The Broken Family : Part 1

The Family and it's Members
by Anna Garlin Spencer

(Page 13 of 19)

"Every social ill involves the enslavement of individuals. Freedom is that phase of the social ideal which emphasizes individuality. - All mankind acknowledges kindness as the law of right intercourse within a social group. - The ideal of service goes with the sense of unity. - A likeness of spirit and principle is essential to moral unity. The creation of a moral order on an ever-growing scale is the great historical task of mankind, and the magnitude of it explains all shortcomings." - Charles H. Cooley, in Social Organization.

"The sanctity of oaths
Lies not in lightning that avenges them,
But in the injury wrought by broken bonds
And in the garnered good of human trust.
'Tis a compulsion of the higher sort,
Whose fetters are the net invisible
That holds all life together.
'Tis faithfulness that makes the life we choose
Breathe high and see a full-arched firmament.
We may see ill
But over all belief is faithfulness
Which fulfils vision with obedience.
No good is certain, but the steadfast mind,
The undivided will to seek the good;
'Tis that compels the elements, and wrings
A human music from the indifferent air."
- George Eliot.

"Genuine government is but the expression of a nation
Good or less good; even as all society
Is but the expression of men's single lives -
The loud sum of the silent units."
- E.B. Browning.

"There is no other genuine enthusiasm than one which has travelled234 the common highway - the life of the good man and woman, the good neighbor, the good citizen." - Thomas Green Hill.

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom."
- Shakespeare.

The Problems of Divorce. - Having treated in some detail the subject of "Problems of Marriage and Divorce" in a former book, Woman's Share in Social Culture, and also in articles published in The International Journal of Ethics, The Harvard Theological Review, Harper's Weekly, and other magazines, this chapter, to avoid repetition, will simply rehearse in brief outline the points of view previously expressed.

In the valuable and suggestive treatment of the family by Professor Ellwood in his book, Sociology and Modern Social Problems, he says that "divorce is but a symptom of more serious evils that in certain classes of American society have apparently undermined the very virtues upon which the family life subsists." If that be so, then no tinkering with the laws which aim at preventing divorces will reach the seat of the difficulty. The treatment must be more radical, and the character of individuals be made more noble and strong, if the family is to be made more stable and marriage more successful.

Frequency of Divorce in the United States. - The first point to be noted in any discussion of the broken family is the frequency of that social tragedy in the United States. The pioneer study by Professor W.P. Willcox, made in 1885 and reported in his volume entitled The Divorce Problem, showed the fact that we had in this country at that time more divorces per year than were recorded in all the other so-called Christian countries put together. For 1905, statistics show nearly 68,000 divorces in the United States as against the highest number from Germany, which is only a trifle above 11,000, and from France, 10,860, and running down rapidly to the number of 33 in Canada. In England, in 1905, there was but one divorce to 400 marriages. In the United States, in the same year, one divorce to every 12 marriages. Since that count was taken, there has been no evidence of a halt in the tendency of the United States to lead the rest of the Christian world in this matter of separation of those once joined together by marriage vows. In some of the States, the showing is more pronounced on the side of free divorce than in other States, since in Washington, Oregon, and Montana one divorce to every five marriages is reported, in Colorado and Indiana one to every six, and in Oklahoma, California, and Maine one to every seven marriages. We need not accept the doleful suggestion of Professor Willcox that if we go on this way, "by 1950 one-fourth of all marriages will be terminated by divorce, and by 1990 one-half so terminated," for it is not necessary or likely that we shall "go on" in this particular. Already, movements toward the strengthening of family ties and the better training of youth to responsibility, movements that tend to make marriage less brittle, are inaugurated.

Cannot Now Make Family an Autocracy. - There are several points that all must agree upon if we are to stay the rush to the divorce courts and yet not attempt the futile task of turning the family order back to the patriarchal or the monarchical types. In those types there was little or no legal divorce, it is true, but in them inhered social evils that often killed the spirit of marriage, and doomed the children of enforced unions to physical weakness, mental defectiveness, moral taint, and affectional suffering.

First of all, it should be noted that, although the divorce statistics are serious indictments of American life and bode ill to American society, they are not wholly a testimony to bad conditions. They are also a testimony that he who runs may read, to the determination of men, and especially of women, to exact a higher reality of mutual love, mutual respect, mutual service, and mutual coöperation within the marriage bond.

Copyright, 1923 by J.B. Lippincott Company

About the Author

Anna Garlin Spencer (1851-1931) was an American educator, feminist, and Unitarian minister. Born in Attleboro, MA, she married the Rev. William H. Spencer in 1878. She was a leader in the women's suffrage and peace movements. In 1891 she became the first woman ordained as a minister in the state of Rhode Island.