This early work by G. K. Chesterton was originally published in 1916. Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born in London in 1874. He studied at the Slade School of Art, and upon graduating began to work as a freelance journalist. Over the course of his life, his literary output was incredibly diverse and highly prolific, ranging from philosophy and ontology to art criticism and detective fiction. However, he is probably best-remembered for his Christian apologetics, most notably in Orthodoxy (1908) and The Everlasting Man (1925). We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Divorce versus Democracy by G. K. Chesterton.

The author argues that marriage is a patriotic duty and that divorce is a threat to democracy.

On this question of divorce I do not profess to be impartial, for I have never perceived any intelligent meaning in the word. I merely (and most modestly) profess to be right. I also profess to be representative: that is, democratic. Now, one may believe in democracy or disbelieve in it. It would be grossly unfair to conceal the fact that there are difficulties on both sides. The difficulty of believing in democracy is that it is so hard to believe-like God and most other good things. The difficulty of disbelieving in democracy is that there is nothing else to believe in. I mean there is nothing else on earth or in earthly politics. Unless an aristocracy is selected by gods, it must be selected by men. It may be negatively and passively permitted, but either heaven or humanity must permit it; otherwise it has no more moral authority than a lucky pickpocket. It is baby talk to talk about "Supermen" or "Nature's Aristocracy" or "The Wise Few." "The Wise Few" must be either those whom others think wise-who are often fools; or those who think themselves wise-who are always fools.Well, if one happens to believe in democracy as I do, as a large trust in the active and passive judgment of the human conscience, one can have no hesitation, no "impartiality," about one's view of divorce; and especially about one's view of the extension of divorce among the democracy. A democrat in any sense must regard that extension as the last and vilest of the insults offered by the modern rich to the modern poor. The rich do largely believe in divorce; the poor do mainly believe in fidelity. But the modern rich are powerful and the modern poor are powerless. Therefore for years and decades past the rich have been preaching their own virtues. Now that they have begun to preach their vices too, I think it is time to kick.

This book captures the Indian state's difficult dialogue with divorce, mediated largely through religion. By mapping the trajectories of marriage and divorce laws of Hindu, Muslim, and Christian communities in post-colonial India, it explores the dynamic interplay between law, religion, family, minority rights and gender in Indian politics. It demonstrates that the binary frameworks of the private-public divide, individuals versus group rights, and universal rights versus legal pluralism collapse before the peculiarities of religious personal law. Historicizing the legislative and judicial response to decades of public debates and activism on the question of personal law, it suggests that the sustained negotiations over family life within and across the legal landscape provoked a unique and deeply contextual evolution of both, secularism and religion in India's constitutional order. Personal law, therefore, played a key role in defining the place of religion and determining the content of secularism in India's democracy.

The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton is an ongoing project, edited by many of the most prominent Chesterton scholars in the world, including Dale Ahlquist, Denis Conlon, George Marlin, Lawrence Clipper, and many others. These handsome editions include explanatory footnotes, introductory essays, and much more.

THE DEVILS MARRIAGE BREAK UP THE CORPOCRACY OR LEAVE DEMOCRACY IN THE LURCH America is becoming a ruiNation. The reason, well-known psychologist Dr. Gary Brumback, tells us is the corpocracy, the Devils Marriage between powerful corporations and patronizing politicians. He proposes Democracy Power, a revolutionary but civil, peaceful force to break up the corpocracy. Gary Brumback's passion for social and economic justice shines through every page of his new book. He tells it as he sees it, mincing no words. He shows how essential it is for us to change the rules of the game so that we may break the ties that bind corporations and government -- and move to a more equitable and sustainable future. ---Riane Eisler, author of The Chalice and The Blade and The Real Wealth of Nations. "A refreshing, exuberant read, full of sock-it-to-them creative insights about how corpocracy in the US has subverted democracy and what to do about it. This book is a political version of On the Road"-- a passionate out flowing of analysis, critique and transformative strategies, including a vision of a national coalition of NGOs and movements uniting to challenge the corpocracy, spearheaded by a US Chamber of Democracy. Not for the faint of heart but red meat for progressives and activists everywhere." ---Charles Derber, author of Corporation Nation, Regime Change Begins at Home, and, most recently, Greed to Green. This is an extraordinary and timely book that deserves to be widely read. Gary Brumback tells it like it is: America is no longer a democracy, governed by and for the people; we are a corpocracy governed by and for large corporations with the massive help of an obliging government. Their grip on our nation is tight, but not unbreakable. Brumback shows how we can loosen it and reclaim our democratic heritage. ,P>---Peter Barnes, author of Capitalism 3.0: A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons, and co-founder of Working Assets.

G. K. Chesterton was a literary giant of his age. With an exceptional intellect, he wrote about history, politics, economics, philosophy, social and literary criticism, and theology. He published essays, novels, biographies, short stories, and poetry, and the Christian classics Heretics, Orthodoxy, and The Everlasting Man, which C. S. Lewis credits as instrumental in his conversion to Christianity. With much of his finest material out of print or hard to find, modern readers have long needed a standard collection of his best thoughts. Kevin Belmonte’s The Quotable Chesterton brings them to you arranged alphabetically by topic, with complete original source documentation. There are entries from Adventure to Cheese, Politics to Émile Zola, interspersed with essays about Chesterton’s life and times. Hundreds of passages drawn from Chesterton’s fiction, poetry, essays, and other books showcase a man the New York Times hailed as a “brilliant English essayist” and George Bernard Shaw called a “colossal genius.” Endorsements: “There isn’t a writer who gets me pacing and smiling and thinking like G.K. Chesterton. His every paradigm shift is an adjustment to my mental compass, and so a gift.” —DONALD MILLER, author of the New York Times bestsellers A Million Miles in a Thousand Years and Blue Like Jazz “Over the years, I have delivered thousands of lectures, speeches, talks, and sermons; I have written hundreds of articles, essays, books, and reviews; it is an exceedingly rare occasion when any of them should fail to contain the words ‘Chesterton once said.’ Kevin Belmonte here reveals that fountain of wit, wisdom, and wonder, G.K. Chesterton, in all his irresistibly, irrepressibly, quotable splendor.”—GEORGE GRANT, Pastor, Parish Presbyterian Church, and Chancellor, New College Franklin