Divorce: The Nature of Marriage
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 It is vitally important in considering marriage, particularly as it bears upon the subject of divorce, that the significance of its twofold aspect should be appreciated, namely, its static or institutional character, and its dynamic nature as a phase of human relations. In other words, when we speak of marriage we may have in mind, on the one hand, a phase of social organization; a social institution which has a long history; one which in the course of its development has undergone progressive changes in its form, which now has a fixed status in social usage, and is defined specifically in the law.
On the other hand, we may be thinking concretely of persons who have entered into a definite type of relations with each other which we call marriage; a relationship which is institutional in its outward form and is sanctioned by law, but one in which internally there is a complex of adjustments of a purely personal character within the sphere of their intimate relations involving sex, temperament, habits, personality traits, economic arrangements, and a host of other matters of private concern.
Viewed as an institution, marriage is not a ready-made gift to mankind but a product of social experience and habit. "Those in our day who talk so much about the sacredness of marriage can know but little about its history." It is, at any time, the group sanction of the existing sex mores. It always has been, according to the testimony of historical and anthropological students, an "elastic and variable usage," hence the difficulty of precise, and at the same time, comprehensive definition.
In general, however, we may say that it is the institutionalizing of those more or less restricted, more or less enduring forms of sexual relations between men and women which have existed everywhere in human society. No human group which has been subjected to study, however primitive in culture, has been found to be devoid of regulated marital relationships, and, ordinarily, the higher the degree of cultural development, the more clearly defined and standardized do these relationships become.
We need not, therefore, in the consideration of marriage, any more than in the case of other social institutions, as for example, the institution of property or of the state, have in mind any of the developed forms, but simply the customary and socially approved methods of mating and of living in the marriage relation.
On its institutional side, marriage has been concerned mainly with status, and interest in the subject has been concentrated upon that aspect, that is, upon the maintenance of the institution which defined and regulated the conjugal relations of husbands and wives. It is from this point of view that marriage has been regarded as constituting one of the main foundations of the social order.
This scarcely could have been otherwise in view of the historical developments which made of marriage a conventional relationship, often coercive in its nature and void of personal considerations, particularly for women, and surrounded it with ecclesiastical and legal safeguards. Thus theories in regard to the nature of marriage as a divine institution, as a legal entity, as well as those in regard to its inherent indissolubility, were the logical outcome.
As the result of social changes which of late have weakened its external buttresses, the institution, as such, exhibits a process of deterioration in the sense of its increasing inability to conform individuals to its established standards. The statistics of divorce in their upward trend thus represent the measure of institutional failure and, in the nature of the case, from the point of view of those who have their eyes fixed and their interests centered upon this aspect of marriage, can only be "viewed with alarm," and repressive measures consequently are advocated.
Marriage as a human relationship does not depend upon external authority either for its origin or for its perpetuation. It is not the product of intelligence, of forethought, nor of purposive planning. It is not the creature of law. It existed for ages before there was any law on the subject. It is the cause and the occasion of the mores and laws in which it came presently to be imbedded.
Theoretically, on its organic side, it has a natural origin in the biological propensities of human beings, which, as in the case of all other animals, lead to matings and to the reproduction of the species. Its continuance depends upon the reciprocal emotional attachments, sympathetic responses, learned reactions, and voluntary inclinations which develop and stabilize the relation as an aid in the maintenance of the joint enterprise of successful living together and of rearing children.
Historically, this natural relation has been so much complicated by both individual and group interests of other sorts and so largely invested with other functions, that its potentially voluntary character has been overlaid and, as a result, it has appeared as a coercive relationship, initiated by capture, purchase, contract, parental selection, and other compulsory arrangements, and perpetuated irrespective of personal choice, through the social constraints of custom, religion, and law. Its institutional character thus became emphasized.
With the development of civilization these "other functions" have been differentiated out of the family and have become institutionalized in their own spheres. The family is no longer the economic, the political, the religious, or the basic social unit of society. As the forms of control associated with these social functions have become detached and have receded from the domain of the family, marriage is increasingly thrown upon its own resources as a voluntary relation in which its inner sanctions remain as the chief conditions of its survival.
It is this aspect of the subject that is of chief importance today.
It is not so much that the institution of marriage is breaking down as that individual marriages are. This may affect one's attitude toward divorce. Hardly any one will question the utility of an institution based upon fundamental human needs, such as those which underlie marriage, but the institution must conform itself to those needs or it will perish. It may turn out upon investigation that this institution is out of adjustment to present requirements and that divorces are to some extent, at least, the expression of this condition.
The social well-being is as much a paramount consideration as ever, but it is a basic tenet of democracy that this can be established only by means which at the same time secure the well-being of the individual. The actual causes of the dissolution of marriage as a personal relation must be sought within the domain of these relations. Divorces will probably be found to be the end results either of institutional maladjustment or of internal disorganization, the adaptive remedy for which, in either case, is likely to be, not the forcible maintenance of the relation, but constructive means for improving the conditions which lead to the results.
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