f divorce,
both of them bad, each inconsistent with the other, and neither of them
capable of being pushed to its logical conclusions.

The result is that if a perfectly virtuous married couple comes forward to
claim divorce, they are told that it is out of the question, for in such a
case there must be a "defendant." They are to be punished for their
virtue. If each commits adultery and they again come forward to claim
divorce, they are told that it is still out of the question, for there
must be a "plaintiff." Before they were punished for their virtue; now
they are to be punished in exactly the same way for their lack of it. The
couple must humor the law by adopting a course of action which may be
utterly repugnant to both. If only the wife alone will commit adultery, if
only the husband will commit adultery and also inflict some act of cruelty
upon his wife, if the innocent party will descend to the degradation of
employing detectives and hunting up witnesses, the law is at their feet
and hastens to accord to both parties the permission to remarry. Provided,
of course, that the parties have arranged this without "collusion." That
is to say that our law, with its ecclesiastical traditions behind it,
says to the wife: Be a sinner, or to the husband: Be a sinner and a
criminal--then we will do all you wish. The law puts a premium on sin and
on crime. In order to pile absurdity on absurdity it claims that this is
done in the cause of "public morality." To those who accept this point of
view it seems that the sweeping away of divorce laws would undermine the
bases of morality. Yet there can be little doubt that the sooner such
"morality" is undermined, and indeed utterly destroyed, the better it will
be for true morality.

There is an influential movement in England for the reform of
divorce, on the grounds that the present law is unjust,
illogical, and immoral, represented by the Divorce Law Reform
Union. Even the former president of the Divorce Court, Lord
Gorell, declared from the bench in 1906 that the English law
produces deplorable results, and is "full of inconsistencies,
anomalies and inequalities, amounting almost to absurdities." The
points in the law which have aroused most protest, as being most
behind the law of other nations, are the great expense of
divorce, the inequality of the sexes, the failure to grant
divorces for desertion and in cases of hopeless insanit