SELFISH INTENTIONS - K-REx - Kansas State University

tried within six months of the filing date. Third, in an acknowledgment of women’s interests in
the issue, Judge Smith argued that a jury of both men and women should decide divorce cases.
He explained, “The jury should be given authority to decide whether or not the public interest
requires that the guilty party should be prohibited from remarrying, and whether or not the guilty
party should be prosecuted by the state as for an offense against its laws.” 107 In previous years,
divorces had been decided with little judicial deliberation which was why Smith sought a change
to the system. He justified these reasons in his letter to the editor: “It is both a social and
judicial outrage that a lawsuit involving so much both to the parties immediately concerned, their
children and the public, can be tried and determined based on ex parte hearing before one man
and in no more time that is required to perform the marriage ceremony.” 108
Judge Smith understood that many people would see these changes as revolutionary, but
he believed they were necessary in order to change the cycle of easy divorces in Kansas. He did
not see a problem in funding the additional state costs for divorce proceedings because the costs
would be offset by the safety and quality of society in the state. Smith did not foresee divorces
becoming too hard to obtain. He concluded by appealing to widely held assumptions about the
traditional virtues of home and family: “The glory and strength of our society rests in the purity
and stability of its homes. If our homes are pure and unbroken no man will ever see the grave of
this republic.” 109 Judge Smith as well as others viewed the marriage union as an essential part of
society which should not be dissolved lightly.
Another judge who took the issue of marriage and divorce quite seriously was Judge Z.
T. Hazen of the Third District Court of Kansas of Topeka. He examined the last one hundred
107 Ibid.
108 Ibid.
109 Ibid.
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