in that year it became possible for a
married couple to separate by mutual consent and after living apart for a
year to become thereby entitled to a divorce enabling them to remarry.
This provision is in accordance with the humane conception of the sexual
relationship which has always tended to prevail in Russia, whither, it
must be remembered, the stern and unnatural ideals of compulsory celibacy
cherished by the Western Church never completely penetrated; the clergy of
the Eastern Church are married, though the marriage must take place before
they enter the priesthood, and they could not sympathize with the
anti-sexual tone of the marriage regulations laid down by the celibate
clergy of the west.

Switzerland, again, which has been regarded as the political laboratory
of Europe, also stands apart in the liberality of its divorce legislation.
A renewable divorce for two years may be obtained in Switzerland when
there are "circumstances which seriously affect the maintenance of the
conjugal tie." To the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, finally, belongs the
honor of having firmly maintained throughout the great principle of
divorce by mutual consent under legal conditions, as established by
Napoleon in his Code of 1803. The smaller countries generally are in
advance of the large in matters of divorce law. The Norwegian law is
liberal. The new Roumanian Code permits divorce by mutual consent,
provided both parents grant equal shares of their property to the
children. The little principality of Monaco has recently introduced the
reasonable provision of granting divorce for, among other causes,
alcoholism, syphilis, and epilepsy, so protecting the future race.

Outside Europe the most instructive example of the tendency of divorce is
undoubtedly furnished by the United States of America. The divorce laws of
the States are mainly on a Puritanic basis, and they retain not only the
Puritanic love of individual freedom but the Puritanic precisianism.[346]
In some States, notably Iowa, the statute-makers have been constantly
engaged in adopting, changing, abrogating and re-enacting the provisions
of their divorce laws, and Howard has shown how much confusion and
awkwardness arise by such perpetual legislative fiddling over small
details.

This restless precisianism has somewhat disguised the generally broad and
liberal tendency of marriage law in America, and has encouraged foreign
criticism of American social institutions. As a ma