. «•Trumbull, op. tit., p. 1.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

43

assumption that marriage was a divine institution. This pamphlet aroused considerable interest in divorces, which must have been fairly frequent in occurrence to warrant Trumbull's attention. Data are not available with which to estimate the divorce rate at that time. Another Puritan divine, Timothy Dwight, then president of Yale College, called attention to an alleged increase in divorce in Connecticut and demanded moral reform. β The voices of religious mentors and those of most respectable people of the early 19th century were one in condemning divorce and in insisting on the holy and indissoluble nature of marriage. In the writings of Lorenzo Dow, prominent evangelist of the early and mid-century, there appears a section entitled "Reflections on Matrimony" 24 in which the question is propounded and answered by Dow as to whether or not two people who have pledged their fidelity to each other and entered the marriage contract are justified in breaking that contract. Dow replied with a no, but qualified his answer in a manner inconsistent with conservative views of his time. Dow wrote: "If one has acted the part of an imposter, told lies, and deceived the other, this is not marriage but an imposition; of course the person so imposed on is justifiable in rejecting such deceiver. But if they both make statements in truth, are acquainted with each other's character, dispositions, practices, and principles, and then, being in possession of such information, voluntarily engage before God to live together as man and wife, unless something wicked, more than was or could be reasonably expected, transpires relative to one or the other of the two persons so engaged; the person who breaks such contract cannot be justifiable before God."1'

Less equivocal is an unknown writer in the famous Godey's Lady's Book magazine who wrote in 1838 of marriage and divorce : "Into no engagement do we enter in this short and evil life so solemn and binding as that of the marriage covenant and consequently the veriest tyro

" H. Loomis, op. cit. "Lorenzo Dow, Reflections on Matrimony, Norwich, Conn., 1833. »Ibid., p. 163.

44

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

might say none ought to be so seriously considered. If a misstep is here taken it can never be retrieved.""

The above doctrinaire statement was probably representative of the attitude of most people of the United States during early 19th century and especially was this true of the inhabitants of the seaboard states. On the frontier, marriage was more an institution of man and partook less of a divinely sanctioned arrangement for the sexes. It is probable that the shift in attitude towards the institution of marriage and, consequently, towards divorce, began in the early decades of the century and slowly diffused throughout the whole structure of American society. Conservative opinions and institutional judgments were in the saddle, but there was a small, then a larger body of opinion that sanctioned divorce and contributed to the radically altered conception of marriage which prevails today. Thus two antagonistic conceptions of marriage have existed side by side, and the growth of one was at the expense of the other. Statistical evidence is lacking as to the national extent and rate of divorce in the early decades of the century. The opinions of travelers and others who cite the number of divorces granted in certain states at a given time as indication of general practice with regard to divorce are neither reliable nor uniform. That there was frequently expressed concern for the safety of the institution of marriage is certain, but that this alarm was based on factual knowledge of the number of divorces is doubtful. The reactions of a conventional moral code to divorces probably resulted in current opinion drawing an unfair picture of the actuäJ practice of divorce. However, it is interesting to note that the famous stone engraving entitled "The Seven Stages of Matrimony," which depicts the connubial adventure from courtship, on through wedding, children, etc., concludes with divorce, and the word alimony is included in the final stage.17 This pictorial comment on marriage and divorce was probably as ironic as is " Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 17, p. 252. " Bernard Stern, The Family—Past and Present, p. 288 ff.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

45

the modern cartoonists' depiction of the country club type of prison. Few would contend that this type of penal institution is to be found frequently, if at all, in contemporary United States. As was suggested above, conditions in some of the frontier states were at wide variance with those of the east—and it must not be forgotten that Connecticut led the way to easy divorce with an omnibus clause in its statute that made it the Nevada of the mid-century." An article by an anonymous writer in Putnam's Magazine2* for December, 1858, gave an amusing and intimate description of how a young lawyer, recently arrived in the state of Michigan, found that his only source of business lay in obtaining divorces under the lax state law. He applied himself assiduously to his task and won fame and fortune, only to have the courts tighten up on procedure, and then found himself ruined because of a very liberal divorce law enacted by the neighboring state of Indiana. This law made divorce possible after one night's or day's residence in the state and granted divorces on nearly any grounds. The lawyer from Michigan wound up his story of free and easy divorce with the statement that : "If she (my wife) dares to make the oath, then I shall protest against it and demand her reasons; and if the court overrules my demand, as I am told it undoubtedly will, I shall insist at least upon my protest being entered upon its journal, as a permanent record of my abhorrence for the Hoosier state, its laws and the tribunals which administer them!"30

To this piece of semi-historical evidence may be added the fact that in 1859 there was published in New York City a pamphlet with the title How to Get a Divorce;31 it bore the sub-title— "A disquisition: to which is appended a compilation from the laws of each of the United States, upon the subject of divorce. By a member of the New York bar." " Howard, op. tit., 111:13. " Anonymous, "Divorce," ber. 1856.

" Ibid., p. 634. n

Putnam's Magazine.

Vol. 8, pp. 630-635, Decem-

A member of the New York Bar, "How to Get a Divorce," New York, 1859.

46

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

This last is especially interesting in view of the shocked surprise which greeted Isabel Drummond's book, How to Get a Divorce, published in 1931. Certainly in the border and frontier states divorce was tolerated and it is not established that divorce brought any certain disapproval in such states as Connecticut during this period. It is just possible that the strongest reaction to divorce and most stringent disapproval came after the Civil War, when the supporters of middle class morality were fighting with the spirit of change and the forces of liberality. This question cannot be settled at this time. Perhaps the opposition of two streams of opinion on divorce was never more clearly manifested than in the exchange of letters between Horace Greeley and Robert Dale Owen in I860." Blasts from Greeley in his paper, the Tribune, were answered by counter blasts from Owen, liberal, equalitarian and humanist. Greeley sounded a strong note on the trumpet of bourgeois morals and argued valiantly for the preservation of the nodivorce clause, save for the Biblical cause of adultery, and the use where necessary of the separation device. Owen, who was married by an unorthodox, but legal, ceremony wherein he and his wife expressed their disagreement with the usual conception of marriage, called for reasonably easy and accessible divorce such as existed in the state of Indiana. Owen's colony had been founded at New Harmony, Indiana, and Owen had been influential in devising the divorce statute of that state. The exchange of letters began in the Tribune on March 1, 1860, and continued until the end of the following month. Both champions realized that the other was as far from being convinced as ever and that arguments were being repeated, so closed the controversy by mutual agreement. Greeley argued on scriptural grounds in the main and Owen answered in these terms when convenient, but made his most telling points on humanitarian grounds. The correspondence is long and tedious and perhaps can best be summarized by citing sections from the concluding letters of each of the battlers. a

Horace Greeley, Recollections of a Busy Life, pp. 571-618.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel,

1858-1937

47

Greeley concluded his letter with this characteristic paragraph: "Believing that unhappy unions were mainly, in their outset, unworthy ones, and that none who marry truly and nobly ever need seek or wish for Divorce, I must continue to uphold the law given through the words of Jesus of Nazareth, which, I am happy to know, is substantially identical with the law of New York. T h e Puritan pioneers of New England, it is jocularly said, resolved to take the law of God for their guidance until they should find time to make a better. Lacking not merely the leisure to frame such better law, but the faith to anticipate, or seek it, I propose to hold by what I clearly, undoubtingly, accord with Christendom in understanding to be the Law of Marriage as enunciated by Him who 'spake as never man spake.' In the hope that further reflection and observation may bring to you a realizing sense of its wisdom and benignity, " I remain,

yours, HORACE

GREELEY.""

Owen was not one whit impressed by the thunderings of the great editor and replied: " . . . that marriage was designed to be, and should be, the means of calling out all that is best and purest in the inner nature of man; and that, when it becomes the daily source of anger, strife, cruelty, brutality, it defeats God's purposes, violates the Divine economy, becomes itself immoral, and ought to cease. You dissent. Again be the public the judge in the premises."· 4

Here Owen stated a view widely held today that marriage is a human institution and is to be valued as a means rather than as an end of human life. Greeley stood firm on scriptural grounds in considering marriage a divine institution which was indissoluble in terms of human actions. Greeley's sanctioning of separation from bed and board was a concession which had ecclesiastical support in the practice of the English Episcopal Church and was commended as a device to alleviate intolerable marital conditions without severing the divinely instituted relationship. The arguments of these two 19th century figures summarized the struggle of conflicting views on marriage and divorce Ibid., p. 616 f. »Ibid., p. 611. a

48

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

which continued for many years after this exchange of letters. As was observed above, the women's rights movement sought liberal divorce laws as an integral part of the campaign for equality of the sexes. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and Lucy Stone were among those who insisted on the necessity of more liberal divorce legislation. Cole records that: "Most of the advocates, however, were silenced by a broadside of editorials in the New York Tribune in which Greeley opposed liberalization.""

Another Yale president sprang to the fray in 1869 when Dr. Theodore Woolsey published a series of articles attacking divorce. These were later expanded into book form under the title of Divorce.M Dr. Woolsey's arguments were scripturally sound, cogent and in keeping with orthodox opinion of his time. His book had considerable influence and served to stir up interest in the topic of divorce and crystallized attitudes and opinions on this source of continual interest for both clergy and laity. Dr. Woolsey's assertions represented a counter attack of conservative, middle class opinion on the laxity of divorce procedure and against the new and troublesome ideas of radicals, feminists and non-conformists. Woolsey's book was the first important organization and statement of this body of belief since Greeley's famous editorials and letters in the Tribune in 1860. The Civil War had interrupted the movement against divorce, which found its first effective champion in Greeley. He was to be followed by a long line of illustrious protagonists who sought to preserve the status quo with reference to marriage and divorce. Theodore Woolsey, Samuel Dike, Noah Davis and George Gray were to pursue the arguments of Greeley in the next two decades and to break lances with the feminists and their growing number of masculine supporters. One year after the publication of Dr. Woolsey's book on divorce, James G. Powers issued a small work entitled Marriage » A. C. Cole, The Irrepressible Conflict, p. 173. * Theodore Woolsey, Divorce and Divorce Legislation, York, 1882.

second edition, New

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

49

and Divorce,37 in which he argued the case for divorce on approximately the same grounds used by Owens in his controversy with Greeley. Powers denied the scriptural view of marriage as a divine institution and boldly stated that: "Marriage contemplates the development, happiness and improvement of the married parties; and, as an incident, the procreation of children, and the rearing and training of those children for happiness and usefulness."**

A more hedonic view of marriage would with difficulty be found in the literature, past and present, on this subject. His view of the purpose of marriage accords largely with that advanced by Bertrand Russell and others of the present day. Powers went on to adduce that when: ". . . i t s continuance is the source of sin and suffering, its existence or continuation in such case should not be compelled, but ought to cease."·*

The author writes in a vein comparable to that of modern psychological treatises on relations within marriage when he says that: "The most dreadful war is the half-hidden contest between a man and a woman legally bound together, but having nothing in common."40

It is apparent that the new views and attitudes were finding champions who were vocal and effective, as events were later to prove. The views of Mary Wollstonecraft and Robert Dale Owen were finding loyal proponents in the new world. It was inevitable that the heritage of sentiments woven into the fabric of the American family should be drawn upon in the battle between those supporting a permanent union and those anxious to redefine the marriage institution. As an example of conventionalized sentiment pointed at the dread figure of " James G. Powers, Marriage and Divorce, New York, 1870, American News Co. '» Ibid.. p. 97. »»Ibid., p. 98. " Ibid.

50

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

divorce which rent families and took children from their mothers, the following excerpts from a poem by Rose Terry in 1872 are here reprinted.'1 The appeal of this poem to the average family member may have been considerable. DIVORCED

"Custody of the child given to the father. "My darling, my darling, the midnight is here To stifle and tempt me with longing and fear: I hear through the darkness thy sweet little voice, Like birds in their nests that in slumber rejoice. "I gave them my love as our Father gives air; I gave them my life without stint or compare: They used me and left me to die by the way; My darling, my love, thou wert kinder than they. "Ah, would that together in some quiet grave Or deep in the ocean's long-sorrowing wave, Thy tiny arms round me, thy head on my breast, We two lay forever in passionless rest. "O God, when Thou judgest the false and the true— When the madness and passion of living are through, I ask of thee only to give me above This baby, who only hath answered my love."

Emotions centered around the mother-child relation were drawn upon by those opposing divorce. Such weapons were made powerful by the fact that the family had been the basic unit in the founding of this country. The settling of the frontier in the United States was done by families rather than by individuals.42 Family sentiments were perhaps the strongest that motivated Americans of the 19th century. Children were assumed to develop to their best advantage in the conventional a u

Scribner's Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 2, p. 160, December, 1872. Karl Llewellyn, "Behind the Law of Divorce," Columbia Law Review, 33:254 f.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel,

1858-1937

51

family situation. Divorce was the enemy of children's safety in the home;-therefore, divorce was evil. Alteration of institutions usually brings to the fore several alternatives before a readjustment and redefinition of the institution is effected. An alternative in the divorce discussions which received little attention, but which is interesting, is that of one Jennie Croly, who wrote under the pen name of Jennie June. This writer published a series of essays under the title For Better or Worse in 1875 and included in this work an essay on divorce. In this section she advanced the idea of compulsory divorce in these words: " 'Free divorce' would destroy marriage; but compulsory divorce—in other words, divorce insisted upon and maintained by law when habitual drunkenness or other criminal habits render man or woman brutal, dangerous and unfit to undertake the parentage of children—would be one of the best safeguards of marriage."43

Here again the humanitarian aspect of marriage and divorce outweighs the religious one; the effect of marriage upon the lives of those within its bonds is the focus of attention, and not the maintenance of a "divinely" appointed relation in the interest of retaining an ancient form. The close relation of woman's economic lot to the condition of matrimony is also emphasized by the author when she writes that: "Under a system which gives the wife no right in the income or accumulated property until after her husband's death, a woman cannot apply for a divorce, because she has no money—because marriage has deprived her of her means of maintenance, and given her children whom she is bound to take care of. Its protection, therefore, and championship of her rights is the merest pretence as is proved by the fact that to one who appeals to the law, ten patiently sit down and endure their woes."44

This is part and parcel of the argument of the women's rights advocates and is important as an indication of the slow but steadily advancing alteration in the conception of marriage. α 44

Jennie Croly, For Belter or Worse, p. 224. Ibid., p. 225.

52

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

The last mentioned point was brought out very clearly in the magazine debate* between Judge Noah Davis of the New York judiciary and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, prominent suffragette. The pages of the North American Review for 1884 were the battleground for these champions of the old and new order. The views of Mrs. Stanton have been referred to above and it will suffice to reproduce here a paragraph from Judge Davis' article to indicate the extremes which separated the views of these two opponents: "The marital relation is the normal condition of adult mankind. Whoever of either sex voluntarily lives out of that relation is at war with nature and her laws."«

On the nature of marriage the formalistically-minded judge wrote: "Marriage is an institution divine in nature and origin; established by God . . .; and designed and best adapted, by its union of and unification of the sexes, to confer and preserve individual happiness, to create the family and thereby to perpetuate the race, the people and the State in the highest orders of civil government.""

With reference to divorce he says: "But there seems to be no great good in this world without some great antagonizing evil. Every Eden has its serpent. Marriage is no exception, for over against it stands its antipodal foe, Divorce. The State, society, good government, good order, and all their attendant blessings are, from the necessities of their nature, hostile to divorce.""

In her reply to Judge Davis' article Mrs. Stanton blazed out: "I would refer the learned judge of New York and Georgia to the case in South Carolina of Jelineau vs. Jelineau, 2 Des., p. 45, where a man took « North American Review, Vol. 139, 1884. « Ibid., p. 35. "Ibid. " Ibid., p. 33.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

S3

his negro slave woman to his bed and board, and with brutal punishment compelled the unoffending wife to eat with his colored concubine. To her unfading honor, the powers of the State of South Carolina compelled the family to live on in Peace, purity and felicity.""

South Carolina, with no divorce statute today, and only a brief period after the Civil War when one was on the statute books, w supplied horrible examples for the proponents of liberal divorce laws and served as a fine object for their forensic scorn, while it exemplified the ideal legal condition for the more conservative minded. The strictly theological phases of marriage and divorce loomed large to those of the last century even as they do to some in the present. A closely reasoned volume was written by George Z. Gray in 1885 with the title, Husband, and Wife or the Theory of Marriage and Its Consequences. In a neat theological sentence the divine clinched the argument against granting divorce to the woman in the following logical framework: "The woman, by marriage, becomes a member of the man. Therefore she cannot put him away, for a member cannot put away the head.""

Following this same line of reasoning he wrote: "Again, it is essential to this feature of modern divorce laws—the extension of the privilege to women—that the complete parity of the wedded pair be postulated as its warrant. But this is, as it has been our effort to show, an assumption which is at variance with the divine law of marriage . . . " M

At first the supporters of new conceptions of marriage and divorce laws attempted to answer these contentions in the same theological framework and language in which the statements were couched; then they found it more suitable to abandon this attack and to plead their case in humanitarian terms. Their emphasis was on the human and useful side of a successful mar4

· Ibid., p. 237. " Howard, op. cit., 111:76-77. 61 G. Gray, Husband and Wife, p. 86. " Ibid., p. 93.

54

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

riage and little attention was paid to the implied and previously accepted divine origin of the marital relation. Thus were asserted again the claims of the individual against the institution. The old order was changing and the doctrines of equality, fraternity, progress and justice were turned against the framework of beliefs and institutions which had nourished these very doctrines. The ways of social and cultural change are hard to discern. The Divorce Reform League Interest in divorce and marriage was so keen that in the year 1881 there was organized the New England Divorce Reform League, which later became the National Divorce Reform League and in 1898 changed its name to the National I eague for the Protection of the Family. The avowed purpose of this organization was to "promote an improvement in public sentiment and legislation in the institution of the family, especially as affected by existing evils relating to marriage and divorce."53 The secretary of the organization in its earlier years was the Rev. Samuel Dike, an energetic and intelligent man who understood the historical processes at work which had brought about the increase in divorce and change in public attitudes on this issue. The Reverend Dike, writing in the Princeton Review in 1884, gave utterance to a very clear statement as to the causes of the shift in attitudes and practices with regard to marriage and divorce. His summary is here reproduced as an indication of what intelligent and informed opinion made of the divorce situation in the decade of 1880. "The unfortunate history of Divorce in this country reminds one of the insidious growth of slavery. The current was set wrong in part by the early Puritan dread of everything like ecclesiasticism. Marriage at the first was made a civil contract only, and a religious ceremony forbidden or discouraged. The absence of men from their families, and perhaps the frequent migrations to other colonies, led to somewhat liberal provisions for divorce. The religious regard for the sanctities of marriage made the purely civil treatment of it safe for a long time. But the War of Independence, the revolt " Thomas E. Cochran, The Divorce Problem in the United States, pp. 3-5.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

55

against 'the standing order,' as the recognized church was called, and the attendant rise and spread of other Christian denominations—due to social as well as religious causes—some political discussions of the early half of the century, the anti-slavery reform, the introduction of the factory system, the railway, telegraph, and steam printing press, vastly changed the conditions of our life . . . Western emigration and the license of new settlements, the conflicting laws of the several States, popular doctrines of rights, the War, easy transportation, cheap reading, a growing demand for social as the consequent of political equality, the pouring in of foreign immigrants often, though not always having a low sexual morality, and the importation through foreign travel of certain European notions of chastity have all joined in their way to increase evils that sap the Family.""

An interesting sidelight on the special classes and groups in the United States which were concerned with the challenges to the old order of the family is revealed by the itemized list of contributors to the National Divorce Reform League for the year 1884. (See Appendix I.) An examination of this list of contributors numbering seventy-four shows that ministers and churches made forty-three contributions, professors six and the remaining twenty-five were the personal gifts of individuals with "Hon." prefixed to their names, "Esquire" suffixed to them or with the occasional title of " M . D . " or "General." The name of one female contributor is listed. The religious, professional and middle class background of the people supporting this organization for that year and donating well over one thousand dollars to the organization's expenses provides a valuable clue to the social groups concerned with the issues of marriage and divorce. Such data as the above fit into Karl Llewellyn's picture of an awake and fighting middle class scandalized by the divorce excesses of the forties, fifties and sixties, who became aggressive with a slowly developing sense of their power." These groups determined to defend the morality which was a part of their class outlook and predilections. It is probable that the strictly religious element in the historical process is underestimated by Llewellyn. One may admit of emphasis on economic causes or on M

Samuel Dike, Princeton Review, March, 1884, p. 184 f. "Llewellyn, Behind the Law of Divorce, 33:257 note; and Beard, The Rise of American Civilitation, 11:399 ff.

56

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

religious and moral fervor without straying too far from the probably correct explanation. In this connection Dike, Secretary of the Divorce Reform League, who saw the issue of marriage and divorce not with the narrow and fixed eye of the reformer but as a student, wrote in the article cited above: "The worst of the mischief, however, is found in the middle and lower classes of society, which furnish by far the most of the divorces and whose ideas of marriage are fast changing . . . Some of these people are learning to secure ends in a lawless way which they say the rich can afford to get in conformity with the legal and conventional arrangements of society. The revolt against the established social order will inevitably pass beyond economics to the Family. For the notions that lead to divorce and kindred evils have their full share in fostering class feeling in a society organized politically on a democratic basis."®·

The year 1881 saw both the organization of the New England Divorce Reform League and Congressional authorization of the Department of Labor to collect statistics on marriage and divorce. This last was designed to give the government and citizens accurate knowledge of the facts regarding the number of marriages and divorces annually occurring in each state. An appropriation was made and Commissioner Wright published the first Census Report 87 on the subject of marriage and divorce in 1886. The report began with the year 1867, when data first were available for a large number of states. This volume was a landmark in our knowledge of marriage and divorce statistics and served not one whit to allay the fears of those predicting a great change in marital arrangements and an increase in the annual number of divorces, as well as in the divorce rate. The report served as a mine of information to students and reformers alike and was used as the basis of innumerable speeches and articles. It crystallized widespread interest in the subject and brought marriage and divorce laws to the public attention. The discrepancies between states as to legislation and the varying divorce rates led to considerable agitation for uniform marriage and divorce «· Dike, op. tit., p. 172. " United States Marriage and Divorce Report, 1867-1886.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

57

laws and thus began a movement which continues until the present. Interest in divorce continued high for several decades after the report of the Government appeared and the alert North American Review held another debate within its pages in 1889 with the prominent figures of Colonel Robert Ingersoll, noted free thinker, Cardinal Gibbons and Bishop Henry Potter as the participants." The learned gentlemen and representatives of presumed differences of opinion on the topic of debate were invited to base their discussion and arguments on the following four questions propounded by the indefatigable Mr. Dike of the Divorce Reform League: 1. Do you believe in t h e principle of divorce under a n y circumstances?

2. Ought divorced people to be allowed to marry under any circumstances? 3. What is the effect of divorce on the integrity of the family? 4. Does the absolute prohibition of divorce where it exists contribute to the moral purity of society?"

Since the views of the two churchmen can rather easily be imagined, and their answers to the questions surmised by the reader, only one statement will be included here from this noted symposium. This flowery reply to Dike's questions came from the pen of Robert Ingersoll, foe of orthodox Christianity. Wrote Colonel Ingersoll: "Is it possible to conceive of anything more immoral than for a husband to insist on living with a wife who has no love for him? Is not this a perpetual crime? Is the wife to lose her personality? Has she no right of choice? Is her modesty the property of another? Is the man she hates the lord of her desire? Has she no right to guard the jewels of her soul? Is there a depth below this? And is this the foundation of morality? This the cornerstone of society? This the arch that supports the dome of civilization? Is this pathetic sacrifice on the one hand, this sacrilege on the other, pleasing in the sight of heaven?"· 0 " North American Review, November, 1889. » Ibid., p. 513. ·· Ibid., p. 538.

58

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

Mary Livermore, writing in the North American Review in 1890 complained again and again that the laws regulating marriage and divorce were made by men and in the interests of men under the spurious pleas of protecting women. She also insisted that woman's subject economic and political position rendered her subject to man in the marital relation and was the cause of much restlessness and discord within the marriage bonds.·1 American Magazines on Divorce In the year 1893 The Nation, prominent liberal magazine, deplored the administration of the divorce laws in the state of South Dakota on grounds of failure to observe properly the spirit as well as the letter of the law.®2 The Nation approved the grounds on which divorces were granted in the state but regretted the manner in which the state had become a divorce colony and permitted the misapplication of well meant legislation. Sioux Falls, South Dakota, was a divorce colony in 1892 similar to Reno, Nevada, at a later date. It offered the same type of machinery for facilitating the easy granting of divorce: residence could be established in a short time, the respondent need not be served with papers in person and an individual might live as an obvious transient while establishing legal residence in the state. People of wealth flocked to Sioux Falls; hotels, shyster lawyers and luxury trades flourished under the divorce mill system. Bishop Hare of South Dakota headed a group of indignant citizens of the state in an attempt to remove these undesirable practices in the application of divorce legislation. The Nation applauded his attempt on the grounds that such divorce proceedings not only were injurious to the safety of the marriage tie and the family but undermined the respect of citizens for law and justice." The tone of the protest in The Nation was that of an outraged sense of decency which was concerned with the attitudes that might be formed in others by continuing such practices. ·' North American Review, Vol. ISO, p. IIS ff. « The Nation, Vol. 56, No. 1439, p. 60 f., January 26, 1893. «Ibid., p. 61.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

59

In striking contrast to the above may be noted an editorial*4 in the same magazine in the year 1906, in which the writer caustically commented on the inept divorce laws of the several states and asseverated that divorce was for the wealthy and not for the middle class citizens and proletarians. In an ironic vein the writer regretted that " . . . divorce remains the sole commodity that great wealth cannot buy quickly and surely." In an earnest manner, covered by sarcasm, the editorial went on to suggest that steady, middle class people who worked were not in need of divorce legislation but that the wealthy stood in need of it. The editorial suggested the addition to the marriage ceremony of the words "till death or the courts do us part."·* The orientation of class feelings around the topic of divorce is an interesting reflection of the social and.economic developments of the United States. Thirteen years elapsed between the first and second editorials in The Nation and Theodore Roosevelt had begun his trust busting by the time the second editorial was written. Public concern with divorce led to numerous magazine articles from the seventies on into the 20th century. Substantial magazines such as the North American Review, The New Englander, the Yale Review, Harper's Magazine, the Independent, The Nation, the Outlook and others carried many discussions for and against liberal divorce legislation. One of the educational measures attempted by a magazine with reference to divorce appeared in the pages of The Chatauquan in the years 1900-1901, when this publication outlined a month's program of study for organizations interested in divorce." This program lists suggested readings on the subject, traces the rise of popular interest in divorce, and sets forth a group of readings, an oration, a paper and a debate subject on some aspect of divorce for each of the four weekly meetings. (See Appendix II.) The subjects for papers and debates were selected with a tolerant point of view and the attempt is evident to study and understand the phenomenon of divorce rather than to condemn or approve it. ** The Nation, Vol. 82, No. 2137, p. 505, June 21, 1906.

»Ibid., p. 505.

« The Chautauquan, 1900-1901, pp. 441-442.

60

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

The nation's heartstrings were severely stretched by an article which appeared in The Outlook for February 22, 1902." The author, under the pseudonym of Laica, told the story of what divorce was doing to children and cited cases to substantiate her insistence on the evil results of divorce in the lives of the young. This theme had received considerable emphasis in prior discussions and the public was prepared to hear the dire results of children being torn from the bosoms of their families. Laica, apparently a woman, denotes her "cases" by the appellation Mrs. X, Mr. Y, and other alphabetical devices. She inveighed against the practice of divorce wherein children are affected in these words: "The heart of all parenthood must throb with a great pity at the thought of the children of such second marriages as we have spoken of, as the heart of all lovers aches with pity for those whose love light has faded and left behind only unendurable fetters. But the children, ah, the children have come with no volition and have no redress, and their rights are only the rights we give them, and they cannot claim them for themselves."· 8

It will be noted later that this intense concern with the fate of children of divorced parents had its counterpart in novels on divorce. At a later period, this argument against divorce was one of the last to give way before the onslaughts of individualism and modern science. Many people who sanctioned easy divorce for people without children, as for instance, Judge Lindsey and Bertrand Russell, found themselves admitting the right of the state to place obstacles in the way of married people who had become parents. It is only within very recent years that a small and vocal group has come to insist that children may suffer less under conditions of divorce than in a normally constituted family wherein friction is constant. The views of Laica, cited above, represented a strong defense of average morality against the encroachments of individualism and the ways of change in familial relations. ·' Laica, "Children's Side of Divorce," Outlook, Vol. 70, pp. 478-480. " Ibid., p. 479.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

61

Elizabeth Carpenter wrote in 1905 on "Marriage and Divorce" that: "Man in the past originated government, law and religious institutions; if, then, he voluntarily organized certain forces to restrain, to govern and to stimulate his moral nature into free play, can we not trust him now to work out his future problems without the old, hard severities which time has shown to be actual mistakes?"··

Thus was asserted the belief in man's ability to work out solutions to his problems and his destiny without recourse to ancient teachings and institutions. This view sounded a new note of hope and optimism as regards man's ability to make his way in the world, secure in his sense of his own power rather than in the fear of unknown gods and inviolate institutions. The Congress on Uniform Marriage and Divorce Laws The 20th century' brought no abatement of interest in marriage and its alleged enemy—divorce—as was manifested by the convening of the Congress on Uniform Marriage and Divorce Laws in Washington, D. C., in February, 1906.70 Governor Pennypacker of Pennsylvania was the guiding spirit of this congress and it had the support of President Theodore Roosevelt. Rev. Samuel W. Dike, Secretary of the National Divorce Reform League, was a moving spirit in this congress and saw more clearly than others that a Federal law, if such could be enacted, might result in a higher divorce rate than otherwise. The congress came to the important decision, after consultation with legal authorities, that a Federal law was not feasible and that efforts to secure the passage of a constitutional amendment would fail. A statement was issued as to how states might draw up divorce statutes and attempt to obtain a modicum of uniformity in procedure, but the congress failed to agree on any means of regulating divorce by Federal action. This issue of uniform divorce laws continues to be argued and, as late as the past decade, bills were introduced into Congress to bring about the ·· North American Review, Vol. 181, p. 133, 1905. " J . P. Lichtenberger, Divorce, 1931, p. 190.

62

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

passage of a Federal law regulating the conditions of divorce. The subject has not been allowed to grow cold for lack of discussion. Studies of Divorce The world of scholarship has not been inactive on the subject of marriage and divorce in the United States. Willcox published an important statistical study of divorce 71 in 1891 and set a pattern for other similar studies. When Howard published his monumental work, A History of Matrimonial Institutions, in 1904 the field of scholarship was supplied with an extensive study of the history and development of both law and practice with reference to matrimonial institutions. Howard's great work was particularly valuable to students of the subject in that it gave the first thorough treatment of marriage and divorce laws in the United States from the founding of the country until the 20th century. This was made possible by Howard's use of the session laws and court records, which had lain unexplored until then. In 1909 Lichtenberger 72 published a statistical and sociological analysis of divorce in the United States and made a sound contribution to current understanding of the phenomenon of divorce in this new and developing country. In an enlarged and revised form, this study was issued in 1931.71 The eclecticism of his approach was in sharp contrast to most earlier works which were moralistic or doctrinaire. Shortly after the war, Calhoun 74 provided students and interested laymen with the most comprehensive study as yet made of the American family and threw much light on the course of development of this basic institution. In the next two decades Cahen, Mowrer, Folsom, Waller, Bossard, Burgess and other academic sociologists studied the 71 Walter F. Willcox, The Divorce Problem—A Study in Statistics, Columbia University Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, 1891, Vol. I. " J . P. Lichtenberger, Divorce—A Study in Social Causation, New York, 1909, Columbia University Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, Vol. 35. " J . P. Lichtenberger, Divorce—A Social Interpretation, 1931. " A r t h u r W. Calhoun, Social History of the American Family, 3 vols., Cleveland, 1919.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

63

phenomenon of family disorganization and made valuable additions to the growing body of data on the subject. 75 Psychologists, psychoanalysts, social workers and judges of courts of domestic relations became interested in the fact of frequent divorce. This led serious students to an examination of the institution of the family, of marriage and the social setting in which these human relations function. The influence of scholarly and professional groups slowly permeated the social order by means of popular writings, lectures, books and classes, so that the public mind has developed a degree of understanding of divorce as a social phenomenon. The march of public opinion has been greatly affected by the work of scholars and writers in this field. It is probable that this influence has been greatest among the middle classes and stronger among the Protestant and non-church groups than among Catholics. As an indication of the present ambivalent attitude of public opinion towards divorce the statement by Robert and Helen Lynd in Middle town in Transition presents a neat summary; say the Lynds: " T h e truth of the matter appears to be that God-fearing Middletown is afraid of sex as a force in its midst, afraid it might break loose and run wild, and afraid to recognize too openly (italics mine) that those whom God hath joined together can be mismated. In theory therefore, it averts its eyes and talks about marriage as a 'sacred institution,' while daily in the courtrooms its business lawyers work in the matter-of-fact spirit of their world of personal contractual relations." 7 ' *

Studies of Public Opinion on Divorce Techniques have developed within recent years for sampling public opinion in connection with predicting political campaign results. This sampling technique has been applied to the opinions 74 See Cahen, A Statistical Analysis of Divorce; Mowrer, Family Disorganization; Folsom, The Family; Waller, The Old Love and the New; Bossard and Dillon, " T h e Spatial Distribution of Divorced Women—A Philadelphia S t u d y , " American Journal of Sociology, Vol. XL, pp. 469-482; and Burgess, " T h e Family as a Unity of Interacting Personalities," The Family, Vol. 7, No. 1, March, 1926. 7 · Middletown in Transition, p. 162. * Reprinted by permission of Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York.

64

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

of the "women of America" on marriage and divorce by representatives of one of the leading women's magazines, The Ladies' Home Journal, and published in the February, 1938 issue of this periodical." The basis of the sampling was not given, so the adequacy of the study cannot be estimated. It is probable that the findings of the poll have some value as representing the opinion on divorce of women who read this magazine. Quoting the report in brief the following results stand out: "A majority of women of America believe: in divorce; 69 per cent yes. In the desirability of a Uniform Law: 94 per cent yes. That money is the chief source of friction in marriage; that in-laws cause relatively little trouble between husband and wife; that the grounds for divorce should be—in the order named—adultery, desertion, cruelty, habitual drunkenness, failure to provide, venereal disease contracted before marriage, drug or dope habit; that girls should not marry with a mental reservation that divorce can free them." 7 »

This poll noted only slight differences in opinions on the above issues as determined by residence in large cities, small towns or on farms. Slight variation existed as determined by the individual's possession of an annual income of more or less than fifteen hundred dollars a year. However, the greatest discrepancy in answers occurred between Catholic and others, and between replies of women who had been divorced and those who had not. Variations were marked in terms of answers from different age groups. Those over forty-five gave what would be considered "conservative" replies much more frequently than the younger women. However, the trends of this poll are not corroborated by the figures obtained by the Fortune magazine poll 7 · of April, 1937. This poll covered a wide range of opinions on political, economic and social issues. On the question, "Do you think there should be easy divorce laws so that it would not be so expensive and troublesome to dissolve an unhappy marriage?" the answers " Ladies' Home Journal, February, 1938, pp. 14, 15, 82, 83, 84, 85. '· Ibid., p. 14. '· Fortune, p. 202, April, 1937.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

65

were: yes 28.3 per cent; no 54.3 per cent; no divorce allowed 10.8 per cent and don't know 6.6 per cent. Apparently the groups sampled by these two polls are quite at variance in their attitudes towards divorce. This difference only serves to emphasize the wide distribution of views on divorce and the fact that marriage and divorce mores are still in a state of flux. The Divorce Confessional An extremely significant aspect of the slow drift of public opinion towards acceptance of divorce is to be found in the occasional confessional articles which appear in the domestic and class magazines. These began to appear around 1910 when Reno, Nevada, became the migratory divorce center of the country and deprived Sioux Falls, South Dakota, of this title. Articles of this type were published by Hearst's International and The Ladies' Home Journal.*0 In the decades of the 1920's and 30's these literary elaborations of divorce experience became more numerous and Harper's Magazine carried several items of this nature. The general trend of these articles is perhaps another evidence of the gradual change in a section of public opinion on divorce and marriage. It was particularly significant, in the estimation of the writer, that in February, 1938, Harper's carried an article with the title, "Can Divorce Be Successful?" 81 the general purport of which was that divorce, while a painful experience to those involved, was the only constructive way of solving certain situations and might, therefore, be regarded as successful in accomplishing a desired end. The writer of this article—an educated woman of the upper middle classes, mother of several children—says in the conclusion of her confession: "Divorce cannot function for good unless the people involved are aware

,0 Ladies' Home Journal, "What I Went Through as a Divorced Woman," Vol. 29, p. 12, March, 1912; Hearst Magazine, Vol. 21, pp. 2392-2403, June, 1912. 81 Harper's, No. 1053, February, 1938, pp. 255-262.

66

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

of the constructive uses to which it may be put and will do their part to subordinate their own pride, spite and desire for revenge to the needs of others."*'*

The following statement from the same article is an indication that the popular mind has at last understood what sociologists have been saying in print for two decades: "Divorce is not the cause of a broken home; it is the outward and visible symbol of the wreckage. It is the legal recognition of the actual dissolution of the marriage."··

It is a far cry from the concluding paragraph of this confession to the characterization by Judge Noah Davis of divorce as presented above. Representative of modern acceptance of divorce, the author writes: "In short, divorce is like an ugly surgical operation. It is never to be taken lightly. It is painful. It can cripple for life—indeed, it can cripple not only those who are cut apart by it but their children too. Yet as a successful surgical operation can save life and restore health, so can divorce save a family. That is its only justification."· 4

The orientation, values and ways of thinking of the authors of these two statements are far apart and they can hardly be said to speak the same language even though they share a common tongue. The issue of Harper's in which the "Can Divorce Be Successful?" article appeared was followed by one containing an amusing and interesting sketch by a young girl under the title, "I'll Take My Parents Separately." 86 In this presumed autobiography the young writer tells the story of the familial troubles in which she was embroiled and of her pleasure at finding this discord * Quotations from Harper's Magazine are reprinted by permission of Harper & Brothers, Publishers, New York. »Ibid., p. 262. M Ibid., p. 261. μ Ibid., p. 262. »Gretchen, "I'll Take My Parents Separately," Harper's, No. 1054, pp. 441-444, March, 1938.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

67

removed by divorce. She visited both her parents, found them more pleasant people and was able to enjoy better emotional relations with them after they were divorced. This unusual adolescent sums up the advantages, in her particular case, of being a child of divorced parents, by stating that: "In the first place you do not take happy marriages for granted . . . Second, after divorce you make more friends . . . if your parents live apart each has a very different set of friends . . . Third, if you have had a divorce in the family you learn to feel at home in time and space.""

The sage "Miss" concludes her reflection by saying: " I t is very good t o learn these things young. They will help you later if you should fall in love with someone who is not in love with y o u . " "

Another anonymous divorcee writes in the April, 1938 issue of Harper's from the wisdom of two divorces and three marriages.88 She reflects on her two divorces and finds the causes to have been emotional immaturity, youth, and a deep-rooted desire in people to remake their married partners after their own images. This writer uses the surgical conception of divorce and speaks of the divorcing process as one of amputation. The use of these concepts falls neatly within the Freudian symbolism of castration but this is not noticed by the authors of these confessions. In summary, the writer makes the following observations on the ways of divorce: "Trapped in irresoluble situations men and women commit actions much more dangerous to the social order than divorce. The only remedy lies in an individual and public opinion which would regard divorce with the seriousness with which we regard amputation—a last resort to save life, b u t if necessary no obstacles should be placed in the way. I think such opinion is growing, but it is a very slow growth, for though we can all imagine how tragic it must be to lose an arm or a leg, unfortunately it takes more experience and sensibility to realize how tragic it is to amputate a partner in marriage."*·

* Ibid., p. 444. "Ibid. " A n o n y m o u s , "Thrice Married," Harper's, April, 1938, pp. 545-553.

" Ibid.,'p. 550.

68

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

It remains but to say that in the public mind divorce is generally accepted as an institutional arrangement even though with regret by many. Public opinion has changed in that, with the exception of orthodox Catholics, marriage is regarded increasingly as a human, social institution which, accordingly, can be dissolved by action of civil society. Divorce is viewed more as a personal arrangement between individuals and less as a matter in which general society is concerned. This last is complicated by the presence or absence of children. Along with this general trend of opinion on divorce there exists a body of opinion, Catholic and otherwise, which rejects and deplores divorce. The trend of divorce will probably continue upward and this will probably bring wider acceptance of the propriety of divorce. It appears that men and women in the United States are experimenting, in a costly and slow manner, with new institutional arrangements for living together under the complex conditions of modern life.

CHAPTER EARLY DIVORCE

III NOVELS

1858-1887 The appearance of the first divorce novels by an American author in 1858 and 1865 coincides with two related and contemporaneous sets of factors which illuminate the relation of the divorce novel to social conditions. These factors are the divorce situation in the United States in the 1850 decade and the stage of development of the American novel at that time. The increase in the number of divorces, 1 laxness of laws in defining grounds and careless court proceedings 2 became obvious in the 1850's and led to a rising concern for the institution of marriage. As indicated earlier, the first articles on divorce began to appear in the 1850's, so far as can be established. 3 The exchange of letters in the New York Tribune between Greeley and Owen in the year 1860 served to focus greater attention on the question of divorce. That the newspapers of these and even earlier years had commented on the topic is attested by Carlier's4 citation of editorials and articles on the increasing number of divorces in the Philadelphia Ledger, the Cincinnati Sun, the New York Herald and the Boston Journal in the 1850's. The year 1849 provided the country with a divorce scandal in the suit of Pierce Butler against Fanny Kemble Butler, and two years later the Forrest divorce case attracted attention all along the eastern seaboard. 5 Other well-known cases occurred during the 1850's so that the public had seen enough of divorce to be familiar with its less pleasant aspects. The Greeley-Owens correspondence in the Tribune had attracted much attention and provoked wide discussion. The feminists were pushing the cause of marriage reform and Lucy Stone had married Dr. Henry B. Blackwell, requiring the omission of the word "obey" from the 1 See Chap. I, this studv, p. 24. «Calhoun, op. cit., 11:45 f. s See Chap. II, this study, p. 35. 4 A. Carlier, Marriage in the United States, p. 177 ff. ' See Bibliography, Section 5, B.

70

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

marriage ceremony and retaining her maiden name after the wedding. Thus public interest in divorce and marriage increased during the fifties and sixties until the Civil War took precedence over all other issues. With reference to the American novel, the element called "realism" entered American literature as early as the 1850's. This uncertain entrance was made through a curious marriage of fiction to the spirit of moral reform. Fish has noted that literature was placed under a sort of bondage to reform propaganda in the period prior to the Civil War.6 Such writers as T. S. Arthur, Lydia Sigourney and John G. Whittier devoted much of their talent to the cause of temperance and wrote tracts and poems for the temperance magazines. In 1855 T. S. Arthur produced his long-famous Ten Nights in a Barroom, which took the country by storm and became the most famous temperance drama written and produced in the United States. Harriet Beecher Stowe astonished the world with her Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852 and was herself amazed by the reception of the book, which became a best-seller of American fiction. The literary treatment of social conditions, and the outburst of moral indignation at such social ills as intemperance and slavery, gave a direction and purpose to literature previously lacking. Literature was supposed to have a purpose beyond that of artistic expression. Here the moral fervor of Puritanism and the idealism nourished by such men as Emerson furnished the emotional roots for the reform movements which characterized the pre-Civil War period.7 Novelists were critics as well as proponents of social movements and Orestes Brownson wrote of Bayard Taylor's Hannah Thurston, 1863: "He takes off admirably the one-sidedness of the original Abolitionists, the folly of Fourierism, the vain pretensions and immoral tendencies of Mesmerism, Modern Spiritism and Free-lovism and discnurses at length, philosophically, politically and aesthetically on Women's Rights."* • C. R. Fish, The Rise of the Common Man, 1830-1850, p. 254. ' V. L. Parrington, The Romantic Revolution in America 1800-1860, Part 3. • Brownson's Quarterly Review, Vol. 21, p. 328, 1864.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

71

Under the guise of supporting moral reforms, fiction came into power as it never had before in American history. The literary forms of the early 19th century, such as the didactic essay, artificial poetry and idealistic romances, were gradually displaced by a literature which emphasized vital, contemporary issues in novels, stories and dramas. . Thus by the 1860 decade the stage was set for a treatment of divorce by the American novel. Two facts raise intriguing questions of historical interpretation in connection with the first divorce novels. The titles of the earliest novels thus far discovered are The Hand But Not the Heart, 1858, and Out in the World, 1865.' The author of both novels is T. S. Arthur, prolific writer and apt literary interpreter of social conditions. It may justifiably be inferred that the second novel was written during the Civil War, but it is curious that it does not mention the war even by inference or indirection. This fact is rather surprising but Cole has pointed out that both literature and the stage were in favor and patronized by people in the north during the prosecution of the war. 9 No articles on divorce appeared in the magazines indexed by Poole's during the war, while the novel cited above was probably written during the conflict and was published while it yet endured. Another point of interest lies in the fact that neither of Arthur's divorce novels is a literary preachment against divorce but rather they assail improper marriages, jealousy, and remarriage after divorce as leading to unfortunate consequences. The later divorce novels of the 1880 decade were strong preachments against lax divorce laws, courts, and against the evil presumably inherent in the very fact of divorce. Arthur had written novels dealing with domestic affairs as early as 1855 when he published The Angel in the Household, in which he portrayed the effects on an inharmonious household of the introduction of a foundling into the quarreling group. Mrs. E. D. Ε. N. Southworth wrote The Missing Bride in 1855 and followed with several sentimental romances and stories of domestic life. A cartoon in Yankee Notions in 1866 depicts Mrs. »A. C. Cole, The Irrepressible Conflict, 1850-1865, Chap. 14.

72

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

Southworth, under a pseudonym, employed in writing novels containing many elopements, marriages and divorces, while her husband tries to quiet their children and the room is a domestic shambles. 10 From this it may be inferred that Mrs. Southworth may have included the divorce theme in her novels at about the same time that Arthur's two divorce novels were published. It has not been possible to locate any of Mrs. Southworth's novels which fall in the category of "divorce novels," though one or two have been found which treat desertion of wife by husband. The lack of any complete lists and collections of the works of both Mrs. Southworth and Arthur* makes it impossible to date exactly the year of publication of the demonstrably first divorce novel by either of these authors. Other writers may have written on divorce about this time, but evidence is lacking as to possible authors and titles. Serial fiction in newspapers and magazines which may have treated divorce has not been included in this study. Discussion of this omission will be found in the Note on Method at the end of this study. The plot of Arthur's The Hand But Not the Heart, 1858, concerns the marriage of Jessie Loring and Leon Dexter and the long unrewarded love of Paul Hendrickson for Jessie. Mrs. Loring is an aunt who has reared Jessie and who gives her cynical advice on success in the social world. The locale of the story is an eastern city, probably New York, and the social groups painted as background are upper middle class people seeking social position and a gay life. Jessie meets Leon Dexter and is temporarily impressed by his social prominence, manners and wealth, so that she becomes engaged to him without experiencing the conventional pangs of love. When she begins to doubt the wisdom of her engagement, the aunt insists that any good woman would keep her promise, since she is eager for Jessie to make a good marriage and considers Dexter an excellent matrimonial catch. Shortly after Jes" E . Douglas Branch, The Sentimental Years, 1836-1860, p. 215. *See article by Lyle H. Wright, "A Statistical Survey of American Fiction, 1774-1850," in Huntington Library Quarterly, Vol. II, No. 3, April, 1939.

Divorce and the American Divorce Navel, 1858-1937

73

sie's engagement to Dexter, Paul Hendrickson proposes to her only to be told sorrowfully that it is "too late." A friend of Jessie and Paul, one Mrs. Denison, tries to persuade Dexter to break the engagement on the grounds that Jessie actually loves Hendrickson and not him. He is enraged by this news, vows to go through with the marriage and becomes very jealous. The marriage occurs and Jessie and Leon Dexter enter a period of unhappy matrimony; Dexter is jealous of Jessie, who becomes a social favorite, develops wide interests and grows beyond his social and intellectual bounds. The married partners move about from one watering place and fashionable resort to another and always Dexter is jealous. He makes a violent scene when Paul and Jessie accidentally meet for a few, brief minutes. After a second such incident, Dexter accuses Jessie of arranging a meeting with Hendrickson. She is outraged at this insult to her honor, leaves him and returns to her aunt. T h e aunt, who now regrets encouraging Jessie to marry Dexter, refuses to allow Dexter to see his wife, accuses him of unreasonable demands on Jessie and defends her action. After futile efforts to communicate with Jessie, who retires from social life, Dexter finally goes abroad, remains there for two years, returns and obtains a divorce. The matter of obtaining the divorce is not treated in any detail and the grounds advanced are desertion. Dexter goes back to England and marries an English heiress. Jessie withdraws into her domestic sphere and refuses to see her former friends. When Paul Hendrickson learns of Dexter's divorce, he tells Mrs. Denison that now he will be able to marry Jessie, but the lady advises him not to make such a request of Jessie, in these words: " T o her, the act of divorce may give a feeling of relief. A dead weight is stricken from her limbs. She can walk and breathe more freely but she will not consider herself wholly untrammeled. Nor would I. The gulf that separates you is still impassable.""

After news comes of Dexter's remarriage, Hendrickson is con» T . S. Arthur, The Hand But Not the Heart, p. 288.

74

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

vinced that he is now free to approach Jessie with an offer of marriage, but again Mrs. Denison, the moral preceptress, advises him! " I f Jessie regards the conditions of divorce, given in Matthew, as binding, she is too pure and true a woman ever to violate them. All depends on that. She could not be happy with you, if her conscience were burdened with the conviction that your marriage was not legal in the divine sense. Don't you see that, in gaining her, you would sacrifice the brightest jewel in her crown of womanhood.""

It would be difficult to find a more orthodox statement of the sacramental nature of the marriage institution than is set forth in Mrs. Denison's advice to the eager and hopeful Paul Hendrickson. Hendrickson accepts the advice of Mrs. Denison, closes out his business affairs and goes away for a number of years, the while becoming purified spiritually. Jessie lives a quiet existence, remaining true to her conception of the divine nature of marriage, even when her former husband, divorced by law, but not by God, has remarried. The story ends with the return of Paul bringing news of the death of Dexter. Thus freed by act of God, Jessie considers herself free to marry again and she and Paul are united in the bonds of holy wedlock. The items of historical importance in this novel are: the occurrence of marriage in the "social set" on a bargaining basis, the emergence of women into a wider sphere of intellectual and social life, the ability of married people to obtain divorces without great difficulty in the 1850's and 1860's as well as the conventional ecclesiastical opposition to a second marriage. Material in Chapter II tends to the conclusion that a considerable portion of the population regarded a second marriage after divorce as contrary to the laws of God. Certainly this view held for several decades after the Civil War, even though many who divorced were married a second time. Data does not exist on which to estimate the proportion of the divorced who remarried as early as the 1860 decade. The churches generally took the position that only the innocent party to a divorce, obtained 11

Ibid., p. 293.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

75

on grounds of either adultery or desertion, was permitted to marry a second time. This view was altered only towards the turn of the century and has remained a troublesome point of theological discussion. Similarities will be noted between this novel and the next one t o be discussed, Out in the World* 1865. The jealousy of the male, the social and intellectual gifts of the woman, an active social life, the disapproval or dire results of divorced people remarrying, the serious illness into which the wife is precipitated by quarrels with the husband and the ennoblement of the characters who follow moral laws and accept pain as their lot—these attitudes and values stand forth clearly in both novels, and the second book adds additional insight into the historical picture of divorce. The plot of Out in the World is concerned with the marriage, estrangement and divorce of Carl Jansen and Madeline Spencer Jansen, middle class people of New York City, who were married in the conventional manner. Arthur emphasizes Carl's jealousy and sensitivity to public opinion, his strong tendency to conformity as opposed to Madeline's free, impetuous nature. She wishes social life, is gay and carefree, yet highly moral. After marriage Madeline finds t h a t Carl wishes to confine their life to their home while she pines for an active social life. Carl here exhibits the conventional belief that marriage means domesticity while Madeline is portrayed as being influenced by the new "women's rights" ideas that began to percolate through the social order in the 1850 decade. Carl finds that questionable males are beginning to seek his wife's company and overhears a doubtful conversation about his wife on the horse cars one d a y ; he indicates to Madeline that she should guard her reputation more carefully and she is highly insulted by his insinuations. At a party Carl becomes inflamed with jealousy and orders Madeline t o accompany him home; she refuses and he leaves in high dudgeon. When Madeline hears of his departure, she avails herself of the then permissible device of fainting and is seriously ill for weeks. Madeline returns home and the estrangement con*I am indebted to Dr. Alexander Cowie of Wesleyan University for this title.

76

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

tinues until, two years after their marriage, Carl orders Madeline to cease attending teas at the home of one Mrs. Woodbine, where he feels she is under undesirable influences. Madeline refuses to obey him and leaves home. Her letter to Carl indicates the social conventions which apparently were the basis of her revolt and reflect Arthur's awareness of the feminist currents of his times. Madeline wrote: " M y husband— . . . . . . My heart turns back, fain to linger in the sheltered home where it took up two years ago its rest in peace and joy. But, you have dictated the only terms on which I can remain in this home. I must be inferior and obedient. You must be lord, and I serf. The free will that God gave me, I must lay at your feet. Alas, for me, I cannot thus submit. As your equal, I can walk by your side, true as steel to honor, virtue, purity and love; as your inferior there can be no dwelling together in the same house . . . Madeline""

Pride prevents both Carl and Madeline from seeking out the other and Madeline goes to her friends, among whom she is received with mixed emotions when it is learned that she has left her husband. She becomes desperately ill and falls into the clutches of a female mesmerist who tries to subject her to her will. Madeline resists and escapes the woman and attempts to make her living by public appearance on the lecture platform. She fails in this and becomes a nurse and domestic, gradually losing her beauty and health. She falls desperately ill. During this time Carl Jansen has retained his inflexible belief that his wife must relent and return to his home. When she fails to do so, he secures a divorce on grounds of desertion and remarries. His second wife is depicted as a coarse, shrewish person with whom he is very unhappy. Prior to his second marriage he sought the hand of a fine respectable woman of good family and Arthur puts these words into her mouth, as she replies to his proposal of marriage, as evidence of the contemporary conventional attitude towards divorce and remarriage: ,s

T . S. Arthur, Out in the World, pp. 63-64.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

77

" S i r , " she answered sternly, "have I not once said 'no.' Mr. Jansen, others may think as they please, but I regard an offer of marriage from you as little better than an insult. Do you understand m e ? " "

Jansen attempts to argue, and Miss Williams expresses the conventional sentiments on marriage as a sacrament: "God's law is above all human law. What God joins, it is put asunder until divine law works a separation. I have not is so in your case. You gave in no plea but that of desertion; to no annulling of the marriage bond in the sight of heaven. of marriage sends a shudder through my soul.""

not for man to heard that this and this works Sir, your offer

In his second marriage Carl Jansen is unhappy and, like Madeline, falls ill. He eventually tries to find her to make some financial provision for her. He fails and they both die about the same time, Madeline having remained pure and developed an almost ethereal character through her sufferings. Jansen regrets his early harshness and brings on an early death through his attempt to see Madeline. Arthur expresses again the conventional sentiments on marriage permanence in this closing paragraph. "When day broke again, two white faces, and two shrouded forms, lay in separate dwellings, far apart, and there was no external bond between them, but, in the new morning that broke for their chastened souls, who will say that they stood not close together?" 1 ·

The Hand But Not the Heart and Out in the World are important in that they are the first divorce novels thus far found which treat divorce as an important theme involving American characters in the American scene. Again, these novels are an indication of the manner in which the novel has been a reflector of social usage and of change in attitudes and values. Public concern over divorce became articulate in magazines and newspapers just a decade earlier. It is worthy of note that the next " Ibid., p. 208. " Ibid. "Ibid., p. 312.

78

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

divorce novel of which we have knowledge is Howells' A Modern Instance, which was published in 1881 in serial form and appeared in book form in 1882. Arthur's divorce novels provide a theory of causation of the divorce, trace the process and state the results. In the latter he is most conventional and least unique. Here he followed the path of the novelist who was tolerated and read only so long as he used plots which taught acceptable moral and ethical lessons. From this viewpoint his books are polemics against hasty marriages, divorce, and male jealousy and dominance. On this matter Arthur appears to have been in sympathy with the feminists of his time. An important historical fact is that Arthur treated in summary fashion the actual legal process of obtaining a divorce. This accords with other evidence which indicates that divorce laws were poorly drawn and court proceedings very lax in many states during the 1850's and 60's.17 This monograph is concerned with analysis of divorce novels, but brief mention must be made here of a divorce drama which intervenes between The Hand But Not the Heart, 1858, and Howells' A Modern Instance, which appeared twenty-three years later. The drama is entitled Divorce and is the work of Augustin Daly. It was acted for the first time at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on September 5, 1871, and was published by the author in 1884. Though little known as dramatic literature, it is valuable in understanding the development of the divorce institution in the United States. Daly's play treats of the upper middle class groups of New York City who are concerned with social conventions, a pleasant and easy existence, and the uncertain course of romantic love in this environment. Social usage and manners play a large part in providing necessary backgrounds for the plot. Briefly, Alfred Adrianse returns from a world cruise to marry a former love, Miss Fanny Ten Eyck, daughter of socially conscious Mrs. Ten Eyck, who tries to make advantageous marriages for all her daughters. A male of uncertain status, Captain Lynde, is a too frequent visitor at the Adrianse home and Mr. " See Chap. I, this study, p. 19 ff.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

79

Adrianse objects to the Captain's presence in his home. Mrs. Adrianse is angered; they quarrel and the entire family and dramatis personae are drawn into the matter. Adrianse steals his child from the mother's care and takes I um to an estate in Florida. The wife follows and her mother, unknown to her, obtains a court commitment for her husband on grounds of insanity. The child is recovered and the husband committed to an institution from which he is subsequently released. The wife, Fanny, eventually sees that her headstrong refusal to avoid the company of Captain Lynde has been responsible for all the difficulty and soliloquizes to herself: " I s it possible that I have permitted my husband's happiness to depend upon my encouragement of such a man as t h i s ? " "

More important to the student of social history is the depiction of the interview of the Divorce Lawyer Jitt with impulsive and unworldly Lu De Witt, who wishes a divorce to rid herself of her aged husband. J i t t : "Well, hem, I've procured about a thousand divorces in my time and you are the first lady who didn't want one in order to marry somebody else." 1 ·

On the question of settlement Jitt says: "With your appearance, ma'am, I think I could guarantee more; if you'll come into court, I think, I could make it fifteen (thousand annually). W h a t a splendid figure, Burritt, to fling at a jury, e h ? " "

Mrs. Ten Eyck, who sent Jitt to Lu De Witt, characterizes Jitt as "some wretch who advertizes in the papers to secure divorces without publicity." 21 This reflection of customs and practices of divorce lawyers in the literature of this period is an interesting and important corroboration of the changes in public attitudes noted in an earlier chapter. It is also an inter18

A. Daly, Divorce, p. 51. " Ibid., p. 35. » Ibid. " Ibid., p. 25.

80

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

esting fact to be related to the publication of a pamphlet on How to Get a Divorce, in New York City in 1859. T h a t the topic of divorce continued to interest T. S. Arthur after the publication of his two divorce novels previously analyzed is attested by a short story on divorce contained in a collection of stories on marriage called Orange Blossoms, 1871.° As with Daly's play Divorce of the same year, brief comment will be made here on this story to complete the historical picture, even though this work is not a novel. The story is entitled "Marrying a Beauty" and opens with the ominous words: "Don't do it, . Take my advice and don't do it." 23 An uncle thus warns his nephew against marrying a certain Florence Ware and asseverates: "Beauty is too often a false signal . . . it is only a veil, not a representation." The nephew questions his uncle who, to convince him, tells of his youthful infatuation for a beautiful girl, his marriage, gradual disenchantment with his bride, her falseness, his hardness of heart, their quarrels and her suit for a divorce. The uncle describes the divorce actions in the following words: "At the end of a year I was notified that an application for divorce had been made. I did not employ counsel, nor in any manner respond to the notice. A time for the hearing of the case was appointed. It was heard and decided on the evidence produced, which was made to bear unfavorably on me. The divorce was granted, with alimony. I was ordered to pay her the sum of twelve hundred dollars a year dating from the time of separation, so long as she refrained from marriage."'4

He continues with the information that his former wife remarried. A few years later he chanced upon his former wife, her husband and their child at a summer resort. In the child he saw evidences of the same fatal and false beauty that was her mother's. When the second husband learned that his wife had previously been married, she became mentally unbalanced and was committed to an institution. The story ends with the " T . S. Arthur, Orange Blossoms, Philadelphia, 1871, Chap. 20. *» Ibid., p. 266. M Ibid., p. 324.

Divorce and the American

Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

81

disclosure that the Florence Ware, whom his nephew wishes to marry, is none other than the daughter of his former wife, possessed of the same fatal and untrustworthy beauty. The nephew is impressed by his uncle's tale and avoids a marriage based on the fascination of beauty. This story bears the impress of several devices that Arthur used in developing his plots: a beautiful wife, a trusting and hide-bound husband, adequate financial means of both parties, the wife's desire for a gay social life and the husband's yearning for the quiet of domesticity, relatives and friends who advise too much and the final, terrible consequences of remarriage after a divorce. In passing from Arthur's novels of 1858,1865 to Daly's play and Arthur's story of 1871 to Howells' novel in 1881 the scarcity of divorce fiction should be emphasized. It is possible that the prolific Mrs. Southworth may have written divorce serials or novels during the decade of the 1870's as well as during the previous decade. However, such works have not been found and the period from 1871 to 1881 appears to be barren of divorce novels and possibly of plays and dramas as well. With the ascendancy of the middle classes after the Civil War 2 * came the spread of bourgeois morality, which comprehended a concern for the institutions of the family, marriage and divorce. The rising divorce rate had become a matter of importance as early as I860 26 but the war had interrupted any great amount of attention to this topic. After the war, the guardians of morality turned their attention to the question of the basic institution of the family and found it apparently threatened by the spectre of divorce. It was during the decade of the seventies and eighties that the liberal clauses of divorce statutes were revoked and that divorce legislation was tightened. 27 The strength of ethical and moral sanctions surrounding the family and marriage in the United States became apparent. The American scene was ready for a novel which would poru Charles A. and Mary R. Beard, The Rise of American Civilization, Book II, p. 206 f. and p. 398 ff. " See the exchange of letters between Horace Greeley and Robert Dale Owen in Recollections of a Busy Life. " See Chapter I, this study, p. 21 f.

82

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

tray the divorce situation as it actually existed and would comprehend the views of both the opponents and the supporters of liberal divorce laws. Divorce provided a significant situation with great literary possibilities. In fact in 1886 the Church Review wrote that: "The question of divorce is as natural a theme for fiction as it would be easy to suggest. Mormon novels, labor novels, Indian-wrong novels and most other novels written in the spirit of philanthropy rather than in the spirit of novel-writing are wont, we know, to be more successful as philippics than as fiction. But the novelist, being under the necessity to treat the passion of love in some of its phases, finds himself on his own ground in dealing with the temptation which, under our scandalous laws, must be growing daily more common, to break the marriage bond, for the sake of an unlawful l o v e . " "

The publication of A Modern Instance by W. D. Howells in 1881 provided the first full-length divorce novel of merit. Its reception by critics is testimony to the popular interest in the subject as well as of Howells' literary craftmanship. The Century Magazine, in which A Modern Instance appeared in serial form, says in a laudatory passage: " . . . we are inclined to believe that since 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' there has appeared no American work of fiction having a stronger aTld wider moral bearing, or of greater power to affect public sentiment . . . They (its teachings) are not likely to have so definite an influence as the inspiration of a Presidential party. They are not even concerned directly with human laws. They are addressed to the hearts and consciences of men and women in all grades of society and in all parts of the country. The effects of these teachings, therefore, can hardly be so immediate or so tangible as in the case of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'; but we are sure that they will be pervasive, lasting and salutary.""

The plot of this work is neither complicated nor ingenious but Howells has created real characters, woven in social usage, attitudes and conventions and infused the tale with a moral and ethical element that produced a powerful novel. His insight " The Church Review, Vol. 48, p. 392, July-December, 1886. «· The Century, Vol. 24, p. 940.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

83

was remarkable in anticipating some of the views of modern psychology concerning marital relations. Howells, as was his wont, saw the separation and divorce of his characters as a moral issue which loomed larger than the immediate social conditions such as easy divorce laws and customs of the day. The plot turns on the love and elopement of Marcia Gaylord, daughter of hard-bitten Yankee Squire Gaylord, with Bartley Hubbard, rising young newspaper man in a small Maine town in the 1870's. Marcia is infatuated with Bartley, who is an engaging young chap desirous of getting on in the world. He is not a strong character nor yet a particularly weak one. He wishes success to come easily, dislikes continuous struggle and is selfish in his orientation toward all other people. Morally, he is portrayed as at least neutral. His fondness for Marcia is a limited one and he regards her as an appendage, to be humored and treated well up to a point. After a quarrel, Bartley starts to leave town, when Marcia breaks away and joins him. They elope, are married and go to Boston. Marcia has cast her lot with Bartley and is loyally willing to undergo the hardships which she dimly perceives are ahead. Bartley leisurely starts to find a job, does so and becomes a newspaper editor. He finds that Marcia becomes trying with her jealousy of his attention to any other woman and resentful of his slighting her in innumerable small ways. They take a house and become parents. Marcia is absorbed in her domestic routine and Bartley is bored; he spends more time at his clubs, takes to gambling, shady friends and places. They quarrel and one day, in a fit of anger, Marcia takes her baby and leaves the house. She returns in half an hour and, to her consternation, finds Bartley gone. No word comes from Bartley and for two years Marcia mourns him as one dead, the while desperately believing that he will return some time. During the years of their residence in Boston, she and Bartley have been intimately associated with the Hallecks, a well-bred and wealthy Boston family. Ben Halleck, the only son, has fallen in love with Marcia but has never indicated his attitude to her. He takes a trip around the world in an attempt to forget her, returns to find his emotions as strong as ever towards Mar-

84

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

cia and is in a quandary. While Marcia awaits Bartley's return, there suddenly appears a newspaper from an Indiana town bearing notice of Bartley's suit for divorce and Marcia is distraught. Ben Halleck and her father rally to her support, go to the town where the hearing is to be held and file a counter suit. T h e speech of Marcia's father, the old Squire, in the courtroom is a moving passage and the tension of the occasion later leads to his death from apoplexy. T h e question of the divorce is left in the air, and Marcia returns to her childhood home. Ben Halleck enters the ministry and Bartley fades out of the scene to die at the hands of a gunman in Arizona. T h e story is powerful and moving; it acts as a vehicle through which Howells raises questions about divorce which were in the minds of thoughtful people of that day and time. Through Halleck and his lawyer friend Atherton, he probes the divergent views ο the times in these words: " 'Oh,' said Atherton, compassionately, 'has that poison got into you, Halleck? You might ask her to marry you, if she were a widow: but, how will you ask her, if she's still a wife, to get a divorce and then marry you? How will you suggest that to a woman whose constancy to her mistake has made her sacred to you? . . . Have you really come back here to give your father's honest name, and the example of your own blameless life, in support of conditions that tempt people to marry with a mental reservation, and that weaken every marriage bond with the guilty hope of escape whenever a fickle mind, or a secret lust or wicked will may dictate?'

Halleck replies to Atherton in these words, and here Howells balances the current arguments of his times: "When you ask me to believe that I oughtn't to try to rescue a woman from the misery to which a villain has left her, simply because some justice of the peace consecrated his power over her, I decline to be such a fool. I use my reason and I see who it was that defiled and destroyed that marriage and I know that she is as free in the sight of God as if he had never lived . . . I will take my chances with the men and women who have been honest enough to own their mistake and to try to repair it, and I • ill preach by my life that marriage has no sanctity but what love gives it, and that " Howells, A Modern Instance, pp. 450-451. * Quotations from A Modern Instance are reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

85

when that love ceases marriage ceases, before heaven. If the laws have come to recognize that, so much the better for the laws.""

The above exchange of views might be regarded as the fictionalized portrayal of the controversy on divorce carried on between Elizabeth Cady Stanton, ardent feminist, and Judge Noah Davis in their articles in the North American Review in the year 1884. A few years later the Church ReviewK remarked editorially that: "The theme (divorce) has been of late much in favor among American novelists, but Mr. Howells' Ά Modern Instance' remains the most successful embodiment of the matter in the form of fiction, being in treatment at once strictly artistic and rigidly moral."*

Court-room scenes in novels are rare and the stirring one in which old Squire Gaylord appears as defending lawyer for his daughter, Marcia, is an effective device for portraying divorce procedure of the time as well as an excellent dramatic situation. A wide gap exists between this court-room scene and the self-centered one painted by Ursula Parrott in her Ex-Wife, a divorce novel of the 1920's. The Squire never liked Bartley and his hatred flares out in this passage from his fatal courtroom speech. He has asked the court to set aside Bartley's suit based upon unproved grounds of abandonment and continues: " . . . and I shall ask leave to file her cross-petition for divorce. Then, may it please the court, upon rendition of judgment in our favor upon that petition—a result of which I have no more doubt than of my own existence—I shall demand under your law the indictment of yonder perjurer for his crime and I shall await in security the sentence which shall consign him to a felon's garb."«

Here the Squire was confounded by the ways of a woman's mind and heart when Marcia, forsaken and hurt, cries out: " Ibid., pp. 451-452. » Church Review, Vol. 48, p. 392, July-December, 1886. 33 Howells, op. ext., p. 503. •Other titles are: C. Fennimore, East Angels, 1886; A. R. Macfarlane, Children of the Earth, 1886; M. G. McClelland, Princess, 1886. These titles do not meet my criteria of "divorce novels."

86

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

"Never. Let him go. I will not have it. I don't understand. I never meant to harm him. Let him go. It is my cause and I say . . . " M

The Squire was stunned and collapsed in an apoplectic seizure which ultimately led to his death. Several novels written about this time deal with marital difficulties, estrangement and husband-wife discord, but solve their problems by some way other than the legal severance of the marital bond." Reconciliation, separate living quarters and psychological separation with physical and legal proximity were the solutions held to until Howells took his characters into the divorce court. His artistic ability and personal integrity made this step on his part all the more important in the use of the divorce theme in American novels. Howells has crowded into this able work the social currents of his time on marriage and divorce and shown insight into the weakness of individuals such as Bartley and Marcia. The latter is portrayed as a jealous and narrow-souled person, for all her quiet conformity to the wife and mother role. The mounting conflict of views of people as honest and intelligent as Ben Halleck and Atherton, his lawyer friend, are clearly and movingly set forth. A Modern Instance remains one of the better studies of this type of domestic tragedy. The same year that brought out A Modern Instance in book form gave Margaret Lee's Divorce to those interested in the theme of divorce in fiction. The characters are not clearly drawn and the plot is poorly developed in this novel. However, the book was widely read*4 and was published in England in 1889. No less a person than Prime Minister W. E. Gladstone reviewed the book in the Nineteenth Century Magazine in these words: " I t is with great gallantry as well as with great ability that Margaret Lee has ventured to combat in the ranks on what must now be taken as the

"Ibid. a

See titles, p. 85, note. * This book was published in a 20-cent edition and was later issued with a slightly different title in England in 1889.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

87

unpopular side, and has indicated her belief in a certain old-fashioned doc· trine that the path of suffering may be not the path of duty only, but likewise the path of glory and of triumph for our race.""

The plot of Divorce is built around the unsuccessful marriage of Constance and Gilbert Travers. Constance is the noble, patient and religious daughter of a moderately wealthy, upper middle class family of the east. Gilbert is a rising young business man who is handsome, attractive, able and quite selfish in his relations with people. Gilbert is riding on the crest of an expanding economy and strikes a modern note in planning great "killings" in the market, the purchase of mining stock and a gay and fast life in a blossoming social order. This social background of expansion is important in the fabric of the novel. Constance has inherited a considerable amount of money and wishes to keep her funds in conservative real estate investments, in accord with her training and family practice. She believes in living well but simply and always within a budget. Gilbert, on the other hand, wishes to live with a splash and permits the morrow to care for itself. He goes deeply into debt and hounds Constance into turning over her inherited wealth to him so that he can make ready money in wild-cat mining stocks and pay bills which have accumulated. Gilbert likewise cultivates uncertain ladies who have new ideas that sound strangely like those of the feminists of their day. These ladies believe that marriage is a civil contract and no more. Gilbert prefers society to home and domesticity. Constance is absorbed in her children, the house and piety, even though she is a great beauty and sought after at parties, which she attends reluctantly. Their estrangement is traced and the picture drawn is that of Gilbert ruthlessly pushing matters towards a climax as he seeks satisfaction of his selfish urges while Constance yields to him in her deep-rooted belief that Christian piety and forbearance are her obligation. She permits him to pay attention to other women, to spend her money lavishly and suffers his coldness and neglect. She remonstrates on a very few occasions " W. E. Gladstone, The Nineteenth Century, Vol. 25, p. 213, 1889.

88

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

and he coldly tells her that there is a way out if she doesn't like her lot. Finally Gilbert disappears in an effort to force Constance to take action against him, but she steadfastly refuses and recoils with great abhorrence from the thought of divorce. Gilbert admits, during a quarrel, that he is dissatisfied with their marriage and has deliberately attempted to irritate and wound her so that she would be willing to divorce him. She still refuses to admit the idea of divorce in these words: "But, I am your wife—there is something in the tie that unites us, that you and I cannot break—I know it, I feel it. It would be the same—even if we had no children. If we separate, I shall always believe myself your wife in God's sight, always believe that you belong to me—no separation can divide us. The idea is shocking, terrible to me.""

Gilbert retorts to her with the words of the civil contract conception of marriage: "We take opposite views of marriage. It doesn't hold for me the sanctity that you ascribe to it. It is merely a contract and it should cease when its terms cannot be carried out." 39

They each remain wedded to their view of marriage and the possibility of ending the relation. Gilbert goes to Connecticut where he obtains an easy divorce (the Connecticut omnibus law was not repealed until 187840) and goes out west. Constance remains in the east, probably in New York City, and tries to start a school for young children to make her living. She clings to the idea that she is still married to Gilbert in the sight of the church even though their union has been dissolved legally. Thus the story of changed views of marriage, the position of women and the emerging role of the individual are brought out in this minor literary work. Its value as social history is considerable. It is interesting that this book was published in a M. Lee, Divorce, p. 378. " Ibid., p. 380. 40 Howard, op. cit., 111:13.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

89

twenty-cent edition and probably enjoyed considerable popularity. T h e fourth of the early divorce novels treated in this study is Divorced, by Madeline Vinton Dahlgren, 1887. In the foreword the author states t h a t the book is a tract against divorce. It is illustrative of a literary reaction against lax divorce laws and their effects. The influence of Gothic novels by such writers as Charles Brockden Brown is apparent in this story. It is a curious mixture of preachment, horror, and the impossible. The social backgrounds woven into the fabric of the novel are significant and important in tracing the development of the American divorce novel. T h e plot is thinly concocted to display all the evils and unfortunate results of divorce, with how much correspondence to facts it is difficult to say. In drawing character types, such as the divorce lawyer Sly, Mrs. Dahlgren wrote with factual support for her descriptions. 41 The device which Sly used to force uncooperative clients into an institution for the insane also has some historical support. 42 T h e plot is purely a vehicle for preaching and must be understood as such. T h e characters are poorly drawn and are not flesh and blood people. They are only a group of social symptoms clothed with names and traits. A fair and unsuspecting young girl, Paulina, has married one Neale Voland who is attractive and has played the role of the attentive and noble lover. An hour after their marriage, he t a u n t s her with the fact t h a t he is a divorced man and not a widower as she thought. She is indignant and leaves him immediately, since she is a person of high morals. Paulina goes to one Sly, archetype of evil, grasping divorce lawyers, and seeks a divorce from Neale Voland. Sly recommends t h a t he go to a place in the country during the proceedings and, like a true fiend, sends her to a place where Neale Voland's former wife is languishing in the last stages of illness. Paulina meets Miriam, the ex-wife, who dies in her arms when she learns t h a t she has 11 For example, see article by lawyer "Anonymous," "Divorce," Magazine, December 1856, pp. 630-635. a E. P. \V. Packard, Modern Persecution or Insane Asylums Hartford, Conn., 1873.

Putnam's Unveiled,

90

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

been divorced and has not been advised of the fact. Before dying Miriam bequeaths Neil, Jr., her son, to Paulina. Sly falls in love with Paulina and intends to have her sent to an insane hospital by Voland and plans to rescue her, thus winning her gratitude and hand. His assistant, Pry, overhearing these dastardly plans, manages to save Paulina and her adopted son Neil. Sly and Herman, Neale Voland's valet who is a strange mixture of esthete and left-wing socialist, are killed in the cellar of an old house where Sly keeps his victims, and their death occurs under conditions symbolic of the fate which awaits those who violate the laws of God. Dungeons, piles of gold and clanking chains are the trappings of their death scene and the author goes to ludicrous extremes in her attempt to make their deaths harrowing and gruesome. Voland, when he learns of their death, dies of an apoplectic seizure. Pry, a reformed character, marries Paulina, who is eligible through widowhood and not divorce, and the tale flows into conventional channels. An explanation of the divorce in terms of causation is offered in that Neale Voland was a selfish man of the world, while his divorced wife was an invalid. Easy divorce laws made her the victim of his passions and cruelty. The divorce process is not developed as it was by Howells. The terrible results of divorce are graphically portrayed in the deaths of Voland, Sly and Herman. The book is a sermon against divorce, selfish and cruel men, divorce laws and corrupt lawyers. A few quotations from the text of the novel will indicate the sermonic nature of the artificial dialogue which develops the plot. Though Voland taunts Paulina after their wedding with the fact that he is a divorced man, she replies: " I was yours, I am so no longer. For, so help me God, I would sooner be the bride of death, than fill the place that by right belongs to any living woman."4*

Of divorce Mrs. Dahlgren has her pure and conventional heroine say in ringing tones: u

Μ. V. Dahlgren, Divorced, p. 21.

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel,

1858-J937

91

"Now you would have but the union of one at a time; one succeeding the other. This, to my apprehension, is worse than polygamy, for it is a tie liable to constant disruption." 44

When the unprincipled Sly inquires of Paulina what abuses Voland has done to her which would constitute grounds for divorce and she replies that he snores, Sly replies: "Capital, he snores, the wretch, does he? I was once able to procure a divorce on account of this very intolerable grievance. No more serious incompatibility exists." 0

The criticism of divorce law practice is evident enough in this passage. The author rises to new heights of scorn and denunciation when she puts these words in the mouth of the notorious Sly: "Satan was but a dullard in the garden of Eden. perfect work, until he invented—DIVORCE." 4 ·

He never finished his

The haughty and scornful Neale Voland is brought to his senses, but too late to prevent his death, and laments the situation in these stirring lines: "It all comes from this accursed facility of divorce. Did the laws of my country protect marriage as a solemn religious rite, and hedge it round with safeguards that would make it an inviolate union, I could never' have so basely yielded to temptation. But I looked upon matrimony as a mere civil contract, to be lightly held or broken at pleasure. Did this nation, as Christian nations should, enforce the indissolubility of matrimony, I would at this moment be a happy husband and a proud father. But now, having availed myself of the license our lax laws give, what has fallen upon me? Naught but ruin, ruin." 47

The American divorce novel found its place in the developing «Ibid., «Ibid., 44 Ibid., " Ibid.,

p. 66. p. 82. p. 84. p. 205

92

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

movement of realism in American literature. It has probably contributed more to social history than to literature, with such notable exceptions as A Modern Instance and in the next century, Mrs. Wharton's Custom of the Country and Sinclair Lewis' Dodsworth. Once launched on the literary scene, the divorce novel achieved a fair degree of popularity and continued to occupy authors and public from A Modern Instance to such recent books as Call It Freedom, 1937, by Marion Sims.

CHAPTER

IV

T H E DEVELOPMENT OF THE DIVORCE NOVEL

1894-1928 As the divorce rate continued to increase during the closing decades of the 19th and the opening years of the 20th century,' public opinion drifted farther from disapproval and censure of divorce. But all individuals did not share the new attitude towards divorce. Many continued to believe in the indissolubility of marriage and the consequent wickedness of divorce. The public was interested and vitally concerned with the fact of increasing divorce and with the deep-lying currents of change in marriage and the family. In a general way the entrance of the divorce theme into the American novel followed this uncertain drift of opinion. Novelists became interested and even intrigued with the idea of divorce. Some used the theme as a basis for preachments on divorce more filled with enthusiasm than discernment, while a few writers 2 as Edith Wharton, Sinclair Lewis and Charles Norris wrote novels which revealed considerable understanding of divorce. These novels concentrated on the theme of divorce or made important use of the fact of divorce in the plot development. In most divorce novels the problem predominates over the literary aims of authors who ha\re tackled the subject. It must be emphasized that this study has been concerned solely with those novels in which divorce is either the central theme or bears an important relation to the plot structure. Further, divorce must actually occur, or the development of the novel must indicate that court proceedings are under way or definitely planned and the break in the marriage made definite by a statement of precise intentions to get an actual, legal divorce. This point of view rests upon the belief that the actual 1 J . P. Lichtenberger, Divorce—A Social Interpretation, p. 143. * See Edith Wharton, The Custom of the Country, and a collection of short stories entitled Xingu; Sinclair Lewis, Dodsuorth; and Charles Norris. Brass.

94

Divorce and the American Divorce Nooel, 1858-1937

sanctioning of a legal divorce, absolute in nature, marks an important point in the changing attitudes of people in this country towards divorce. The novelist who brought about an actual divorce through established legal machinery was operating with a different set of assumptions than the one who depicted situations of marital disorganization as solved through compromises made by either or both partners, by social or religious pressure or by informal or legal separation. It is apparent that a selection of novels based on such criteria is both sound and desirable if it is realized that the development of a novel may take an entirely different turn if divorce is an actual possibility in an author's development of a plot. Further, a study and analysis of all novels dealing with domestic infelicity and conflict would present a task far beyond the scope of this work. A reading of many novels will convince anyone that few novels do not involve some aspects of marital friction. Thus, for reasons of method and to complete one part of a much larger task—that of tracing through literature the changes in the American family—consideration has been limited to novels answering the criteria listed above. Here it is pertinent to advise the reader that, selected on these criteria, the number of novels that deal with divorce is surprisingly small. Hundreds of novels deal with domestic discord as a major part of the plot but few carry the plot through by means of divorce. This fact is significant with reference to the attitude of both public and authors. What proportion of the novels dealing with domestic discord utilize divorce rather than other devices as a solution cannot be stated. With these limitations in method and materials in mind, an examination will be made of fifty divorce novels used in this study. This list of fifty novels, it is believed, includes the majority of divorce novels published between 1858 and 1937 which meet the above criteria.* The basis for selection of novels and bibliographic aids will be found in the Note on Method.

*As indicated before, serial novels are not included. novels are included in this chart.

Actually, fifty-one

Divorce and the American Divorce Novel, 1858-1937

95

The following pages present in table form the novels studied, giving the title, name of author, date of publication, the aspect of divorce most emphasized, theory of divorce causation advanced, and a final statement as to the results attributed to the occurrence of divorce. This presentation will enable the reader to grasp the general historical and factual picture of American divorce novels in their chronological sequence. From the table it will be noted that the first work to characterize a new type of treatment of divorce by novelists was written seven years after the last mentioned, Divorced, 1887, by Mrs. Dahlgren. Margaret Deland has a place of considerable prominence in American letters and her work, Philip and His Wife, 1894, is well termed by Quinn "a searching study of married life."® There are no histrionics or absurdities in Mrs. Deland's book. She reveals considerable literary ability as well as keen social and psychological understanding of marital relations. A new note in divorce novels is struck in this work in that Philip and Cecilia, the divorce characters of the book, are not painted as sinners nor as violators of the laws of God and men. Rather they are represented as people who have come to a fairly definite understanding of their mutual attitudes towards each other, regard their marriage as psychologically bankrupt and decide to end the relation. The estrangement process is traced fully and the author's device of causing Cecilia to fall in love with her susceptible lawyer during the legal phase of divorce proceedings is a masterly stroke of psychological insight. This will be evident to those familiar with divorce case studies or possessed of insights into the personal aspects of the divorce process. Philip and Cecilia Shore, after nine years of married life, recognize that they have not been in love with each other for the past three years of their conjugal existence and decide to go their separate ways. They irritate one another and Cecilia, pragmatist, is bored with Philip, the idealist. Philip feels that to continue their marital relation would be immoral and Cecilia ' A. H . Quinn, American

Fiction, p. 461.

ο Μ Η S » ~ υ « χ ΗΟ Η

Ο

«μ η 3 ϊ "•S

l'g-c s l a e e --β . •5 Ε *

-σ 11 β« 2-S 2 ^ e g « s c 2 c Ο >

I ^ S

.s

c β S ·Μ C

J2 1

g

i

« 2 S j

'S

ω >

ο 25

ω

«υ ο >

Λ

n'ü

t 2

α

«5 •J

c ο * J 'Π .5--S W Η « - α · u Μ ε Ο > -wf >l -Ä2 (Λ « ' S r- 3 I «

Ζ

* * ·- u Λ *·» CO

c « J3·

>

&

X 0J >s .Ω

c'5 •3 u

•o e

: 3 •

J 82 S ε ΐ

J«i S ο (Λ Λ Ο

ο £ § ·— CQ Ο

ί ΐ ί η 2"§ Ο

.Ιέ

«

Ä « n c T3 4)

>. c .α ο Ο . η SJ Ο Ο 2.5: α,-ο

υ

α '
> JS

w

»· ä u

Ο (ϋ ο— C χ

C ·- υ

bo^: a rt

V

a

b

·Ο Sο

— c - b

•5 « «•c "*" ο

£ 2

is

.73

8.8.

•α -ϊ J< Jfe αϊ 4-· — Λ ιIi "Τ 4»

-

Λ >H Λ Ο (A 3 i" •C U

».gjs mS-5 s 3 S W s

> > "2

•a

>> ο Λ ο

et u

Ο

•χ*

c - _ ο «c i f 3! a.73

c

ι ε

£>

Ο Si >

OJ Ji «

s Ο

• 'TαSS r£C.J c5? tn 6Λ.5 « g > CO —

I tx"ö C IC ü ·" β 73-g c S S • 03 S iU ™ ka 2 S Μ 2 >J= ο— _3 c3 — U 5P . ü« ιι Cω U 3 £

u - ο w s S c«. ·« ε ο υ 3 !? m Ο

£

55

e Ol 4) 3 -C Ο ε "1 41 e XI 0 υ 4-* υ Ό CS e e cd 0 •o _4> c υ IM r cd Sx>

cd # £ μ ° 4» >J3 Sti-e § Q·ο4-*

_ ο cd U

5 8Λ λ " · " ·- S "CT3 C «> h U -M

g

a

5

^ · «

.2 ο ° « . S q Ε ™ S.tj m W J J S-o

ϊ "> >>

« ο e.5

(/) Ό is'Sü cd υ " ο · > j : -Ο •ο ί c cd Λ e c-9 3 3 Ε js

ε I

12 §

8 5

c

—

S o htg S

Si

i s s

« i e "

•ό a

S

e e S e ο .2 4) 2 «

s ' S 8.

S a ®Ο J .2 2 Ε ε ε

be Ε e be _ " 3.2 —. ^ u £3 cad · u» 4>1 j i ' r 4> ο ° c jo

c ο

τ e — ο «i ao- JS cd u Μ " υ s J a ο — ι- " Ο « m •e e 8 4> ä®- S e Jj J JS Η 4) to S u c ä , . 5 Sf S.S _ v S-o S t f T j r

1 1 « t 4) 2J U XI

u 8*3 S

ο

1-S 1 «

01 μ

ο

•JS Ι

01

w 3 ν e be— . cd . . s : ' C ι- « u 4) Λ Cd 4 I _

• c •Q * • u

."•Ο C 2 Ο : t

-2 ο

x

iJS g g^e • 2 * j Ο • 4ί ς» u rt C JS b f l - - ^ , u D Ο " Ο 4>

"

o> ο ο

tS.s

S - 2 S I 00

i-s

°

» — ^

ο

ä

0 8 •5

0 3 Ε Ζ XI cd

°

3 S x: — ν ύ α Ννϊ

£

C cd O'ü

s

2 £ be c «

s S S a 5 « s a 3 u °

i f

4> 4> s - s cd e

·= a 5 3 α ε 4; — ο ι. > 0 C * 4ί βι S-o 3 So.2 α e1 «

Ο

Ξ 3 c

' 5 °

iLS ο « s

£

l·

S i · » ί. ϊ Ο a.**—

5 be'

I« λ a.C f ü _.

a 3

Ρ c V g μ ss- ε -'u cd Π ι. μ C s.y ο C C S

«β-rt 3 es >·Ό £

•Sxi _

cd —

3

ü S o - S «ι? --2 e S οι·-

be"3

cd w α u cd τ) a e « e _ ο

—

S » Ό l·· Τ3 "Ό Urs e •e S υ X>

«

3 ».i

S SJ-Ό « S e e Β g 8

C 4->

m c

8.

ce ci Q.J3 .

S . S : *

«μ ο ir . 41»— - ο

£

Ο^. ε ο e C 2 ν 4) η ε-ο s 41 *G —

cn u. a> D ο 4>

ε - = . «.53 ° « u. ο υ i s

e « ο *

c ο 4>

ε S • g l

3 Μ a υ VC Ό

oij* c « U „

c Ο α» S 4Ϊ eta ν 'Λ — ^ ε.ξ

cd e c

-

5

T s 44 4> Di Μ cd C

- 1 ° ο ο _

αί

Only sei wife, who ostracism.

.

e

8 1 Ü s

d

ε s u tu e ti e νg.

Mo who i ally.

>>! -α i

£

s. Divorce nhappy life n.

8 l

X

TJ-a «41 -8 3 u Ο 2 -ä.Z

"2 Α 4Ϊ e a — «J3 >

§ 2

•c S

Ji-e •3 u u M ^ e « 2 fe «

: J β

|Q

v® ^ β ε

δ

V id Sf «

lo .a a s

2

I I Μ 4)

a

£Is

i

cd

SS "·ja

SM «

C Λ >. c υ « C Ε "

ο Β

η

|g

C

P^i

bC

S S - 2

c ο

•5 c ο u

e i |

ir 2

Ol

2

Divoi for mon to brea in plot.

5b 01 Μ • o S c Ö Ο h ο s qj ο ·< ω u Β c >> α 3 υ Μ Η

« >¥ οte ε 41 fc c i «

— wi CQ ς;

Ο ^ s 1 tc u C ο bc ο

c > U-o c 11) i J ä Ε'S ι_ "C cj

I 2 x ηF ~c e-s« E # ο -υ ο 0 •S3g8 41 _e ο *U cn C cd ? afiiC c Öu. ο L. üu CO. S — g-< 3 - 3 cd rt di (4 ΐ ο •Ό S α . 4> g O Ε c ' ' Π «I ft i u --ο tu t 8·='"-5 "θ Ο Cxu η n — ο ο bo ο ·— « ii.2 g-g "tj u 3 « S cX bi u a 5j ο mo ? c cd 4i rt "> .2 cd •n.Sr ν bo rC 3 u e C cId bo d oc^ftl , υ ctc· 5i η c ϋ Λ 0

C U

ο ζ

C « • Λ 41 η > ε α ^ . u Ε - , «β 41 JS 8 β - 5 Ο S - g C rt cj e •Ό > •c a ε

_o e

.2 c

χ 41

8 UJ« χ C ο c aj

ΙΛ 4· 3 3

λ

C

bo c . a c .Ε ° Ή T3 UI ci

Λ

15.5 c S .'bi 41 u υ ο c

t-vC QJ —

« μ 41

e »

ö 2 sic

> Ε

B'-v cd

·-* ς> I

c-aji Si g §

s

. 5 4
> "ΐ ^ Ομ μ ό

i." c. u

Ü^

Moth and wifi

XI Ο ο C ο ζ

iJ Η

Ο >

. =>

•σ c η

Η Ο

ζ ο

4ι o * u cd 01 v I s oc·.5 * "Ό T3.JJ j . ^ C. Cd Ο g Ο υcd α c.d D >·0 Si' οΈ ο > α c . η !r D c t ^ Ε S.0

41 u cd cd ο ε ε

S.ES i ο ο. J c 1J.2 J O Mo M S.o. Si J* Ei e o.E£ £ C* tri ν. η w! e « e ο > « δ · C.S2 " » „ o-fα, § ε Μ u ε Cd ο Μ ^ S· ιι e r c .h e ο c α» . - α ^ « Β.ΐ»ϊ ί Ο Ό

«J υ ϋ"*;

.Ξ α ε

ο o>

C.

u.

•e Ϊ •5ο

I i » i

! ^ • ΐ ; α

Cl"* λ.Ε