They knew the contrary to be true; and they had taken good
care that the laws should be well seconded by the manners. Their law of
divorce, like all their laws, had not for its object the relief of
domestic uneasiness, but the total corruption of all morals, the total
disconnection of social life.
It is a matter of curiosity to observe the operation of this
encouragement to disorder. I have before me the Paris paper
correspondent to the usual register of births, marriages, and deaths.
Divorce, happily, is no regular head of registry amongst civilized
nations. With the Jacobins it is remarkable that divorce is not only a
regular head, but it has the post of honor. It occupies the first place
in the list. In the three first months of the year 1793 the number of
divorces in that city amounted to 562; the marriages were 1785: so that
the proportion of divorces to marriages was not much less than one to
three: a thing unexampled, I believe, among mankind. I caused an inquiry
to be made at Doctors' Commons concerning the number of divorces, and
found that all the divorces (which, except by special act of Parliament,
are separations, and not proper divorces) did not amount in all those
courts, and in an hundred years, to much more than one fifth of those
that passed in the single city of Paris in three months. I followed up
the inquiry relative to that city through several of the subsequent
months, until I was tired, and found the proportions still the same.
Pages:
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327