es of
society growing out of intemperance. Drunkenness is good ground
for divorce, and every woman who is tied to a confirmed drunkard
should sunder the ties; and if she do it not otherwise the law
should compel it--especially if she have children.

We are told that such sentiments are "exceptional," "abhorrent,"
that the moral sense of society is shocked and outraged by their
promulgation. Can it be possible that the moral sense of a people
is more shocked at the idea of a pure-minded, gentle woman
sundering the ties which bind her to a loathsome mass of
corruption, than it is to see her dragging out her days in
misery, tied to his besotted and filthy carcass? Are the morals
of society less endangered by the drunkard's wife continuing to
live in companionship with him, giving birth to a large family of
children who inherit naught but poverty and disgrace, and who
will grow up criminal and vicious, filling our prisons and
penitentiaries and corrupting and endangering the purity and
peace of community, than they would be, should she separate from
him and strive to win for herself and the children she may have,
comfort and respectability? The statistics of our prisons,
poor-houses, and lunatic asylums, teach us a fearful lesson on
this subject of morals.

The idea of living with a drunkard is so abhorrent, so revolting
to all the finer feelings of our nature, that a woman must fall
very low before she can endure such companionship. Every
pure-minded woman must look with loathing and disgust upon such a
union of virtue and vice; and he who would compel her to it, or
dissuade the drunkard's wife from separating herself from such
wretchedness and degradation, is doing much to perpetuate
drunkenness and crime, and is wanting in the noblest feelings of
human nature. Thanks to our Legislature, if they have not given
us the Maine law, they are deliberating upon the propriety of
giving to the wives of drunkards and tyrants a loop-hole of
escape from the brutal cruelty of their self-styled lords and
masters. A bill of this kind has passed the House, but may be
lost in the Senate. Should it not pass now, it will be brought up
again, and passed at no distant day. Then if women have any
spirit, they will free themselves from much of the oppression an