statement of their
disagreements, the parties might simply declare that, after living
together for several years, they found themselves unsuited to each
other, and incapable of making a happy home.

"If divorce were made respectable, and recognized by society as a
duty, as well as a right, reasonable men and women could arrange
all the preliminaries, often, even, the division of property and
guardianship of children, quite as satisfactorily as it could be
done in the courts. Where the mother is capable of training the
children, a sensible father would leave them to her care rather
than place them in the hands of a stranger.

"But, where divorce is not respectable, men who have no paternal
feeling will often hold the child, not so much for its good or his
own affection, as to punish the wife for disgracing him. The love
of children is not strong in most men, and they feel but little
responsibility in regard to them. See how readily they turn off
young sons to shift for themselves, and, unless the law compelled
them to support their illegitimate children, they would never give
them a second thought. But on the mother-soul rest forever the care
and responsibility of human life. Her love for the child born out
of wedlock is often intensified by the infinite pity she feels
through its disgrace. Even among the lower animals we find the
female ever brooding over the young and helpless.

"Limiting the causes of divorce to physical defects or
delinquencies; making the proceedings public; prying into all the
personal affairs of unhappy men and women; regarding the step as
quasi criminal; punishing the guilty party in the suit; all this
will not strengthen frail human nature, will not insure happy
homes, will not banish scandals and purge society of prostitution.

"No, no; the enemy of marriage, of the State, of society is not
liberal divorce laws, but the unhealthy atmosphere that exists in
the home itself. A legislative act cannot make a unit of a divided
family."

CHAPTER XV.

WOMEN AS PATRIOTS.

On April 15, 1861, the President of the United States called out
seventy-five thousand militia, and summoned Congress to meet July 4,
when four hundred thousand men were called for, and four hundred
millions of dollars were voted to suppress the Rebellion.

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