you please, these are only its objects; and therefore if, from
well-ascertained facts, it is demonstrated that the real objects
are frustrated, that instead of union and happiness, there are
only discord and misery to themselves, and vice and crime to
society, I ask, in the name of individual happiness and social
morality and well-being, why such a marriage should be binding
for life?--why one human being should be chained for life to the
dead body of another? "But they may separate and still remain
married." What a perversion of the very term! Is that the union
which "death only should part"? It may be according to the
definition of the Rev. Mrs. Blackwell's theology and Mr.
Greeley's dictionary, but it certainly is not according to
common-sense or the dictates of morality. No, no! "It is not well
for man to be alone," before nor after marriage. (Applause).

I therefore ask for a Divorce law. Divorce is now granted for
some crimes; I ask it for others also. It is granted for a
State's prison offense. I ask that personal cruelty to a wife,
whom he swore to "love, cherish, and protect," may be made a
heinous crime--a perjury and a State's prison offense, for which
divorce shall be granted. Willful desertion for one year should
be a sufficient cause for divorce, for the willful deserter
forfeits the sacred title of husband or wife. Habitual
intemperance, or any other vice which makes the husband or wife
intolerable and abhorrent to the other, ought to be sufficient
cause for divorce. I ask for a law of Divorce, so as to secure
the real objects and blessings of married life, to prevent the
crimes and immoralities now practiced, to prevent "Free Love," in
its most hideous form, such as is now carried on but too often
under the very name of marriage, where hypocrisy is added to the
crime of legalized prostitution. "Free Love," in its degraded
sense, asks for no Divorce law. It acknowledges no marriage, and
therefore requires no divorce. I believe in true marriages, and
therefore I ask for a law to free men and women from false ones.
(Applause).

But it is said that if divorce were easily granted, "men and
women would marry to-day and unmarry to-morrow." Those who say
that, only prove that they have no confidence in themselves, and
the