Many people, for example, who would not have thought of
divorce a generation ago, now know how divorce may be secured and are
ready to secure it. However, it would seem as though this cause of the
increase of divorce might have operated to a greater extent twenty-five
or thirty years ago than it has during the last two decades, for it
cannot be said that since the nineties there has been much increase of
legal education among the masses, or much greater popularization of the
law.
(9) Increasing laxity of the laws regarding divorce and increasing
laxity in the administration of the laws has certainly been a cause of
increasing divorce in the United States, though back of these causes
doubtless lie all the other causes just mentioned, and also increasing
laxity in public opinion regarding marriage and divorce. To assume that
laxity of the laws and of legal administration has no influence upon the
increase of divorce in a population is to go contrary to all human
experience. The people of Canada and of England, for example, are not
very different from ourselves in culture and in institutions, yet there
is almost no divorce in England and in Canada as compared with the
United States.
Pages:
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198