Robert Green Ingersoll

Is Divorce Wrong Robert Green Ingersoll

Book Excerpt: ...disregarded. In our own country the divorce evil has grown more rapidly than our growth and strengthened more rapidly than our strength. Mr. Carroll B. Wright, in a special report on the statistics of marriage and divorce made to Congress in February, 1889, places the number of divorces in the United States in 1867 at 9,937, and the number in 1886 at 25,535. These figures show an increase of the divorce evil much out of proportion to our increase in population. The knowledge that divorces can easily be procured encourages hasty marriages and equally hasty preparations. Legislators and judges in some States are encouraging inventive genius in the art of finding new causes for divorce. Frequently the most trivial and even ridiculous pretexts are recognized as sufficient for the rupture of the marriage bond; and in some States divorce can be obtained "without publicity," and even without the knowledge of the defendant -- in such cases generally an innocent wife. Crime has sometimes been committed for the very p...