Another of her Judges has said from the bench, "We often see
men of excellent characters unfortunate in their marriages, and virtuous
women abandoned or driven away houseless by their husbands, who would be
doomed to celibacy and solitude if they did not form connections which
the law does not allow, and who make excellent husbands and wives
still."
This judicial utterance makes an excellent basis for the statement that
it is better to adapt the law to facts as we find them, than to proceed
on the principle that as there is no redress called for save where there
is a wrong, if we do not allow the redress, there will, of course, be no
wrong. There is no escape from the conclusion that divorce or irregular
connections will prevail in every community; why not agree with Milton
that honest liberty is the greatest foe to dishonest license?
When the founders of the new Commonwealth came to these shores they
brought with them of necessity the laws of the mother country, and so we
shall find that the divorce laws of England, as they existed at that
time, were the early laws of the colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts
Bay.
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