century had
never been legally married. Yet, so far as could be ascertained,
not a single couple thus released from the legal compulsion of
marriage took advantage of the freedom bestowed. In the face of
such a fact it is obviously impossible to attach any moral value
to the form of marriage.

It is certainly inevitable that during a period of transition the natural
order is to some extent disturbed by the persistence, even though in a
weakened form, of external bonds which are beginning to be consciously
realized as inimical to the authoritative control of individual moral
responsibility. We can clearly trace this at the present time. A sensitive
anxiety to escape from external constraint induces an under-valuation of
the significance of personal constraint in the relationship of marriage.
Everyone is probably familiar with cases in which a couple will live
together through long years without entering the legal bond of marriage,
notwithstanding difficulties in their mutual relationship which would have
long since caused a separation or a divorce had they been legally married.
When the inherent difficulties of the marital relationship are complicated
by the difficulties due to external constraint, the development of
individual moral responsibility cuts two ways, and leads to results that
are not entirely satisfactory. This has been seen in the United States of
America and attention has often been called to it by thoughtful American
observers. It is, naturally, noted especially in women because it is in
women that the new growth of personal freedom and moral responsibility has
chiefly made itself felt. The first stirring of these new impulses,
especially when associated, as it often is, with inexperience and
ignorance, leads to impatience with the natural order, to a demand for
impossible conditions of existence, and to an inaptitude not only for the
arbitrary bondage of law but even for the wholesome and necessary bonds of
human social life. It is always a hard lesson for the young and idealistic
that in order to command Nature we must obey her; it can only be learnt
through contact with life and by the attainment of full human growth.

Dr. Felix Adler (in an address before the Society of Ethical
Culture of New York, Nov. 17, 1889) called attention to what he
regarded as the most deep-rooted cause of an undue prevalence of
divorce in America. "The false idea of individual liberty is