Chapter XIX: Divorce in Modern European Countries

It is not only in America that the evil grows. In all modern countries where divorce is permitted, that is to say in all Protestant and some Roman Catholic States, the same tendency is perceptible. Among the Protestant nations the impulse of the Reformation caused sooner or later a rejection of the old canonical doctrine of indissolubility; so we may say, speaking broadly, that in Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, a marriage may be dissolved not only for the infidelity of either party (since in all these countries husband and wife are treated alike), but also for desertion and imprisonment for crime. Some laws go even further, allowing mutual consent to be a cause. Among Roman Catholic countries, France retained the canonical rule till the Revolution. The legislation of 1792 granted extreme freedom, which was so largely used that we are told that in 1797 there were more divorces than marriages. In 1816 the principles of Catholicism regained control, and held it till 1884, when a law was passed permitting marriages to be dissolved for the infidelity of either party, or for the condemnation of either to an infamous punishment, and authorizing the transmutation into an absolute divorce of a judicial separation which has lasted for three years. The law of Belgium is similar, but goes a little further in allowing mutual consent to be a ground, though one surrounded by many restrictions. Austria and Hungary allow divorce (under rules similar to those of Protestant countries, _i.e._ on the grounds of infidelity, grave crime, desertion, cruelty, &c.) to non-Catholic citizens, while Italy, Portugal, and Spain adhere to the Tridentine system which recognizes only a judicial separation (_a mensa et thoro_) and not a dissolution of the tie. Russia still leaves matrimonial causes to the ecclesiastical courts, but allows them to dissolve marriages on the ground of infidelity, a heavy criminal sentence, or disappearance of one consort for five years[226].

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Footnote 226:

According to a high Russian authority, divorce was freely practised by
the Russian peasantry under their ancient customs.

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In nearly all these countries such statistics as are available show an increase in the number of divorces during recent years. For instance in Belgium, a predominantly Roman Catholic country, divorces rose between 1884 and 1893 from 221 to 497. In France the suits for divorce rose from 1773 in 1884 to 7445 in 1891. The number of divorces compared with the number of marriages almost doubled in those seven years. In the German Empire there were 5342 divorces granted in 1882 and 6178 in 1891. In Holland they were, in 1883, 189, in 1892, 354. A like period saw them rise in Sweden from 218 to 316, in Norway from 7 to 82(!), in Greece from 251 to 788. The rise is slighter in Austria. Switzerland alone, though its law is comparatively lax, shows no increase[227]. In England divorces rose from 127 in 1860 to 390 in 1887, an increase much more rapid than that of population or of marriages[228]. Judicial separations rose between the same years from 11 to 50. In Scotland divorces which in 1867 numbered 32 had, in 1886, grown to 96, a still more rapid rise, as it covers only twenty instead of twenty-seven years. It is worth noting that in England it is usually the husband who petitions for a divorce, and almost always the wife who seeks a judicial separation.

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Footnote 227:

I take the above figures from _Parliamentary Paper_ [C-7639] of 1895.
No figures are given for Russia or Denmark.

Footnote 228:

Parliamentary Return of March 9, 1889.

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The growth in so many otherwise dissimilar countries of this disposition to shake off the marriage tie is a remarkable phenomenon, which deserves more attention than it seems to have yet received in England. Though strongest in Protestant countries, it is not confined to them, as appears from the instances of Belgium, Bavaria and Greece. Though there is no divorce _a vinculo_ in Italy or Spain, the same causes which make it frequent elsewhere may be at work, though less conspicuously, in countries where the State aids the Church in checking their outward manifestation. Divorce is an obtrusive symptom of the disease, not the disease itself.

What is the disease? or, lest we should seem to prejudge the merits of the matter, what is the source of this disposition to look upon the marriage tie with eyes different from those of a century ago, and to yield more easily to the temptation to dissolve it? The cause, whatever it is, must lie deep, for it manifests itself under many different conditions; and it may possibly be not any single cause, but a combination of several concurrent social or moral changes, independent springs whose confluence swells the stream of tendency.

A similar phenomenon happened once before in history. At Rome also, as we have already seen, a very strict theory of marriage and a corresponding strictness in practice gave way to great laxity of the law and, after a short interval, to unbounded licence in practice. Let us see whether we can, by examining the phenomena which brought about this change in the greatest of ancient States, hit upon any clue that may serve to explain the facts of our own time.