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Jaws of a people on divorce are a sure measure of the reasonableness and humanity of its conceptions of marriage.

No nation known to me has reasonable divorce laws. Through the French revolution reason prevailed on this point for a time, in that it made divorce depend on the will of the married couple; but it soon again succumbed to the old prejudices and narrow-mindedness.

The free, common-sense conception of marriage, and with it also of divorce, is everywhere still suppressed by the theological conception of the relationship between man and woman. So-called religion and the ghostly "God" are the first enemies of marital happiness. According to the theological conception, taking its departure from superhuman consecration and superhuman will, marriage is in itself a hallowed relationship, and this abstract relation in itself, not the real happiness and interest of those who constitute it, is the chief object. Marriage, the formal relationship with the "divine" stamp, is to be upheld even if the married persons perish in it; marriage is to continue for life, even after all the requirements which constitute its essence have long ago disappeared. Marriage is to