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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 75

What should be the Grounds of Divo

What should be the Grounds of [unclear: Divo]

The truth is that, it is the very [unclear: elevation] Milton's view of the subject : that has [unclear: prev] it's general adoption. His writings on [unclear: the] ject have been represented as mers [unclear: spe] pleading in favour of freedom of [unclear: divorce,] they are really only an elaborate and [unclear: eloq] amplification of his description of "the [unclear: in] soul and form" of marriage. For one [unclear: thing] does not suit male legislators [unclear: who] determined to maintain the utterly [unclear: unte] distinction between adultery of the [unclear: hus] and that of the wife. And the chu [unclear: ches] [unclear: tabooed] the teacching of the Portion [unclear: M] as lax and unscriptural, became it tends [unclear: to] their own into contempt. But nothing [unclear: is] certain than that the educated woman [unclear: of] future will reject the church service [unclear: view] marriage and the disgust generated [unclear: by] ecclesiastical conception of marriage will [unclear: go] towards destroying all faith in the [unclear: rel] character of the institution. It will [unclear: come] generally recognised that since [unclear: affection] "the internal form and soul" o [unclear: marriage] its [unclear: fioal] end is the happiness and welfare [unclear: of] parties and of the family, and the good [unclear: of] commonwealth, the conclusion is [unclear: obvious] when "conjugal affection arising from [unclear: m] fitness" does not exist, the union is [unclear: al] null. It follows that any causes shuld be [unclear: re] nised as a ground for dissolution [unclear: of] marriage, bond which experience shows [unclear: to] such a nature that it renders conjugal [unclear: fe] impossible. That adultery is the [unclear: only] which produces this deplorable effect [unclear: c] be contended for one moment—nor [unclear: that] the most serious, except from the [unclear: phy] ecclesiastical point of view.