Excerpt: ...surely never would give his sanction to many of the marriages contracted in a spirit of lust or of greed. It is as impossible to keep mismated people together as it is to keep chemical incompatibles together. No chemist would try to keep chlorate of potash and sulphur together even if they did, by some accident, happen to be in the same locality. It is just as impossible to keep two incompatible people together and not expect an explosion. The law may keep such people legally bound, but it cannot keep them so ...
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Excerpt: ...surely never would give his sanction to many of the marriages contracted in a spirit of lust or of greed. It is as impossible to keep mismated people together as it is to keep chemical incompatibles together. No chemist would try to keep chlorate of potash and sulphur together even if they did, by some accident, happen to be in the same locality. It is just as impossible to keep two incompatible people together and not expect an explosion. The law may keep such people legally bound, but it cannot keep them so mentally or physically. A prominent reformer is reported to have said that fully one-third of the married 117 population of New York City is unfaithful to the physical obligation. And New York is not so very different from other parts of the country. Many who are not physically disloyal are mentally so. The no-divorce law will not prevent this condition of affairs. Whites and blacks cannot marry legally in the South and yet in some of the Southern states which have a no-divorce system a large proportion of the colored population is mulatto. Nature's laws tend to provide an indissoluble union, but divorce represents the protest of the individual against the inharmonious relations he ignorantly or thoughtlessly has assumed. Even those who are the loudest in their condemnation of divorce could not sanction marriage under certain conditions. I wonder if these people know that many of the divorces that are granted under the head of cruelty really are granted because one of the parties has contracted one of the loathsome black plagues. No humane person could condemn a woman for refusing to live with a man and take the almost certain risk of contracting a disease that would mean her death or mutilation, or for refusing to bear children 118 that would come into the world an object of disgust and horror or which would die before being born. Some of these reformers say, "Let her live separately from him but not marry again." That would be condemning an...
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