The disintegration of marriages constitutes one of the major problems of modern civilization. It is a matter of common knowledge that divorces are on the increase throughout the Western world and particularly in the United States. This phenomenon has challenged the attention of socially minded persons--moralists, religionists, scholars, and statesmen. Proportionally with the spread of information concerning the nature and the rapidity of this increase have people been disturbed as to its significance--witness the extensive treatment of the subject in the public press and in contemporary drama, also the great volume of articles, monographs, and books which have appeared in this field in recent years. Naturally there is great diversity of views and there are few subjects of public interest which have provoked more vigorous controversies as to the inherent nature of the problem and as to the most advantageous methods of dealing with it.
The Nature of Divorce
There is probably no single subject within the range of public interest upon which there is greater misapprehension as to its real meaning and significance, which is calculated to prevent clear thinking and useful action, than that of divorce.
Among all those persons, whether moralists, religionists, reformers, or social scientists, who regard marriage as an institutionalized type of personal relations which in the past has served, and which in the future is destined still to serve, a useful purpose in the interest of human welfare, there is no difference of opinion as to the menace of marriage instability. To the extent to which successful marriages minister to individual happiness and to the social wellbeing, their breakdown is to be deplored. But when it is asserted that divorce "is an evil," that "divorce destroys marriages," or that "the divorce mill is grinding the family altar to powder" there is revealed a confusion of thought which beclouds the issue and tends to obscure and to distort the facts.................
