[748] According to the table by classified causes: WRIGHT, _Report_, 181-83. However, the relative number of divorces granted on the wife's petition varies greatly among the states: from 39.3 per cent. in North Carolina to 77.9 in Nevada: compare the table in WILLCOX, _The Divorce Problem_, 34-37.
[749] DIKE, "Statistics of Marriage and Divorce," _Pol. Sci. Quart._, IV, 607, summarizing the tables and figures in WRIGHT, _Report_, 135-39.
[752] WILLCOX, _The Divorce Problem_ (2d ed.), 16-19, and Appendix.
The divorce rate in the United States is higher than in any other country for which statistics are collected and published, with the single exception of Japan,[753] being lowest in the southeastern and highest in the western and southwestern states.[754] As in Europe the divorce rate is higher and the marriage rate lower in the cities than in the country.[755] Again, while the marriage rate per capita of population is steadily descending, the divorce rate is on the average rising, although the "North Atlantic group of states, from Maine to Pennsylvania inclusive, shows no increase" in the twenty years, the growth of divorce just keeping pace "with the population."[756] For some of the western states the more recent statistics are sufficiently startling. "Divorces in Ohio increased from 2,270 in 1889 to 3,217 in 1899, and the ratio to marriages has become 1 to 10.9. There were 2,418 divorces in Michigan in the year 1900, or 1 to 9.6 marriages. Here about two-thirds of the applications are granted. In some states three-fourths of the suits are successful. In Michigan the statistics show that nearly all the divorces are granted to residents of the state. Indiana shows a remarkable change for the worse. Almost a generation ago Indiana was notoriously bad. Then the laws were improved and her divorce rate was no worse than that of some states in the east; but for some unexplained reason divorces of late have increased rapidly. In 1899 there were granted no less than 4,031 divorces, and 4,699 in the year 1900. In the last year the ratio of divorces to marriages of the same year became 1 to 5.7 for the entire state," and 1 to 3.8 in the county of Marion containing Indianapolis.[757] In Europe likewise the marriage rate is decreasing and the divorce rate increasing, each in some countries with even greater rapidity than on the average in the United States. Moreover, the growth of divorce in recent years is a remarkable phenomenon in Catholic as well as Protestant lands. Thus in the entire German Empire divorces rose from 5,342 in 1882 to 6,677 in 1891, the population during the same decade rising from 45,719,000 to 49,767,000. In Holland there were together 271 divorces and separations in 1883 and 474 in 1892, the population at the same time advancing from 4,225,065 to 4,669,576. During the same ten years divorces in Sweden rose from 218 to 316, the population being 4,603,595 at the beginning and 4,806,865 at the end of the period. In this decade, the population making but slight advance, the aggregate number of divorces and separations in Switzerland decreased from 1,013 to 953. In France for each 1,000 marriages celebrated 14 divorces were decreed in 1885 and 24 in 1891, the population showing a very small increase. For the decennium beginning in 1884 and closing in 1893 the number of divorces decreed in Belgium mounted from 221 to 497, while the population grew from 5,784,958 to 6,262,272. During the same period in Greece the number rose from 88 to 103. In Bavaria--like Greece or Belgium a Catholic state--there is also a rapid growth of divorce, the number of decrees advancing from 218 in 1882 to 308 in 1891, thus giving a rate of one divorce for 24,490 of the population at the commencement as compared with 18,279 at the close of the decade.[758] "In England divorces rose from 127 in 1860 to 390 in 1887, an increase much more rapid than that of population or of marriages. Judicial separations rose between the same years from 11 to 50. In Scotland divorces which in 1867 numbered 32 had, in 1886, grown to 96, a still more rapid rise, as it covers only twenty instead of twenty-seven years. It is worth noting that in England it is usually the husband who petitions for a divorce, and almost always the wife who seeks a judicial separation."[759]