Tea at Trianon: History of Modern Divorce

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, March 6, 2008

History of Modern Divorce

The Western Confucian has linked to an informative article about the history of divorce. Here is an excerpt:

In our medieval period divorce was allowed only from bed and board, or by nullification on the theory that no marriage existed. There were various devices whereby a person could take church orders and—since chastity was a higher state than marriage—achieve some voidance of previous nuptial arrangements. This was particularly true if it could be shown that marriage, which was sometimes considered to begin with engagement (sponsalia), had not been completed by copula carnalis. But the Reformation and the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophy (both in jurisprudence and in general theories of society) favored absolute divorce. The contractual theory of the family as a limited agreement for a specific purpose gained headway. The nineteenth century was one in which absolute divorce became not only possible but permissible in practically all Western countries. Its popularity grew rapidly.
Divorce is a phenomenon which flourishes in certain specific conditions. These are found in new countries, among mixed populations upset by revolutions, wars, and other factors destructive to tradition and family relationships. Naturally, in the Americas (particularly among the Protestant groups in North America), among the Protestant groups in Europe, and during the revolutionary and war periods, this idea of divorce has had its widest influence and popularity.