companionships of the chain.  But there were many more which inflicted an eternity of suffering upon one of the pair.”  This quotation, it must be added, has nothing to do with what the Canonists, borrowing the technical term for a prisoner’s shackles, suggestively termed the vinculum matrimonii; it was written many years ago concerning the galleys of the old French convict system.  It is, however, recalled to one’s mind by the title which the Austrian Marriage Reform Association has given to its official organ.

Russia, where the marriage laws are arranged by the Holy Synod aided by jurists, stands almost alone among the great countries in the reasonable simplicity of its divorce provisions.  Before 1907 divorce was very difficult to obtain in Russia, but in that year it became possible for a married couple to separate by mutual consent and after living apart for a year to become thereby entitled to a divorce enabling them to remarry.  This provision is in accordance with the humane conception of the sexual relationship which has always tended to prevail in Russia, whither, it must be remembered, the stern and unnatural ideals of compulsory celibacy cherished by the Western Church never completely penetrated; the clergy of the Eastern Church are married, though the marriage must take place before they enter the priesthood, and they could not sympathize with the anti-sexual tone of the marriage regulations laid down by the celibate clergy of the west.

Switzerland, again, which has been regarded as the political laboratory of Europe, also stands apart in the liberality of its divorce legislation.  A renewable divorce for two years may be obtained in Switzerland when there are “circumstances which seriously affect the maintenance of the conjugal tie.”  To the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, finally, belongs the honor of having firmly maintained throughout the great principle of divorce by mutual consent under legal conditions, as established by Napoleon in his Code of 1803.  The smaller countries generally are in advance of the large in matters of divorce law.  The Norwegian law is liberal.  The new Roumanian Code permits divorce by mutual consent, provided both parents grant equal shares of their property to the children.  The little principality of Monaco has recently introduced the reasonable provision of granting divorce for, among other causes, alcoholism, syphilis, and epilepsy, so protecting the future race.

Outside Europe the most instructive example of the tendency of divorce is undoubtedly furnished by the United States of America.  The divorce laws of the States are mainly on a Puritanic basis, and they retain not only the Puritanic love of individual freedom but the Puritanic precisianism.[346] In some States, notably Iowa, the statute-makers have been constantly engaged in adopting, changing, abrogating and re-enacting the provisions of their divorce laws, and Howard has shown how much confusion and awkwardness arise by such perpetual legislative fiddling over small details.