SELFISH INTENTIONS - K-REx - Kansas State University

quickly get a divorce—needed to be stopped. Lastly, they argued divorce needed to be harder to
obtain.
At the heart of the issue was the “dual” nature of marriage. On the one hand, the
marriage contract was created by two individuals. On the other hand, once two individuals
married, they had created a union with social significance that needed to be protected. It was the
need to protect the social institution that required divorce petitioners to charge their spouses with
a “crime” that had violated the union. In the Thirty-Fourth District, Judge C. W. Smith of
Stockton argued that the county attorney needed to represent the state in every divorce case
whether it was contested or not. He stated, “No civilization worthy the name can long endure
without a high development of domestic virtues, nor where the marriage relation is lightly
regarded. As we are one people no state should be permitted to treat this relation with less
consideration than do all states.” 106 Smith argued that when a marriage was dissolved the whole
community was affected, and he was particularly troubled that so many divorces were decided in
ex parte hearings, that is, in a context were both parties were not present. In his view, the
community should have an officer or representative who should, in effect, defend the marital
union on behalf of the community. Furthermore, he maintained that instead of hiding the truth
during a divorce proceeding, all information should be disclosed so that as few unjustified
divorces would be granted as possible.
In his response to the editor of Mail and Breeze, Judge Smith provided several suggested
changes to the state statutes. First, he believed each case should have a county attorney or
another representative to defend the case in order to prevent divorces that were unjustified.
Secondly, he requested that a waiting period be established so that no divorce case would be
106 Ibid.
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