Wedlock

Twenty-eight years ago the city of Denver appointed a "public guardian and administrator," to care legally for its waifs, strays; and orphans. The appointee was a young man from Tennessee, Benjamin Barr Lindsey, who two years later became judge of Denver's juvenile court, which office he occupied ever since. Denver was not a soft town. And there was that in it, a scurrilous newspaper (the Post), which put a terrible premium upon the social transgressions which sensational news pages did much to promote. Judge Lindsey has been a very busy man for 26 years, dealing with recalcitrant, vicious, ignorant and also foolish, reckless and genuinely happy young people. Out of minor bench in a secondary U. S. city, Judge Lindsey has made national rostrum.*

For 26 years his writings on juvenile sociologv have been chiefly confined to specific discussion of cases arising in his social clinic, with strong but never revolutionary suggestions to society at large. But last week, when the February Red Book reached newsstands, Judge Lindsey laid before the country his creed. First popular U. S. sociologist of national reputation to do so, Judge Lindsey came out flat-footed for 1) trial or "companionate" marriage; 2) birth control.

The cases cited in Judge Lindsey's article read just like contemporary fiction--young people desirous of living together, and doing so, but unable to live out the economic and psychological implications of the present marriage code. "Fred" and "Inez," minors, thinking they had obtained an annulment of their marriage, secretly and joyously began living together again. "Katherine" and "George" were unable to stay in love when married since they took for granted they must impose restrictions upon each other--"marital jealousy being, as we all know, a cardinal virtue in our present marriage code though jealousy is demonstrably one of the most hideous vices. . . ." Judge Lindsey urged a legal form that would permit such couples to live together as long as they mutually desired. He thought that the mere knowledge that they could be free at any time by asking for a divorce card at a clerk's window would almost invariably make them want to stay together and enter upon the later, more carefully prepared step of having children. Procreative marriages would be made more difficult of dissolution than at present. Open and above-board birth control was, of course, essential to the scheme. The combined innovations would put an end to sexual and contraceptive "bootlegging"; would free modern youth of its "sex obsession."

How did Judge Lindsey reconcile this code with the Bible? He did not. "Those of my views which are in accord with Holy Writ speak for themselves. Those which are not, have to be classed with evolution, the roundness of the earth and other matters which were not factors in the speculative thought of the ancient Jews. . . . In sex conduct we are today going through the spurious freedom phase; in the first childish exhilaration of revolt we are grossly misbehaving. But I think we shall some day achieve something in sex very far removed from all this--something governed by authentic tastes, and free but educated preferences--a genuine culture, in short. The Denver City Club was quick to offer Judge Lindsey a further hearing. He reiterated his thesis from the platform, adding points: "Chastity and continence are more theoretical than real. They are not natural. . . . Any effort to get any sense into our domestic relations is handicapped at the beginning by the confusion of such popular terms as, 'free love' and 'trial marriage.' " He challenged Denver ministers to a debate: "Resolved, That the institution of matrimony can be improved by man."

Judge Lindsey married in 1913: has a daughter aged three years.

Last week in London, Viscountess Rhondda, feminist, business woman, editress (with Rebecca West and others) of Time and Tide (weekly), declared in an interview: "The 'smart set' is not a tiny fraction of society playing about in Mayfair. Every suburb and provincial city has its smart set now -- its gossip of leisured, idle, irresponsible women. . . . They permeate society with the ideals of the harem. . . . Sex is their profession. So they put an enormous value on sex, on sex discussion and 'problems,' on the high importance of sex attraction. . . . They have become a menace. . . ."

*Chief among his writings to arrest attention of teachers and parents was Revolt of Modern Youth (1925).