ul investigation that the American courts weigh well the
cases that come before them, and are not careless in the granting
of decrees of divorce.

In 1859 an exaggerated importance was attached to the gross
reasons for divorce, to the neglect of subtle but equally fatal
impediments to the continuance of marriage. This was pointed out
by Gladstone, who was opposed to making adultery a cause of
divorce at all. "We have many causes," he said, "more fatal to
the great obligation of marriage, as disease, idiocy, crime
involving punishment for life." Nowadays we are beginning to
recognize not only such causes as these, but others of a far more
intimate character which, as Milton long ago realized, cannot be
embodied in statutes, or pleaded in law courts. The matrimonial
bond is not merely a physical union, and we have to learn that,
as the author of _The Question of English Divorce_ (p. 49)
remarks, "other than physical divergencies are, in fact, by far
the most important of the originating causes of matrimonial
disaster."

In England and Wales more husbands than wives petition for
divorce, the wives who petition being about 40 per cent, of the
whole. Divorces are increasing, though the number is not large,
in 1907 about 1,300, of whom less than half remarried. The
inadequacy of the divorce law is shown by the fact that during
the same year about 7,000 orders for judicial separation were
issued by magistrates. These separation orders not only do not
give the right to remarry, but they make it impossible to obtain
divorce. They are, in effect, an official permission to form
relationships outside State marriage.

In the United States during the years 1887-1906 nearly 40 per
cent, of the divorces granted were for "desertion," which is
variously interpreted in different States, and must often mean a
separation by mutual consent. Of the remainder, 19 per cent, were
for unfaithfulness, and the same proportion for cruelty; but
while the divorces granted to husbands for the infidelity of
their wives are nearly three times as great proportionately as
those granted to wives for their husband's adultery, with regard
to cruelty it is the reverse, wives obtaining 27 per cent, of
their divorces on that ground and husbands only 10 per cent.

In Prussia divorce is increasing. In 1907 the