3'HE JEWISH. CHRONICLE
14
THE JEWISH DIVORCE PROBLEM.
A Reply to R. G.
of amusement and pity that I read R. G.'s
T T WAS with a mingled feeling
in which he deplored the spread of the divorce
1 letter of two weeks ago r
evil among the Jewish people and with typical masculine logic laid the
blame for it all at woman's door. I felt amused because his position cannot
be taken seriously. It is too absurd. And that is also the pity of it.
You are wrong, Mr. R. G. You are wrong in your premises, you are
wrong in your reasoning, and ydu are wrong in your conclusion. There has
been no alarming increase in the number of Jewish divorces. The good
Judge H. was undoubtedly correct when he stated that thirty years ago a
Jewish divorce case was an unusual event, while today such cases are quite
commom.., but in view of the fact that during those same thirty years the
Jewish population in the United States has multiplied some five or six fold,
this aowth in the number of divorces is quite natural.. Also, since the trend
of legislation during recent years has been towards. a greater liberality in our
divorce laws, it was quite to be expected that there should be an increased
number of divorces among JewiSh couples. The evil, therefore, which you
have so graphically portrayed, Mr. R. G., does not exist. Any growth which
tkas taken place of late in the number of Jewish domestic separations is only
in proportion with the growth of the general Jewish population-and modern
ideas in lawmaking.
"50-50."
even if your premiseL-that there has been a marked rise in the num-!
UT
ber of divorces among Jews—is correct, it still does not follow that the
Jewish woman is to blame for that condition. You place the guilt upon her
shoulders, because. she has become "ultra-modern," interested in the problems
of womankind to the exclusion of the problems of her home. You forget,
however, that "what is 'sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander," and
that if the Jewish wife has become inoculated with the germ of "modern"-ism,
then so has her sterner half. Your characterization, Mr. R. G., of the Jewish
husband who does not "drink or beat his wife, and who but rarely bestows
his affections upon a party foreign to the marriage contract," may have suited
that individual at the time the learned Judge H. first mounted the bench, but
it is hardly a fair portrayal of him now. If the "home"-ly qualities of the
present-day Jewess have suffered—as you contend 7 -by her contact with
modern ideas, then alsohave her husband's old-fashioned virtues deteriorated.
"Fifty-fifty," as the inelegant but picturesque phrase puts it. The Jewish hus-
band is no longer the angelic creature you make of him. A tour of some of
the down-town cabarets in any American city should convince you that in
mastering the gentle art of Bacchus he compares favorably with his Gentile
brother. And if he does not beat his wife, it is not because he lacks in
ferocity, but because cave-man tactics are considered passe today. Further,
Mr. R. G., every Jewish husband is not a model of steadfastness and devotion.
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A False Alarm.
TRULY, , I refuse to be alarmed at the spread of the evil concerning which
have waxed so-indignant. It is very unsafe to judge the home-life
TRULY
of a people by the prevalence of divorces among it. For every case of domes-
tic unhappiness brought to the surface of publicity by the filing of a bill of
divorce, there are dozens of family tragedies that remain hidden, and no
whisper of them ever reaches the public ear. If, as the proverb has it, walls
can hear, then I shudder to think of the stories they know, stories of martyr-
dom and patient suffering, of unspeakable abuse and ill-treatment received in
silent .endurance, lest the world discover and its tongues be set to wagging.
And, unlike you, Mr. R. G., I do not regard the spread of divorce neces-
sarily as an ill omen. Sometimes, it is a welcome sign. Perhaps it indicates
the birth' of a newer, saner, and broader philosophy of life among Jewish
womanhood. Perhaps it means that the women of our race are just dawning
to a larger conception of the marriage relation, and of the basic thing upon
which it rests—love. Perhaps, it shows that they realize, as every woman
should, that when a home is barren of love and there is no communion of
interests, and husband and wife discover that they are utter strangers to each
other,—when quarrels and misunderstandings begin to develop, and the pres-
ence of children proves ineffectual to heal the breach, then there has ceased
to be any reason. for the continuance of the marriage relation. The dissolu-
tion of the bond is the only course left open.
In conclusion, despite your dire prophesies, Mr. R. G., I am thor-
oughly optimistic. The Jewish woman today is just as good a wife and
mother as she ever was, and her home is just as much as ever a model of
domestic felicity, the abode of love, affection and devotion. Nor have her
qualities of wifehood and motherhood suffered because she is more of a
woman, conscious of her sex and of its problems, her horizon broadened
beyond the narrow limits of the "home-line." And to you, Mr. R. G., I would
say, "First cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then, shalt thou see
clearly to cast out the mote out of they brother's eye."
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