DIVORCE vorces. In New Jersey there was no divorce jurisdiction granted the courts. It may be said, therefore, that outside of New England during the colonial period there was no such thing as a judicial divorce. 67 From 1787-1906.-The Constitution of the United States does not grant the Federal Government any power over the subject of divorce. In this matter, therefore, Congress can legislate only for the District of Columbia and for the territories. The organic acts creating the territories give power to their legislatures over all "rightful subjects of legislation not inconsistent with the constitution of the laws of the United States"; special and general divorce laws are, therefore, within the power of territorial legislatures, but by the Act of 30 July, 1886, all special divorce acts have been expressly forbidden. The various states of the Union succeeded to the full sovereign rights exercised by the Parliament of England over all subjects relating to marriage and divorce, but in the absence of special divorce statutes, there being no tribunal haying jurisdiction, the law would remain the same as in the colonies prior to the Revolution. However, all states of the Union have adopted divorce statutes, excepting South Carolina, and have clothed the courts with full jurisdiction to administer relief. In most of the states and territories divorces a vinculo and a mensâ et toro are provided for, and in some of the states courts of equity take jurisdiction over special proceedings for a decree of nullity of marriage. In some states, however, decrees a mensâ are expressly forbidden. The causes for which a decree may be granted vary from the single cause of adultery on the part of either husband or wife (law of New York and the District of Columbia) to nine separate causes in the State of Washington, the last being known as the "omnibus provision", which permits a divorce for any other cause deemed by the court sufficient, provided that the court shall be satisfied that the parties can no longer live together. In most of the states there is no restriction upon the parties remarrying after divorce, though in some, as in New York, the court may forbid the guilty party to remarry during the lifetime of the innocent, and in others, as in Pennsylvania, marriage of the guilty party with a paramour during the lifetime of the innocent party is null and void. Great uncertainty as to the effect of the divorce statutes of the different states has arisen where relief has been sought by a party whose husband or wife was resident of a different state from that in which the proceeding was brought. While it is a fundamental principle that the courts of any state have entire control over the citizens of that state in divorce proceedings, a different question arises where the husband is a resident of one state and the wife of another. The English doctrine that the domicile of the husband is that of the wife, irrespective of where she may actually be living during coverture, does not prevail in the United States. For the purposes of a divorce proceeding the wife may have a domicile separate from that of her husband. In consequence of this rule of American law it has frequently happened that actions for divorce have been initiated and carried to a conclusion without the respondent receiving any actual notice of the proceeding. This is made possible by provisions in the state statutes providing for service of notice by publication, where actual service cannot be had upon a respondent by reason of absence from the state. While decrees granted in accordance with the statutes of any particular state are valid in that state, there is no power to enforce a recognition of their validity in other states, and in consequence it frequently happens that a divorce may be valid in one state and invalid in another; the children of a second marriage legitimate in one state and illegitimate in another; the property rights of the former husband and wife terminated in one state and in full force in another. The Constitution of the United States (Art. IV, Sec. I) provides that "full faith and credit shall be Keeping this distinction in mind, it will be perceived ited, (3) existing marriage, (4) fraud, force, or coercion, (5) insanity unknown to the other party. The growth of divorce in the United States under the general divorce laws has been unprecedented, and exceeds in number those of any other modern nation, excepting Japan. An analysis of the statistics prepared by Carroll D. Wright, Commissioner of Labor, in 1889, showed the total number of divorces for a period of twenty years, from 1867 to 1887, to be 328,716, an increase of 157 per cent, while the increase in population for the same period was 60 per cent. The Census Bulletin upon marriage and divorce in the United States, issued by the Department of Labor and Commerce under authority of an Act of Congress, in 1908, shows that the total number of divorces for the entire country from 1887 to 1906 inclusive was 945,625. For the earlier investigation covering the twenty years, from 1867 to 1886 inclusive, the number reported was 328,716, or hardly more than one-third of the number reported in the second twenty years. At the beginning of the forty-year period covered by the two investigations, divorces occurred at the rate of 10,000 a year. At the end of that period the annual number was about 66,000. This increase, however, must be considered in connexion with the increase in population. An increase of 30 per cent in population between the years 1870 to 1880, was accompanied by an increase of 79 per cent in the number of divorces granted. In the next decade, 1880 to 1890, the population increased 25 per cent and divorces 70 per cent. In the following decade, 1890 to 1900, an increase of 21 per cent in population was accompanied by an increase of 66 per cent in the number of divorces. In the six years from 1900 to 1906, population, as estimated, increased 10.5 per cent and divorces 29.3 per cent. It thus appears at the end of the forty-year period that divorces were increasing about three times as fast as the population, while in the first decade, 1870 to 1880, they increased only about two and two-thirds as fast. The divorce rate per 100,000 population increased from 29 in 1870 to 82 in 1905. In the former year there was one divorce for every 3441 persons and in the latter year one for every 1218. The rate per 100,000 married population was 81 in the year 1870 and 200 in the year 1900. This comparison indicates that divorce is at present two and one-half times as common, compared with married population, as it was forty years ago. Divorce rates appear to be much higher in the United States than in any of the foreign countries for which statistics relating to this subject have been obtained. Two-thirds of the total number of divorces granted in the twenty-year period covered by this investigation were granted to the wife. The most common single ground for divorce is desertion. This accounts for 38.9 per cent of all divorces (period 1887 to 1906), 49.4 per cent or almost one-half of those granted to the husband, and 33.5 per cent or onethird of those granted to the wife. The next most important ground of divorce is, for husbands, adultery, and for wives, cruelty. Of the divorces granted to husbands (1887 to 1906), 28.8 per cent were for adultery, and of those granted to wives 27.5 per cent were for cruelty. Only 10 per cent of the divorces granted to wives were for adultery of the husband, and 10.5 per cent of divorces granted to husbands were for cruelty on the part of the wife. Drunkenness was the ground for divorce in 5.3 per cent of the cases for which the wife brought suit, and in 1.1 per cent of the cases in which the suit was brought by the husband. Intemperance was reported as an indirect or contributory cause for divorce in 5 per cent of the divorces granted to the husband, and in 18 per cent of the divorces granted to the wife, and appeared as a direct or indirect cause in 19.5 per cent of all divorces, and 26.3 per cent of those granted to wives, and 6.1 per cent of those granted to husbands. Only 15 per cent of the divorces were returned as contested and probably in many of these cases the contesting was hardly more than a formality. Alimony was demanded in 18 per cent of the divorces granted to the wife and was granted in 12.7 per cent. The proportion of husbands who asked for alimony was 2.8 per cent and the proportion obtaining it was 2 per cent. The average duration of marriages terminated by divorce is about ten years. Sixty per cent or three-fifths last less than ten years and forty per cent last longer. Of the divorced couples known to have been married in the United States 88.5 per cent were married in the same state in which they were divorced. Of the divorced couples known to have been married in foreign countries 36.9 per cent were married in Canada, 12.7 per cent in England, 16.1 per cent in Germany and 1.9 per cent in Ireland. Children were reported in 39.8 per cent of the total number of divorced cases. The proportion is much larger for divorces granted to the wife than for divorces granted to the husband; children being present in 46.8 per cent of the former class of divorces and 26 per cent of the latter. A reason suggested for this is that the children are usually assigned by the court to the mothers, and to her, therefore, divorce does not imply separation from her children, while to the husband it involves a severance of the parental as well as the marital relation. In Canada during 1900 there were eleven divorces; in 1901 nineteen. In England there were 284 in 1902, as compared with 177 in 1901. In Germany at the same time there were about 10,000 annually, and in France 21,939, with a tendency towards a rapid increase. Among the Japanese there are about 100,000 divorces per annum. It is estimated that about fifty per cent of divorced couples have children, and it is urged "that consideration for the children of divorced people should be a first concern in stimulating restrictive legislation". It has been stated that threequarters of the boys in two reformatories, one in Ohio and one in Illinois, come from families broken up by death or divorce, "mainly by divorce" (The Divorce Question in New Hampshire, Rev. W. Stanley Emery). Divorce Congress of 1906.-A well concerted effort was made in 1906, upon the initiative of the State of Pennsylvania, to secure uniform legislation by the various states and territories of the Union so as to eliminate as far as possible fraudulent proceedings for divorce. It resulted in the meeting of a Divorce Congress in the City of Washington, where all of the states, excepting Nevada, Mississippi, and South Carolina, were represented, in addition to the District of Columbia and the territory of New Mexico. The outcome of this congress was the adoption of a form of statute designed to overcome flagrant evils arising from lack of uniformity, and also from inherent objections to various existing methods of procedure. A summary of these points will show how far the existing statutes were considered to need amendment. Having in mind the evils that have arisen from migratory divorce (that is, where the plaintiff has left his or her own state to obtain a residence for the purpose of divorce in another) the congress recommended that all suits for divorce should be brought and prosecuted only in the state where one of the parties has a bona fide residence; that when the courts are given cognizance of suits where the plaintiff was domiciled in a foreign jurisdiction at the time the cause of complaint arose, relief should not be granted unless the cause be included among those recognized in the foreign domicile, and the same rule should apply in the case of the defendant. At least two years residence should be required of one of the parties before jurisdiction should be assumed. The defendant should be given every opportunity to appear and make defence, and one accused as co-respondent should be permitted to defend in the same suit. Hearings and trials should always be before the court and not before a delegated representative of it, and in DIXON all uncontested cases, and in any other case where in No the judgment of the court it is wise, a disinterested attorney should be assigned to defend the cause. decree should be granted on affirmative proof aside from the admission of the respondent. A decree dissolving marriage so as to permit remarriage of either party should not become operative until the lapse of a reasonable time after hearing or trial upon the merits If an inhabitant of one state should go of the case. Into another state or territory to obtain a divorce for a cause which occurred in the matrimonial domicile, or for a cause which would not authorize a divorce by the laws of that domicile, such divorce should have no force or effect in the state of the domicile. Fraud or collusion in obtaining or attempting to obtain divorces should be made a statutory crime. The legitimacy of children born during coverture, except in the case of bigamous marriages, should not be affected by divorce of the parents. On the subject of causes each state should legislate for its own citizens and the common sentiment of that state should be properly expressed by the enumeration of causes in its own statute. Those heretofore given are recognized as representing the view of the great majority as covering offences against the marriage contract of so serious a character as to defeat the purpose of the marital relation. The congress expressed the hope that the number of causes for divorce would be reduced rather than increased and declared its opinion that in such jurisdictions as New York and the District of Columbia, where the only cause is adultery, no change is called for. It was recommended that where conviction of crime is made a cause, it must be followed by imprisonment for two years, but no absolute divorce should be granted for insanity, and that desertion should not be a cause unless persisted in for at least two years. Practically the same causes for divorce a mensâ et toro were enumerated. The provisions of this statute have already been adopted in Delaware and New Jersey and are under consideration (1908) in other states. While the reforms thus suggested will not put an end to what is known as the divorce evil, it is believed that they will have the effect of safeguarding trials and abating fraud upon the courts. 69 Philosophical thinkers recognize the fact that the prevalence of divorce in the United States arises from two causes. The first of these causes is the gradual change in the attitude of society towards women in the recognition of their individual rights to their own property, and of their capacity to earn their own living in many vocations heretofore closed to them. The legal fiction that the identity of the woman was merged in that of her husband has given place to a growing recognition of her individuality in all relations of life. This has weakened the dependence of women upon The theory of the their husbands for support and has affected the concept of the family relation. Protestant leaders of the sixteenth century, that marriage is but a civil contract, devoid of sacramental character, has been strengthened by the vicissitudes of modern life, while the facility with which divorces can be obtained has tended to a constant increase of their number. Marriage, not being accounted a sacrament by non-Catholic Christians, is entered into with greater ease than a contract of far less moment affecting property alone. The knowledge that in case of disagreement the parties may obtain a divorce no doubt has The second cause is the gradual increase its effect. Leaders of and development of irreligion and materialism among non-Catholic members of the community. the Protestant Churches in the United States have become alarmed at the progress of divorce, and have been endeavouring in their various denominations to adopt such regulations as would restrict it to flagrant cases or abolish it entirely. It is evident that the prevalence of divorce is an indication of an unsound condition of society. Those who now endeavour to reform the civil statutes in the interest of honest trials, Dixon, JOSEPH, Archbishop of Armagh, Ireland, b. at Coalisland, Co. Tyrone, in 1806; d. at Armagh, 29 age of sixteen he was ordained priest in 1829. In 1834 April, 1866. Having entered Maynooth College at the His class had an average of 200 stuhe was appointed to the chair of Sacred Scripture and Hebrew, a post he worthily occupied for the next dents, amongst whom was John McEvilly, afterwards eighteen years. Archbishop of Tuam and a distinguished writer on Scriptural subjects. Dr. Dixon's professorship was signalized by his "Introduction to the Sacred Scriptures", a work highly praised by Cardinal Wiseman and which was very much needed at the time. The first edition appeared in 1852 and a second in 1875. As Primate of Armagh he held an important synod in assisted with their theologians. In the same year he 1854, at which all the bishops of the northern province cathedral of Armagh and almost accomplished the began the heavy task of completing the unfinished work before his death. In 1856 he formed the diocesan chapter consisting of thirteen members. During his incumbency he brought some religious congregations into the diocese, viz. the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul (1855), who opened a house in Drogheda; the Marist Fathers (1861) who opened a college and novitiate in Dundalk, and the Vincentian Fathers who were placed in charge of the ecclesiastical and fearless defender of the rights of the Holy See and seminary the same year. The primate was a stanch at a public meeting in Drogheda denounced Napoleon III for complicity in the acts of the Italian revolutionists. His speech and subsequent letter to the "Freemade them a subject of complaint to Pius IX. peror man's Journal" created a great sensation and the emThe primate was the organizer of the Irish Brigade in CUSACK, Life of Dr. Dixon; STUART, History of Armagh, ed. AMBROSE COLEMAN. COLEMAN (1900), 306 sqq. the papal service. Dlugosz (Lat. LONGINUS), JAN, an eminent medie1480, at Cracow. He was one of the twelve sons born val Polish historian, b. at Brzeznica, 1415; d. 19 May, to John and Beata. He received his primary education in Nowy Korczyn, then entered the Academy of Cracow, where he studied literature and philosophy. Later he became a prelate of the cathedral He was ordained priest in 1440, and appointed secretary of Cardinal Zbigniew Oleśnicki, Bishop of Craand preceptor for the children of the Polish King, COW. Casimir IV, Jagielończyk. He was employed as the ambassador of the Polish king to different foreign countries, and especially to Bohemia and Hungary, where he settled political disturbances. His ecclesiastical superiors sent him as their representative to Pope Eugenius IV, and as delegate to the Council of Basle. He declined the Archbishopric of Prague, but shortly before his death was appointed Archbishop of Lemberg. Dlugosz expended his great income for religious and philanthropic purposes; he founded both churches and monasteries, also burses for the maintenance of poor scholars. The most beautiful church which he founded, and beneath which he was buried, is in Cracow, and is called Na Skalce (meaning, "Upon Rock", as the church was built on an enormous rock). As a Polish historian he outranks all who preceded him. He was not content to repeat the statements made by other chroniclers, but examined for himself the oldest Polish, Bohemian, Hungarian, Ruthenian, and German documents, to understand which thoroughly he studied, in his old age, several foreign languages. His works offer abundant and reliable material not only for Polish, but also for general, history. Dlugosz paid less attention to beauty of style than to veracity of statement, and wrote in a philosophic manner, as one who saw the action and purposes of Providence in all historical events. His great history of Poland (Historia Polonica in twelve volumes) was composed by order of his friend and master Cardinal Oleśnicki. The works of Dlugosz were first published incompletely in 1614, and fully in 1711. The best edition is that in fourteen volumes by Carl Mecherzyński: "Joannis Dlugosz Senioris Canonici Cracoviensis Opera Omnia" (Cracow, 1863-87). It includes his heraldic work " Banderia Prutenorum", also his "Life of St. Stanislaus", "Life of St. Kinga", lives of many Polish bishops (Sees of Wroclaw, Poznań, Plock, Cracow, etc.), "Liber beneficiorum dioecesis Cracoviensis", "Lites ac res gestæ inter Polonos ordinemque Cruciferorum", Annales seu cronica incliti regni Poloniæ". CARO, J. Longinus (Jena, 1863); ZEISSBERG, Die polnische Geschichtschreibung des Mittelalters (Leipzig, 1873); BRÜCKNER, Dzieje Literatury Polskiej (Warsaw,1908), I. Dobeneck. See COCHLEUS. JOHN GODRYCZ. Dobmayer, MARIAN, a distinguished Benedictine theologian, b. 24 Oct., 1753, at Schwandorf, Bavaria; d. 21 Dec., 1805, at Amberg, Bavaria. He first entered the Society of Jesus, and after its suppression in 1773 joined the Benedictines in the monastery of Weissenohe, Diocese of Bamberg, where he was professed in 1775, and in 1778 ordained priest. He was successively professor of philosophy at Neuburg, Bavaria (1781-87), of dogmatic theology and ecclesiastical history at Amberg (1787-94), and of dogmatic theology and patrology at the University of Ingolstadt (1794-99). On the reorganization of the latter school in 1799 he returned to his monastery of Weissenohe, where he remained until its secularization. He then retired to Amberg, where he taught theology until his death. In 1789 he published at Amberg a "Conspectus Theologiæ Dogmatica". His chief work is the "Systema Theologia Catholica", edited after his death by Th. P. Senestrey in eight volumes (Sulzbach, 1807-19). The work is very learned and devoid of all harshness in its controversial parts. LINDNER, Die Schriftsteller des Benedictiner-Ordens im heutigen Königreich Bayern (Ratisbon, 1880), I; HURTER, Nomenclator (Innsbruck, 1895), III; FISCHER in Kirchenlex., s.v. FRANCIS J. SCHAEFER. Dobrizhoffer, MARTIN, missionary, b. in Graz, Styria, 7 Sept., 1717; d. in Vienna, 17 July, 1791. He became a Jesuit in 1736, and twelve years later set out for the missions of South America, where he laboured mong the Guaranis and the Abipones for eighteen years. On the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Spanish possessions in 1767, he returned to his native land. The Empress Maria Theresa frequently sent for Dobrizhoffer that she might hear his adventures from his own lips; and she is said to have taken great pleasure in his cheerful and animated conversation. He is the author of a work in three volumes entitled "Historia de Abiponibus, equestri bellicosâque Paraguainâ natione" etc. (Vienna, 1783-1784), a German translation of which, by Professor Keil of the University of Pesth, was published in Vienna the same year. This work is of great ethnological value. In the preface he says, "A seven years residence in the four colonies of the Abipones has afforded me opportunities of closely observing the manners, customs, superstitions, military discipline, slaughters inflicted and received, political and economical regulations, together with the vicissitudes of the colonies". He further declares that what he learned amongst the Paraguayans in the course of eighteen years, what he himself beheld in the colonies of the Indians and the Spaniards, in frequent and long journeys, through woods, mountains, plains and vast rivers, he sets forth, if not in an eloquent and brilliant narrative, certainly in a candid and an accurate one, which is at least deserving of credit. In the course of the work, Dobrizhoffer frequently takes occasion to refute and expose the erroneous statements of other writers respecting the Jesuits in Paraguay, and the malicious calumnies by which the ruin of their institutions in that country was unhappily effected. The English translation (An Account of the Abipones, an Equestrian People of Paraguay, London, 1822), commonly ascribed to Southey, is the work of Sara Coleridge, daughter of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who judged it a performance "unsurpassed for pure motherEnglish by anything I have read for a long time". Dobrizhoffer in 1773 was appointed preacher to the Court in Vienna, a post which he held till his death. BUSCHING, Wöchentliche Nachrichten (1775), 358; Biog. Univers. (Paris, 1852), XI; Dict., of Nat. Bion. (New York, 1908), IV, 773; Memoirs and Letters of Sara Coleridge, edited by her daughter (London, 1873); Edinburgh Review, CXXXIX, 23; SOMMERVOGEL, Bibl. de la c. de J. (Brussels, 1892), III, 108; AZARA, Voyage dans l'Amérique Méridionale (Paris, 1809). EDWARD P. SPILLANE. Docetæ (Gr. Aокnraí), a heretical sect dating back to Apostolic times. Their name is derived from doknots, "appearance" or "semblance", because they taught that Christ only "appeared" or "seemed" to be a man, to have been born, to have lived and suffered. Some denied the reality of Christ's human nature altogether, some only the reality of His human body or of His birth or death. The word Docete, which is best rendered by "Illusionists", first occurs in a letter of Serapion, Bishop of Antioch (190-203) to the Church at Rhossos, where troubles had arisen about the public reading of the apocryphal Gospel of Peter. Serapion at first unsuspectingly allowed, but soon after forbade, this, saying that he had borrowed a copy from the sect who used it, "whom we call Doceta". He suspected a connexion with Marcionism and found in this Gospel "some additions to the right teaching of the Saviour". A fragment of this apocryphon was discovered in 1886 and contained three passages which savoured strongly of Illusionism. The name further occurs in Clement Alex. (d. 216), Strom., III, xiii, VII, xvii, where these sectaries are mentioned together with the Hæmatites as instances of heretics being named after their own special error. The heresy itself, however, is much older, as it is combated in the New Testament. Clement mentions a certain Julius Cassianus as ὁ τῆς δοκήσεως ἐξάρχων, "the founder of Illusionism". This name is known also to St. Jerome and Theodoret; and Cassianus is said to be a disciple of Valentinian, but nothing more is known of him. The idea of the unreality of Christ's human nature was held by the oldest Gnostic sects and DOCETÆ cannot therefore have originated with Cassianus. As Clement distinguished the Docetæ from other Gnostic sects, he probably knew some sectaries the sum-total of whose errors consisted in this illusion theory; but Docetism, as far as at present known, was always an accompaniment of Gnosticism or later of Manichæism. The Docetæ described by Hippolytus (Philos., VIII, i-iv, X, xii) are likewise a Gnostic sect; these perhaps extended their illusion theory to all material sub stances. Docetism is not properly a Christian heresy at all, Another Syrian Gnostic, Cerdo, who came to Rome 71 strenuously denying the truth of His birth. He con- In the East, Marinus and the school of Bardesanes, This heresy, which destroyed the very meaning and purpose of the Incarnation, was combated even by the Apostles. Possibly St. Paul's statement that in Christ dwelt the fullness of the Godhead corporaliter (Col., i, 19, ii, 9) has some reference to Docetic errors. Beyond doubt St. John (I John, i, 1-3, iv, 1-3; II |
