Marriage Is Just a Shimmy Dance

1920

Marriage Is Just a Shimmy Dance, Opines California Divorce Judge

LOS ANGELES, Cal. — With a record of only two divorces denied as compared with 236 decrees granted during five years on the bench, Judge T. A. Norton of the San Luis Obispo Superior Court has reached the conclusion that modern marriage is a sort of shimmy dance in a great majority of cases, and that the climate of southern California is to blame.

Judge Norton quotes learnedly from ponderous tomes of unimpeachable authorities to prove his point:

"We'd have much less divorce if we didn't have such excellent climate. In a temperature of 40 degrees below zero there is no such thing as quarreling. Existence in a sustained, relatively moderate degree of heat results in instability of character, in which the ruling tendency of the individual is to subordinate society and social welfare to his own selfish ends. A warm climate has the same effect on the temperament of the individual as alcohol, without the apathy that alcohol creates.

"The colder the climate, the less tendency there is to quarrel and the shorter the range of temperamental differences, until we reach the Eskimos, who actually have no word to signify quarreling.

"So far as my observation extends the infidelity of women within the marriage bonds is far greater than that of men under the same circumstances. Women are experimenters. Men are more easily satisfied.

"From experience, I have discovered the futility of attempting to elicit any information other than that contained in the complaint form the plaintiff. Where the parties to the action are young and there are no children whose property rights or future is involved it is useless to attempt to relieve marital misery with legal machinery."

In the meanwhile, with a record of less than 1 per cent of divorces denied, San Luis Obispo promises to become the Reno of California.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, March 27, 1920, page 2.