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Untitled Article
afterwards become attached to new connexions , is it not the mischievous , the immoral law , which forces them to live in a state of scandal ? To contemplate the annihilation of human passions by an edict , is a monstrous absurdity . St . Paul says , If they cannot contain , let them marry ; ' but our sapient English law
forbids them to marry , and nature forbids them , to contain . There was a law existing formerly , that the widows of officers in the army and navy should lose their pensions upon marrying again . The pension was useful , but the penalty of single life was deemed a hardship ., and it became a desirable thing to solve the problem , how the advantages of the pension and the comforts of
marriage might be united . It was soon found out that the mere omission of the marriage ceremony was all that the government required , and I have heard it stated , that some three thousand fair widows at one period had taken their lovers' words as a sufficient security . Amongst those classes of the community who have no dealings with lawyers , and cannot afford to pay for €
separations , ' is it found in practice that those who disagree live together , unless obliged by the circumstance of poverty rendering them chargeable to the parish ? Have we no examples of the practical divorces of the poor , in the mock sales of wive 9 with a halter round their necks in the public market ? Are not these brutal acts the consequence of the mischief produced by the law
of marriage as it at present stands ? And , still worse , have we not many examples on record in which murder has been resorted to for the purpose of dissolving a connexion nothing else could dissolve ? Surely any alteration of the law would be desirable , which might prevent the possibility of such things recurring . Let me not be misunderstood . I am no advocate of light love , or
changing affections . I believe that constancy between the sexes is more productive of human happiness than any other condition , and it is only because I would ensure , as far as possible , that constancy , that I would wish to sever the unnatural unions whose only result is misery , both to parents and offspring . I would a ^ k those who believe that universal divorce would be the result of
attaining the power of divorce , what it is that restrains separations at present , in so many cases , where the father and mother dislike each other ? What but moral power , the sense of duty to offspring , and deference to public opinion ? There exists no legal preventive against separation , therefore the only restraint must assuredly be a moral one . And can it be imagined that this
moral check would cease to eAist , if divorce were legally attainable ? Surely not . The man who would defy public opinion for the gratification of unjust feelings or violent passions , when divorce coultL be obtained , would do the same thing when he could only ensure separation . We see daily numerous examples of illicit connexions which might at any hour be broken through , but which are continued through life from love of the offspring , of
Untitled Article
On the Condition offFomeii in England . 229
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1833, page 229, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2612/page/13/
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