Every person appointed to office, as well as those elected by the
people, had to be examined physically, mentally and morally in the same
manner as those applying for a license to practice a profession or
desiring to marry. All were placed on the same footing. The law for
divorce was enforced by the Department of Health, as doctors were, from
their knowledge of human frailty, the best judges to decide whether a
man and woman should live together in the married state or be separated,
and while the law provided for a compulsory decree of divorce for
adultery, which was a felony, it also allowed divorce for
incompatibility of temperament. A court of six Government physicians,
three males and three females, heard all divorce cases in every
district.
The Minister of Health gave me the reasons why the marriage law was
passed fixing twenty-one years of age as the time when young men and
women could marry. He said it was done to allow the youths of both sexes
to become well acquainted with one another before being united in
marriage, and also to be well trained in useful callings, so that both
parties to the marriage contract would be able to assist each other, for
many an innocent young girl had ruined her life by marrying a man at an
age when she was ignorant of the duties of wifehood and motherhood, "but
by keeping our boys and girls in training schools until they are
eighteen and then teaching them trades in the Army until they are
twenty-one years of age we fit them for the duties of life.
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