MARRIAGE MADNESS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3507, 9 June 1920, Page 5

MARRIAGE MADNESS.

An entirely novel form of insanity. has appeared -in Italy. It takes the shape of a proposal that childlessness shall be suflicient ground. for the annulment of any marriage.

Of course, upholders of the idea have -.1 great deal to say for themselves. They will point out_,.f.or instance, that 1-ace-suicide is one of the greatest’ of the perils of modern nations. Unproductive mai-1-iages threaten the existence of the confihunity, and no pi-ice——according to t.hem——is too high to be paid’ for a rising birth rate.

But it would be hard to find a more glaring example of how not to do it than is contained in their” plan‘. It is State-interference with the liberty of the individual carried to the Wild—est extreine. It amounts to turning the World into a human stud-farm, and making public oificials the instruments of the old injunction to be fruitful and multiply.

Italy has given the World a few shocks in the pastTew year-s~, ranging from Futurism in art. and music to the a.dveutures of the poet-bandit. dljAnnunzio. But this latest outbreak nukes the other matters look Very mild indeed. Happily, there is no great likelihood that the iflea \ ill spread. It is just one of these Wild nations which arise from cérryifig certain theories of the relation between the Stale and fife individual to their logical conclusion. Logic is a. very fine thing in its way, but logical conclusions are frequently perilous, and too often they lead, as in tlie present instance, to madness.

Childlessness may be, and sometimes is, a fault; it may also be ohe of the most pitiful of misfortunes. To add State punishment to that misfortune would be the extremity of cruelty. Theyvay to encourage fhe birth rate is not by penalising those Yirfio fail to produce children, but by reWa"l-ding‘ those who do. ‘