nse evil. They will present situations and treat them
intellectually, without any honest facing of the facts. Children cannot
be left for a few years and then picked up again like a bag or a trunk.
The change of a father or a mother is a tremendous fact to a child,
quite independent of whether the new parent is better or worse than the
parent who has left. We know, as yet, very little of the results
probable upon such a change, but we do know that confusion and jealousy
are very likely to be stirred in the childish soul, and that these may
work tremendous and lasting harm.

It has seemed worth while to bring this forward to show a little more
clearly the complications which are set like a thick hedge around this
problem. There is no easy way out, and the protection of the child's
interests mean much more than provision for its bringing up and the
satisfying of its physical needs. Only the parents who are sure that
they are not claiming their individual right to freedom at the expense
of the stronger home rights of their child or children can be held
blameless in dissolving their marriage. We talk a great deal to-day
about children and their welfare, but very few of us realize at all
practically the change of attitude, the restrictions of the adult
liberty and sacrifice that are likely to be necessary, if, under all
circumstances, our theories are to be expressed in our daily conduct.

And this brings us straight back to the question we are considering at
the very point at which we left it. For, if we place first the child's
rights, we see at once that our existing divorce law does already in
this matter fail, and fail very seriously.[110:1] A parent, either the
father or the mother, may by neglect and many unkindnesses do far more
injury to a child than by an act of unfaithfulness. I need not wait to
prove this perfectly obvious fact. It seems to me, however, that these
home-destroying acts, the result of any sort of daily indecency of
living, which brings suffering, with lasting injury, to little children,
are the one condition that makes divorce necessary and also right in a
marriage where there are children.

I admit the difficulties of framing a law sufficiently elastic to meet
this need. I do not, however, see that it would be impossible. The one
who claimed the divorce--the father or the mother--or both if the
dissolution of the marriage was desired by both parents, could be
desired to state in the application f