Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 10.pdf/266

 Some Notes on Divorce.

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SOME NOTES ON DIVORCE. By George H. Westley. ACCORDING to a recently printed inter view, Mrs. Hetty Green, who is said to be the richest woman in America, is the author of the rather striking remark that "good food is the basis of good conduct, and consequently of happiness; more di vorces are caused by hash than by infidelity." Commenting on this in a lightsome mood, one might say that hash is infidelity, for does it not signify unfaithfulness to the cul inary obligations tacitly imposed upon the wife by the marriage contract. But setting aside considerations of that sort, the associations of the words " hash" and " divorce " is not without a certain apt ness. The marriage and divorce laws of the various countries, states, and tribes, brought together, compound a dish of statutes as analogous to hash as anything that appears upon the legal board. " The chaos of mar riage and divorce laws " was how a British Parliamentarian recently spoke of them, and "chaos," in the sense in which he employed it, and "hash " are not far from being syn onymous terms. A year or two ago a London writer hu morously suggested that an interesting piece might be prepared for the stage, entitled, "Round the World's Divorce Courts in Sixty Days." He would have the hero, or shall I say the villain, Don Juan, begin his matrimonial adventures in Ireland, take a second wife in Scotland, and a third in Eng land. The laws covering his case, lacking uniformity between the three countries, would declare the marriages both legal and illegal. Don Juan would next go to America, where, by reason of the varying laws of the different states, he could marry and divorce, remarry and redivorce, and commit bigamy, trigamy, quadrigamy, etc., until his itinerary called him on to fresh

fields and pastures new. Over in Japan he could legally shake off a wife who talked too much; in China one who was ill-tempered; in Australia one who imbibed too freely; and in Germany one who was too extrava gant; and so he could travel merrily on, until he had actually girdled the earth with divorces and grass widows. Divorce was known in Rome as far back as the time of the Decemvirs. The historian Dionysius has preserved a speech by Veturia, in which she mentions that her son Coriolanus, before he left Rome, told his wife Volumnia that he was no longer to be her husband, and wished her better luck in marrying another more fortunate than him self. This was in the fifth century before Christ. During the better times of the Commonwealth a Roman husband was only permitted to put away his wife on the ground of her adultery, of designs against his life, or, quaintly enough, of her employment of false keys. In ancient Athens, the law allowed di vorce upon very trifling grounds. In Crete any man might dismiss a wife who promised to hamper him with a too numerous prog eny. The Greek wife of to-day, if she would remain a wife, must conduct herself with the greatest propriety. The husband may obtain a divorce from her, if, against his wish, she should stay a night in another house; if without his knowledge and con sent she should go to the theatre or the races; or, if against his desire, she attends a dinner or goes in bathing in the company of men. The divorce procedure of the ancient He brews, judging from the case of Abraham and his wife Hagar, was a very simple mat ter indeed. " And Abraham rose up early in the morning and took bread and a bottle