LET’S TRY MONOGAMY

Evening Star, Issue 22441, 11 September 1936, Page 1

LET’S TRY MONOGAMY

HUGE GOST OF DIVORCE During the last 10 years more than 1,800,000 American husbands have had. alimony awards assessed against them and they have paid up to the tune of something like £200,000,000 a year (says Henry Goddard Leach, editor, in ‘ The Forum and Century ’). And in case you are thinking of getting mar* ried and living in tne United (State's, you might as well know now that the odds are 7 to 13 that you won’t Be married at the end of the first year, and that’s official. While marriage is still, a much-fav« cured institution, in the United States, it can hardly be called monogamous any more. Multiple marriage, or what might be called polygamy in series,,is the new institution which is more or less bulwarking the American home. The fact that more than 100,000 child* ren are affected every year by divorces tends to imply that it is doing its bulwarking pretty haphazardly. And in case you were wondering if all this means that American men are becoming shiftless over the responsibilities of the home, you might as well know that 73.5 per cent, of all divorces are granted to wives. .

The cost to the general public, whether divorced or not, is growing into surprising figures. Husbands who will not, or more often cannot, pay the alimony assessed against them, are housed in the local jail until they see the light of reason In New York City alone th© bill for their maintenance gets into tbo millions a year. And every year a good £400,009,000 is spent throughout the country on lawyers, court costs, and the public machinery for settling the troubles ot burning hearts. All this in face of the fact that the average alimony paid comes to £3 a week. Very often the responsibility for this free-and-easy attitude towards marriage and the home is laid on th© shoulders of the younger generation. But a questionnaire sent recently to certain _ women’s _ colleges that had a reputation for being pretty modern revealed the facts that all the undergraduates considered that marriage was still woman’s best career, and that all of them expected a marriage to last, for life. Four-fifths of them did nob approve of sexual freedom for women before marriage, and the remaining one-fifth made qualified reservations. ■ There is no need or excuse for th© scatter-brained attitude towards marriage and divorce that is reflected in the above figures. The only result is a terrific toll of .human happiness and wealth and the dislocation of tha Jives of whole generations of children. While divorce is undoubtedly a neces'comijig actual!vx ,as .common .a«e-mar-sift'tJS’ itself." Thtv/highest achievement i of marriage is surely the ability of two persons to live together harmoniously through the years. As a new approach to the problem—why., not try monogamy. .