s. As a rule it is the husband, whose conduct is the rock against
which marriage is dashed. This appears from the actions for divorce. In
virtue of his dominant position, he can indemnify himself elsewhere when
the marriage is not pleasing to him, and he can not find satisfaction in
it. The wife is not so free to step on side-roads, partly because, as
the receiving sex, such action is, for physiologic reasons, a much more
risky one on her part; then, also, because every infraction of conjugal
fidelity is imputed a crime to her, which neither the husband nor
society pardons. Woman alone makes a "slip"--be she wife, widow or maid;
man, at worst, has acted "incorrectly." One and the same act is judged
by society with wholly different standards, according as it be committed
by a man or a woman. And, as a rule, women themselves judge a "fallen"
sister most severely and pitilessly.[72]

As a rule, only in cases of crassest infidelity or maltreatment, does
the wife decide upon divorce. She is generally in a materially dependent
position, and compelled to look upon marriage as a means of support:
moreover, as a divorced wife, she finds herself socially in no enviable
situation: unless special reasons render intercourse with her desirable,
she is considered and treated by society as a neuter, so to speak. When,
despite all this, most actions for divorce proceed from wives, the
circumstance is an evidence of the heavy moral torture that they lie
under. In France, even before the new divorce law came into effect
(1884), by far the more numerous actions for separation from bed and
board came from women. For an absolute divorce they could apply only if
the husband took his concubine into the married home, against the will
of his wife. Actions for separations from bed and board occurred:[73]

Average Per Average Per Year
Years. Year by Wives. by Husbands.
1856-1861 1729 184
1861-1866 2135 260
1866-1871 2591 330

But not only did women institute by far the larger number of actions;
the figures show that these increased from period to period.
Furthermore, so far as reliable information before us goes, it appears
that actions for absolute divorce also proceed preponderatingly from
wives. In the Kingdom of Saxony, during the period of 1860-1868, there
were instituted, all told, 8,402 actions for divorce; of these, 3,537
(42 per cen