But what about the children?  That is necessarily a very important question.  The question of the arrangements made for the children in cases of divorce is always one to which the State must give its regulative attention, for it is only when there are children that the State has any real concern in the matter.

At one time it was even supposed by some that the existence of children was a serious argument against facility of divorce.  A more reasonable view is now generally taken.  It is, in the first place, recognized that a very large proportion of couples seeking divorce have no children.  In England the proportion is about forty per cent.; in some other countries it is doubtless larger still.  But even when there are children no one who realizes what the conditions are in families where the parents ought to be but are not divorced can have any doubt that usually those conditions are extremely bad for the children.  The tension between the parents absorbs energy which should be devoted to the children.  The spectacle of the grievances or quarrels of their parents is demoralizing for the children, and usually fatal to any respect towards them.  At the best it is injuriously distressing to the children.  One effective parent, there cannot be the slightest doubt, is far better for a child than two ineffective parents.  There is a further point, often overlooked, for consideration here.  Two people when living together at variance—­one of them perhaps, it is not rarely the case, nervously abnormal or diseased—­are not fitted to become parents, nor in the best condition for procreation.  It is, therefore, not merely an act of justice to the individual, but a measure called for in the interests of the State, that new citizens should not be brought into the community through such defective channels.[353] From this point of view all the interests of the State are on the side of facility of divorce.

There is a final argument which is often brought forward against facility of divorce.  Marriage, it is said, is for the protection of women; facilitate divorce and women are robbed of that protection.  It is obvious that this argument has little application as against divorce by mutual consent.  Certainly it is necessary that divorce should only be arranged under conditions which in each individual case have received the approval of the law as just.  But it must always be remembered that the essential fact of marriage is not naturally, and should never artificially be made, an economic question.  It is possible—­that is a question which society will have to consider—­that a woman should be paid for being a mother on the ground that she is rearing new citizens for the State.  But neither the State nor her husband nor anyone else ought to pay her for exercising conjugal rights.  The fact that such an argument can be brought forward shows how far we are from the sound biological attitude towards sexual relationships.  Equally unsound is the notion that the virgin bride brings her husband