In the good old days of Hester Prynne they published a faithless wife by sewing a scarlet "A" upon the bosom of her dress. Nowadays the word is p.r.o.nounced "co-respondent," and it may be affixed to any woman's name by any newspaper, or any plaintiff in a divorce case.

So fearful a power was so much abused that since 1911 in New York the co-respondent has been permitted to come into the court and oppose the label. It is in sort a revival of the ancient right to trial by ordeal.

This hideous privilege of proving innocence by walking unshod over hot plowshares is most frigidly set forth in the statute where the lawyer's gift for putting terrible things in desiccated phrases was never better shown than in Section 1757.

In an action brought to obtain a divorce on the ground of adultery, the plaintiff or defendant may serve a copy of his pleading on the co-respondent named therein. At any time within twenty days after such service on said co-respondent he may appear to defend such action, so far as the issues affect such co-respondent. If no such service be made, then at any time before the entry of judgment any co-respondent named in any of the pleadings shall have the right, at any time before the entry of judgment, to appear either in person or by attorney in said action and demand of plaintiff's attorney a copy of the summons and complaint, which must be served within ten days thereafter, and he may appear to defend such action, so far as the issues affect such co-respondent.

In case no one of the allegations of adultery controverted by such co-respondent shall be proved, such co-respondent shall be ent.i.tled to a bill of costs against the person naming him as such co-respondent, which bill of costs shall consist only of the sum now allowed by law as a trial fee, and disburs.e.m.e.nts, and such co-respondent shall be ent.i.tled to have an execution issue for the collection of the same.

The exact amount of money was set forth in another place, in Section 3251, where it is stated that the sums obtainable are "for trial of an issue of fact, $30, and when the trial necessarily occupies more than two days, $10 in addition thereto."

In other words, Mrs. Charity Coe Cheever, finding her life of good works and pure deeds crowned with the infamy which Mrs. Kedzie Dyckman in her anger and her haste pressed on her brow, had the full permission of the law to come into the public court, face a vitriolic lawyer, and deny her guilt.

If she survived the trip through h.e.l.l she could collect from her accuser forty dollars to pay her lawyer with. The priceless boon of such a vindication she could keep for herself. And that ended her.

This is only one of the numberless vicious and filthy and merciless consequences of the things done in the name of virtue by those who believe divorce to be so great an evil that they will commit every other evil in order to oppose it.

In no other realm of law and punishment has severity had more need of hypocrisy to justify itself than in the realm of wedlock. What grosser burlesque could there be than the conflict between the theory and the practice? The law and the Church, claiming what few people will deny, that marriage is an immensely solemn, even a sacred, condition, have made entrance into it as easy as possible and the escape from it as difficult. It is as if one were to say, "Revolvers are very dangerous weapons, therefore they shall be placed within the reach of infants, but they must on no account be taken away from them, and once grasped they must never be laid down."

The most stringent rules have been formulated to prevent those people from marrying each other who are least likely to want to--namely, blood relations. But there is no law against total strangers meeting at the altar for the first time, and the marriage by proxy of people who have never seen each other has had the frequent blessing of ecclesiastic pomp.

At a time when legal divorce was too horrible to contemplate they made very pretty festivals of betrothing little children who could not understand the ceremony or even parrot the pledge. Who indeed can understand the pledge before its meaning is made clear by life?

And why should people be forced to make an eternal pledge whose keeping is beyond their power or prophecy and from which there is no release?

What is it but a subornation of perjury?

Those who so blithely scatter flowers before bridal couples and old shoes after them are perfectly benevolent, of course, in their abhorrence of separating the twain if they begin to throw their old shoes at each other; for they are sincerely convinced that if people were permitted to do as they pleased, nothing on earth would please them but vice. And so those who have the lawmaking itch set about saving humanity from itself by making inhuman laws, which the clever and the criminal evade or break through, leaving the gentle and the timid in the net.

For there was never no divorce. No amount of law has ever availed to keep those together who had the courage or the cruelty to break the bonds. By hook or by crook, if not by book, they will be free.

The question of the children is often used to cloud the issue, as if all that children needed for their welfare were the formal alliance of their parents, and as if a home where hatred rages or complacent vice is serene were the ideal rearing-ground for the young. When love of their children is enough to keep two incompatible souls together there is no need of the law. When that love is insufficient what can the law accomplish? And what of the innumerable families where there have been no children, or where they are dead or grown-up?

The experiment of forbidding what cannot be prevented and of refusing legal sanction to what human nature demands has been given centuries of trial with no success.

Marriage is among the last of the inst.i.tutions to have the daylight let in and the windows thrown open. For the home is no more threatened by liberty than the State is, and that pair which is kept together only by the shackles of the law is already divorced; its cohabitation is a scandal. Free love in the promiscuous sense is no uglier than coupled loathing. The social life of that community where divorce is least free is no purer than that where divorce is not difficult. Otherwise South Carolina, which alone of the States permits no divorce on any ground, should be an incomparable Eden of marital innocence. Is it? And New York, which has only one ground, and that the scriptural, should be the next most innocent. Is it?

Meanwhile the mismated of our day who are struggling through the transition period between the despotism of matrimony and its republic can be sure that the righteous will omit no abuse that they can inflict.

Those who would free Russias must face Siberias.

The worst phase of it is that some of those who are determined to be free and cannot otherwise get free will not hesitate to destroy innocent persons who may be useful to their escape.

Mrs. Kedzie Dyckman had her heart set on releasing herself from the husband she had in order that she might try another who promised her more happiness, more love, and more prestige. The husband she had would have been willing enough to set her free, both because he liked to give her whatever she wanted and because he was not in love with their marriage himself.

But the law of New York State says that married couples shall not uncouple amicably and intelligently. If they will part it must be with bitterness and laceration. One of the two must be driven out through the ugly gate of adultery. They must part as enemies and they must sacrifice some third person as a blood-offering on the altar.

It is a strange thing that the lamb, which is the symbol of innocence and harmlessness, should have always been the favorite for sacrifice.

Charity Coe had happened along at the convenient moment.

CHAPTER XII

"Mrs. Charity Coe Cheever, take the stand...."

"Ju swear tell tru thole tru noth buth tru thelpuG.o.d?"

"I do."

McNiven, in the direct examination, asked only such questions as Charity easily answered with proud denials of guilt. Beattie began the cross-examination with a sneering scorn of her good faith.

"Mrs. Cheever, you are the co-respondent in this case of Dyckman _versus_ Dyckman?"

"I am."

"And on this night you went motoring with defendant?"

"Yes."

"Was his wife with you?"

"No; you see--"

"Was any other person with you?"

"You see, it was a new car and it was only our intention to--"

"Was any other person with you?"

"No."

"And you spent the night with the defendant in the Viewcrest Inn?"

"That is hardly the way I should put it."

"Answer the question, please."

"I will not answer such an insulting question."

"I beg your pardon most humbly. Were you registered as the defendant's wife?"

McNiven's voice: "I 'bject. There is no evidence witness even saw the book."

The judge: "Objection s'tained."

"Well, then, Mrs. Cheever, did you see the defendant write in the book?"

"I--I--perhaps I did--"

"Perhaps you did. You heard the waiter Magruder testify here awhile ago that he insisted on defendant registering, and defendant reluctantly complied. Do you remember that?"