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THE GREEN BAG

SOME NEEDED REFORMS IN DIVORCE LEGISLATION BY E. D. LEACH WHATEVER the direct influence upon future divorce legislation the action of the late Congress on Uniform Divorce Laws may be, the expressions of dissatis faction with the present laws augurs well for some radical reforms in the near future. What these changes should be are not so easily agreed upon, as there seems to be a wide difference of opinion as to the nature and causes of the evils sought to be reme died. The term "the divorce evil" has been so much overworked and is used to convey so many different ideas that it is not always easy to decide just what is in tended to be understood when it is referred to. This, it would seem, is sufficient to warrant the statement that that popular opinion in this particular is not the result of well established facts or of reliable data. Because it is sometimes possible for mar ried persons to secure a divorce with less difficulty in some state other than the one in which they are domiciled, is, undoubtedly, one of the popular conceptions of " the divorce evil." But the facts do not warrant such a conclusion. The Hon. Carroll D. Wright, after compiling the statistics of 231,000 divorce cases in the United States, covering a period of twenty years from 1867 to 1886, discovered that, where the place of marriage was known, 80. i per cent of these divorces were granted in the states where the marriages occurred. It also ap pearing that about twenty-three per cent of the people were not living in the same state where born, the Rev. Dr. Samuel W. Dike, the Secretary of the National League for the Protection of the Family, who assisted Mr. Wright in his investigation, estimated that not more than two or three per cent of these divorces were secured by persons changing jurisdictions for that pur pose. That conditions have since improved is claimed by Prof. George Elliot Howard,

an eminent authority, who says: "At pres ent (1905) the relative number of such clandestine divorces is doubtless much less than in 1886, for in many vital points the laws of the states then chiefly responsible for the evils have become more stringent." So it would appear from the best available authority that the evils of the migratory divorce are chiefly imaginary. Statistics also show that the number of divorces in proportion to the number of marriages is increasing in European coun tries as well as in the United States. There fore, it is quite evident that American legis lation is not solely responsible for the present condition, as some would have us believe. While the statutory grounds for divorce vary in the several states from one in New York to fourteen in New Hampshire, there does not seem to be any perceptible differ ence among the states in the number of divorces granted in proportion to the num ber of marriages. The slight variance that does exist is more liable to be the result of other causes than the difference in statutes. A somewhat extended, though unsystem atic, inquiry among lawyers and judges who have given the subject unbiased con sideration, confirms my experience that it is the exception rather than the rule when a divorce is sought solely because of a statutory offense. An exception should, however, be made in cases where the statutes permit divorces for confinement in the penitentiary, for insanity, and the like. But with these exceptions it appears to make very little difference what the statu tory grounds are, so long as the desire to be freed from the matrimonial bond exists. The mere matter of evidence is largely a formality. It is right here that Science and the Church are in sharp conflict. The latter