desirable, entrusts his or her
heart's wants to the pious-conservative or moral-liberal press, that, in
consideration of cash and without coaxing, sees to it that the kindred
souls meet. With illustrations, taken on any one day from a number of
large newspapers, whole pages, could be filled. Off and on the
interesting fact also crops out that even clergymen are sought for
husbands, and, _vice versa_, clergymen angle for wives, with the aid of
advertisements. Occasionally, the suitors also offer to overlook a
_slip_, provided the looked-for woman be rich. In short, the moral
turpitude of certain social circles of our society can be pilloried no
better than by this sort of courtship.

State and Church play in such "holy matrimony" a by no means handsome
_role_. Whether the civil magistrate or clergyman, on whom may devolve
the duty to celebrate the marriage, be convinced that the bridal couple
before him has been brought together by the vilest of practices; whether
it be manifest that, neither in point of age nor that of bodily or
mental qualities, the two are compatible with each other; whether, for
instance, the bride be twenty and the bridegroom seventy years old, or
the reverse; whether the bride be young, handsome and joyful, and the
bridegroom old, ridden with disease and crabbed;--whatever the case, it
concerns not the representative of the State or the Church; it is not
for them to look into that. The marriage bond is "blessed,"--as a rule,
blessed with all the greater solemnity in proportion to the size of the
fee for the "holy office."

When, later, such a marriage proves a most unfortunate one--as foreseen
by everybody, by the ill-starred victim, in most instances the woman,
herself,--and either party decides to separate, then, State and
Church,--who never first inquire whether real love and natural, moral
impulses, or only naked, obscene egotism tie the knot--now raise the
greatest difficulties. At present, moral repulsion is but rarely
recognized a sufficient ground for separation; at present, only palpable
proofs, proofs that always dishonor or lower one of the parties in
public esteem, are, as a rule, demanded; separation is not otherwise
granted. That the Roman Catholic Church does not allow divorces,--except
by special dispensation of the Pope, which is hard to obtain, and, at
best, only from board and bed--only renders all the worse the
conditions, under which all Catholic countries are suffering. Germa