ct.

I recall a conversation with a Spanish friend on this question. We were
speaking of the great numbers of young Spaniards who did not marry. I
asked my friend the reason of this. He answered: "You see we have no
divorce in this land as you have in England, that makes us afraid now we
have begun to think, we hesitate and hesitate, then we take a mistress
while we are deciding, but it is easier and less binding to live like
that, and we keep going on and put off marrying, sometimes put it off
until it is too late." In Spain the illegitimate birth-rate is the
highest of any country in Europe.

We must accept, then, that indissoluble marriage fails in practice, and
the society which enforces it commits self-injury by setting up a
standard of conduct impossible to maintain; and further, one that acts
in deterring the more thoughtful from marriage and leaves the protected
institution to the more reckless, who do not consider consequences.

Now, when once we do accept this, admit the principle of divorce and
acknowledge that in certain circumstances the bond of marriage may be
severed, at once the aspect of the question changes: it becomes a matter
of practical adjustment, so that what is needed is decision and
regulation of the conditions under which divorce should be allowed, so
that they may meet best the needs of men and women in the society and,
at the time, in which they live. I am very anxious to show the
difference between the practical and the conventional attitude toward
this problem. It is to be wished that this question of divorce could be
approached free from the falseness of the old prejudices of religious
intolerance and of sentimentality.

The great and pressing need of reform is being widely discussed at the
present time. I note with a mixture of amazement and fear that
practically in every argument the opinion universally held appears to be
that the relief given should be as limited as possible; it is still
being taken for granted that free divorce in this country is neither
attainable nor desirable, and, indeed, that any extension of the grounds
of divorce would act against the sanctity of marriage. I say I note this
attitude with fear, because it seems to me that the triumph of prejudice
and ignorance here is a most serious symptom of the degradation of our
moral outlook and the poverty of our faith in the institution of
marriage.

"Divorce is relief from misfortune, not a crime," to quote from the