p. 70 | DIVORCE | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 6, 1879

DIVORCE

VERMONT is the paradise of loose marriage laws. During the last sixteen years there have been in that little State 2,417 divorces, of which 632 were for adultery, 941 for desertion, 683 for personal cruelty, 137 for refusal of support, 11 for confinement in the State prison, and 3 for insanity. In 1865 the proportion of divorces to marriages was as 1 to 21.06, and in 1877 as 1 to 14.94. For the first eight years of the sixteen the average ratio of divorces to marriages was as 1 to 18.18, and for the last eight years it has been as 1 to 16.04. This shows an increase in the average ratio of divorces. The Watchman and Journal appeals to these statistics as furnishing a most conclusive reason why the divorce laws of Vermont should be so reformed as to give greater stability and permanency to the marriage relation. One would think that there must be something wrong in a State which for eight years in succession furnishes an average of one divorce for every sixteen marriages, and in 1877 brought down the average to one divorce for a little more than every fourteen marriages. This subject is worthy of the thoughtful consideration of the legislature of every State in the Union.—Selected.