ual
independence that demands its rights at the expense of others. In the
case of women there is less hesitancy than formerly in seeking
freedom from the marriage bond because of the increasing opportunity
of self-support. The changing conditions of home life in the city,
with the increasing cost of living, coupled with the ease of divorce,
encourage resort to the courts. The unscrupulousness of some lawyers,
who fatten their purses at the expense of marital happiness, and the
meddlesomeness of relatives are also contributing causes. Finally the
restraint of religion has relaxed, and unhappy and ill-mated persons
do not shrink from taking a step which was formerly condemned by the
church.

80. =History of Divorce.=--The history of divorce presents various
opinions and practices. The Hebrews had high ideals, but frequently
fell into lax practices; the Greeks began well but degenerated sadly
to the point where marriage was a mere matter of convenience; the
Romans, noted for their sterling qualities in the early days of the
republic, practised divorce without restraint in the later days of the
empire.

The influence of Christianity was greatly to restrict divorce. The
teaching of the Bible was explicit that the basis of marriage was the
faithful love of the heart, and that impure desire was the essence of
adultery. Illicit intercourse was the only possible moral excuse for
divorce. True to this teaching, the Christian church tried hard to
abolish divorce, as it attempted to check all sexual evils, and the
Catholic Church threw about marriage the veil of sanctity by making it
one of the seven sacraments. As a sacrament wedlock was indissoluble,
except as money or influence induced the church to turn back the key
which it alone possessed. Separation was allowed by law, but not
divorce. Greater stability was infused into the marriage relation. Yet
it is not possible to purify sex relations by tying tightly the
marriage bond. Unfaithfulness has been so common in Europe among the
higher classes that it occasioned little remark, until the social
conscience became sensitive in recent decades, and among the lower
classes divorce was often unnecessary, because so many unions took
place without the sanction of the church. In Protestant countries
there has been a variable recession from the extreme Catholic ground.
The Episcopal Church in England and in colonial America recognized
only the one Biblical cause of unfaithfulness; the