County. TABLE NO. 13-Continued. SHOWING MARRIAGES REPORTED FROM JAN. 1, 1913, TO DEC. 31, 1913, ARRANGED ACCORDING TO AGE GROUPS. stated. Age not County. TABLE NO. 12-Concluded. SHOWING MARRIAGES REPORTED FROM JAN. 1, 1913, TO DEC. 31, 1913, ARRANGED ACCORDING TO AGE GROUPS. DIVORCES. During the year ending Sept. 30, 1912, there were reported to the State Bureau of Vital Statistics 1,615 divorces; for 1913, 1,391 divorces. The number of marriages reported for 1912 was 20,125, giving a divorce rate per thousand marriages of 80.2. Marriages reported for 1913, 21,052; rate 66.0. A comparison of rates for the last five years shows a rate of 82.5 in 1909; 64.1 in 1910; 68.5 in 1911; 80.2 in 1912 and 66.0 in 1913. Our rate in the United States is twice that of Switzerland, thrice that of France, five times that of Germany and many times that of England and Canada. We find the wife to be the plaintiff in more than half the divorce proceedings, and in about one-third of the cases to have had a gainful occupation. The inference is that women having a gainful occupation to which they may return more readily seek divorce than those who have no gainful occupation. Prof. Ross in his recent book entitled "Changing America" considers it safe to say that the majority of divorces would not be sought but for the access of women to the industrial field, advancing in substantiation of this statement the difference between the North and South in this matter, hinging on the difference in industrial opportunity for women in the two sections. Comparatively few cases were contested. in about one-third of the cases. Alimony was granted Studying the table with reference to the number of children in the family we find that the majority of divorces are granted to couples having no children, showing the tendency of children to hold the parties together. The greater number of divorces are secured by couples who have lived together from one to four, or five to nine, years. In the great majority of cases the parties are native born and the marriage occurred in Wisconsin, although for 1912 we find the plaintiff to be foreign born in 331 cases and for 1913 in 328 cases. Ninety-five of the couples seeking divorce in 1912 were married outside of the state and 84 in 1913. The principal causes for which divorces were granted were adultery, 59 in 1912, 50 in 1913; cruelty, 552 in 1912, 520 in 1913; desertion, 558 in 1912, 454 in 1913; drunkenness, 162 in 1912, 117 in 1913; nonsupport, 214 in 1912, 181 in 1913. In a paper given before the Fifteenth International Congress on Hygiene and Demography, the Rev. Samuel Dike, L. L. D., secretary of the National League for the Protection of the Family, made a strong plea for a more extended investigation into the real cause of divorce, saying among other things, "It is well known that the technical grounds on which divorces are granted are often very different from the real reasons for which they are sought. Then not only psychological conditions leading to incompatibility but physiological ones, especially those due to sex, are both frequent and powerful elements in the problem. Unwillingness to have children, or even to accept the duties of sex, are doubtless causes that operate very frequently. Especially does the influence of sexual vice on divorce need investigating. But this and some of the other factors in the problem are generally carefully concealed from the courts and of course escape record for obvious reasons. Many of the other points do not come within the range of judicial proceedings as these are now conducted. Then, further, the influence of property, an institution which has grown up and which exists in the closest relation with the institution of the family, on divorce needs much attention. Inadequate wages, innutritious or badly cooked food, ambition for dress and for those social pleasures which money will buy, the distraction of social life among the rich, quarrels over the distribution of property in later married life, all tell more or less on the prevalence of divorce and should therefore be studied statistically in order that their size and influence be seen so far as possible. So, too, notice needs to be taken of the parallelism, where it may exist, of the movement of divorce to that of financial conditions and its relation to pauperism, crime and insanity. The number of children of the divorced in reform schools and other similar institutions needs to be known. The money cost of divorce, both direct and indirect, ought to be ascertained. In other words, all the varied and complex causes and conditions that enter into the problem should be brought, so far as they can be, within our reach by the statistician." |