Note 268 — Chapter XXVII · POOR-RELIEF, CORRECTION, AND OTHER WELFARE PROBLEMS

In number of divorces the United States, unhappily, leads the world. More divorces are granted each year in this country than in all other civilized countries put together. This is one of the things which gives us no occasion for boasting, because it points to a serious weakening in the stability and strength of the family as a social unit. Not only is the number of divorces very large, but it is rapidly increasing year by year. Fifty years ago the number per annum in the United States was only about twenty thousand; now it is over one hundred and twenty thousand. On the average there was one divorce for every thirty marriages in 1870; today the ratio is one in ten. At the present rate of increase it has been estimated that by 1950 no fewer than one-fourth of all marriages will be terminated by divorce, and if the same condition of affairs should continue until the end of the twentieth century, one-half of all the marriages would eventuate in that way. This would indeed be an ominous outlook were it not that conditions are likely, sooner or later, to undergo a change. When a social problem becomes very serious, as this one is now becoming, it is the habit of society to seek out and apply appropriate remedies.