An unhappy household is a bad nursery. There is something to be
said for the polygynous or polyandrous household as a school for
children: children really do suffer from having too few parents:
this is why uncles and aunts and tutors and governesses are often
so good for children. But it is just the polygamous household
which our marriage law allows to be broken up, and which, as we
have seen, is not possible as a typical institution in a
democratic country where the numbers of the sexes are about equal.
Therefore polygyny and polyandry as a means of educating children
fall to the ground, and with them, I think, must go the opinion
which has been expressed by Gladstone and others, that an
extension of divorce, whilst admitting many new grounds for it,
might exclude the ground of adultery. There are, however, clearly
many things that make some of our domestic interiors little
private hells for children (especially when the children are quite
content in them) which would justify any intelligent State in
breaking up the home and giving the custody of the children either
to the parent whose conscience had revolted against the
corruption of the children, or to neither.
Which brings me to the point that divorce should no longer be
confined to cases in which one of the parties petitions for it.
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