any imputation of scandal. Divorce is always a sad matter, but it is on occasion as necessary as a surgical operation, and should be essentially a private arrangement. It is doubtful whether any moral end is served by requiring "grounds" for divorce to be shown-as, proofs of infidelity, cruelty, or the like; most of these alleged reasons for divorce at present are false or exaggerated pretexts offered to satisfy the law. The fundamental ground for most divorces is that the couple have found that they cannot be happy, cannot be their best selves, together. There are many kinds of cruelty as disastrous to love as sexual dereliction or physical blows, many faults of temper or selfishness as hard to bear. After all, it is not the cause that matters, it is the effect; if one of the parties is made persistently and hopelessly unhappy by the union, relief, after an appropriate delay, should be granted. This is not to say that in all such cases the husband or wife should seek relief; often it is nobler, as we have said, to endure rather than to escape. But it is essentially a personal matter, with which the States should interfere as little as possible. Of course the children, if any, must be safeguarded by the law, as to care and support. Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, chap. xxvI. R. C. Cabot, What Men Live By, chaps. XXIV-XXIX. W. L. Sheldon, An Ethical Movement, chaps. XI, XII. Felix Adler, Marriage and Divorce, The Spiritual Meaning of Marriage. B. P. Bowne, Principles of Ethics, pt. III, chaps. VIII, IX. W. E. H. Lecky, The Map of Life, chap. xiv. R. L. Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque. J. Riis, The Peril and Preservation of the Home. H. G. Wells, "Divorce" (in Social Forces in England and America), What is Coming, VIII. C. J. Hawkins, Will the Home Survive? H. Spencer, Principles of Ethics, pt. III, chaps. VIII, IX. E. S. P. Haynes, Divorce as It Might Be. R. West, The World's Worst Failure. W. L. George, The Intelligence of Women, chaps. V-VII. Bertrand Russell, Why Men Fight, chap. vi. Havelock Ellis, The Task of Social Hygiene, iv. Ellen Key, Love and Marriage. For the data see United States Department of Commerce and Labor, Reports on Marriage and Divorce. CHAPTER XVIII FELLOWSHIP, LOYALTY, AND LUXURY EVERY man has to solve the problem of how far he will live for his smaller, personal self, and how far for that larger self that includes the interests of others. The general principles involved we have discussed in chapter XI; we may now proceed to consider their application to the concrete situations in which we find ourselves. What social relationships impose claims upon us? (1) The relations of husband and wife and of parenthood are most sacred and exacting, because they are voluntarily assumed, and because the need and possibilities of help are here greatest. A man or woman may without odium remain free from these obligations; but once they have made the vows that initiate the dual life, once they have brought a helpless child into the world, neither may evade the consequent responsibilities. If undertaken at all, these duties must be conscientiously fulfilled; and whatever sacrifices are necessary must, as a matter of course, and ungrudgingly, be made. (2) Next in inviolability to these claims are those of father and mother, brother and sister, and other near relatives. Involuntary as these relations are, the natural piety that accepts the burdens they entail must not be allowed to grow dim. Those nearest of kin are the natural supports and helpers of the weak and dependent; and though patience and resources be severely taxed, it is better to let blood ties continue to involve obligation than to permit the selfish irresponsibility of a freer and more individualistic society. Much provocation can be borne by remembering "She is my mother"; "He is my brother"; after all, their interests are ours, and our lives are impoverished, as well as theirs, if we ignore them. (3) The voluntary bonds of friendship entail somewhat vaguer obligations, since the closeness of the tie is not clearly fixed, as it is in the case of blood relationship. But "once a friend always a friend" is the true-hearted man's motto. "Assure thee," says one of Shakespeare's heroines, "if I do vow a friendship, I'll perform it to the last article." No one who has won another's friendship, and, however tacitly, pledged his own, is thenceforth free to ignore the bond. Here are for most men the happiest opportunities for fellowship, for inward growth, and for service; for if the love of wife surpasses that of friends, it is not only on account of the fascination of sex, but because marriage may be the supreme friendship. Emerson declared that "every man passes his life in the search after friendship"; and the greatest of Stevenson's three desiderata for happiness was"Ach, Du lieber Gott, friends!" Human beings, even when brought up in a similar environment, are so infinitely divergent in temperament and ideal, that the near of kin seldom meet a man's deepest needs, and he must wait and watch to find one here and there with whom he can clasp hands in real mutual comprehension and accord. Want of this spontaneous comradeship sadly limits a life; nothing pays more in joy than the circle of friends that a man can draw about him. Nothing, likewise, is more morally stimulating. “What a friend thinks me to be, that must I be." This linking of our lives to others draws us out of ourselves, corrects our cramped and distorted vision, and reinforces our wavering aspirations. Hence those who are so critical and fastidious as to make few friends ill serve their own interests. A certain heartiness and fearlessness of trust is necessary; reproaches and suspicions, accusations and demands for explanations, must not be indulged in, even if wrong is actually done. A presumption of good intentions must always be maintained, even if appearances are black. It is more shameful, as La Rochefoucauld said, to distrust a friend than to be deceived by him. Indeed, these deceptions and disillusions are oftenest the result of our own mistaken idealization; we must expect neither perfection nor those particular virtues in which we ourselves are especially punctilious, and undertake to love and cleave to a mortal, not an angel. Friendship requires not only that we lend a hand when help is needed; it implies patience and tact and the endeavor to understand. Through common experiences, repeated interchange of thought and observation, mutual enjoyment of beauty and fun, particularly in expressing common ideals and working together for common causes, there grows to maturity this wonderful relationship-"the slowest fruit in the whole garden of God, which many summers and many winters must ripen." (4) Beyond the boundaries of blood and friendship lie a whole hierarchy of lesser relationships - to neighbors, to employees, to fellow townsmen, to human beings the world over. Mere proximity constitutes a claim that is not commonly acknowledged when distance interposes; most men would be mortally ashamed to let a next-door neighbor starve, although they may feel no call to lessen their luxuries when thousands, whom they could as easily succor, are perishing in the antipodes. And there is a measure of necessity in this; to burden our minds with the thought of the suffering in India, in Russia, in Japan, leads to a paralyzing sense of impotence. If we confine our thought to the dwellers on our street or in our town, it may not seem utterly hope less to try to remedy their distress; to improve the situation of the laborers in one's own shop or factory lies within the limits of practicability. But the Christian doctrine of the universal brotherhood of man is becoming a working principle at last; and millions of dollars and thousands of our ablest young men and women are crossing the oceans to uplift and civilize the more backward nations, in deference to the admonition that we are our brothers' keepers. At home this recognition of the basic human relationship of living together on this little sphere, that is plunging with us all through the great deeps of space, should help to obliterate class lines and snobbishness and bring about a real democracy of fellowship. (5) Finally, we have a duty to those dumb brothers of ours, the animal species that share with us the earth. For they, too, feel pain and pleasure, and are much at our mercy. We must learn "Never to blend our pleasure or our pride With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels." All needless hurting of sentient creatures is cruelty, whether of the boy who tortures frogs and flies, or of the grown man who takes his pleasure in hunting to death a frightened deer. Beasts of prey must, indeed, be ruthlessly put to death, just as we execute murderers; among them are to be counted flies, mosquitoes, rats, and the other pests so deadly to the human race and to other animals. But death should be inflicted as painlessly as possible; no humane man will prolong the suffering of the humblest creature for the sake of "sport" or take pleasure in the killing. We must say with Cowper "I would not enter on my list of friends, (Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm." |