We know that by his laws Peter the Great changed if not the character at least the manners and customs of his people.
Custom is the offspring of law, and morals are the offspring of custom. National character is not really changed, for character, I believe, is a thing incapable of change, but it appears to be changed, and it certainly undergoes some modifications; one set of tendencies is checked, while others are encouraged.
The law abolishing the right of primogeniture has obviously affected national morals, though it has not otherwise altered national character. For a peculiar mental attitude is evolved by the constant domination of an elder brother, whose birthright gives him precedence and authority second only to that of the father. In countries where the right of unrestricted testamentary bequests is still maintained, family morals are very different from those which obtain where the child is considered a joint proprietor of the patrimony.
Since the passing of the law permitting divorce, a sad but necessary evil, there have been far more applications for divorce than there ever were for separation. Can this be accounted for solely by the fact that formerly it seemed hardly worth while to take steps to obtain the qualified freedom of separation? I think not. For when a yoke is unbearable, efforts to relax it would naturally be quite as strenuous and as unremitting as efforts to get rid of it altogether.
The truth is, I think, that when both civil and ecclesiastical law agreed in prohibiting divorce, people held a different view of marriage; it was looked upon as something sacred, as a tie that it was shameful to break, and that could not be broken except as a last resource and then almost under pain of death. The law permitting divorce was what our forefathers would have called a "legal indiscretion." It has abolished the feeling of shame. Except where there is strong religious feeling, there is now no scruple nor shame in seeking divorce. The old order has passed away; modesty has been superseded by a desire for liberty, or for another union. This change has been brought about by a law which was the result of a new moral code; but the law itself has helped to enlarge and expand the code.