HOME | BOOKS/BOOKLETS | THE MAGAZINE
SITE MAP | EMAIL

CONTENTS | NEXT

PAGE 9

THE history of marriage customs is largely a record of human disregard of God's arrangements in making man and woman. Nevertheless, some vestiges of the divine purpose have survived in all societies. The Encyclopaedia Britannica says: "Marriage is never mere cohabitation, and in no society are two people of different sexes allowed to share life in common and produce children without having the approval of the community." Therefore in all societies there are legal or ritual formalities which must be observed, by which the privileges and obligations of marriage are entered upon by the parties to it.

Marriage is, perhaps, the most vital factor in human society. It establishes the family as the social unit; and the integrity of this unit is a powerful contribution to the stability of a society. Various factors, however, impinge upon the integrity of the unit in smaller or larger degree. The tendency of an industrialized society emphasizes increasingly the individual, and this is but the end of a trend long operating, "The movement of progressive societies", said Sir Henry Maine, in his book, Ancient Law, "has been uniform in one respect. Through all its course it has been distinguished by the gradual dissolution of family dependency and the growth of individual obligation

PAGE 10

in its place. The individual is steadily substituted for the family as the unit of which civil law takes account."

Social Welfare States undertake responsibilities which were once the sole duty of parents and this undermines family responsibility, whatever may be said for such schemes from other points of view. City life, with modern pleasures, and the economic independence of the members of a family, have reduced home life to but a shadow of what it once was. Young people treat homes as dormitories, and fill their leisure hours away from the family circle. A generation has arisen that is restless and without deep rootage in any fundamental way of thinking and living. The effect upon the attitude to marriage is evident: the restraints and responsibilities of marriage are unwelcome, parenthood is avoided, and there is no development of the better and finer characteristics of human life which those responsibilities help to produce. Society is the poorer and individual life becomes more and more shallow.

Theories of origins of human life influence thought, and slowly but surely are reflected in the customs of men and women. If evolution provides the correct explanation of life on earth, and if it is supposed this has proved the idea of God to be baseless, then men are free to devise such marriage relationships as they choose, trial and error showing what is best for the individual and for society.

We need not be surprised that in an age subject to the influences which have only been touched upon in the foregoing comments, there should be a growing disregard of what have been, under the influence of the Bible, long established rules of life. Social changes are followed by legislative

PAGE 11

changes, and these in turn not only legalize certain procedures, but tend to increase the number of people who turn to them. Some of these changes will call for notice later.

When the Bible is accepted as a divine record of man's origin and of his history, the subject of marriage relationships is lifted on to the highest level. Speculations concerning origins of various customs can be forgotten; the subject is seen in the context of divine aims and purposes with man.

Certain features of the teaching of the Bible on marriage -- the fundamental principles -- are very clear. But men and women have failed to maintain divine standards, and the Bible also records God's regulation of human life in its sin-marred state. It is here that difficulties are met, and very varying interpretations of certain Scriptures have been given in all ages. Since the subject touches life so vitally, strong feelings are quickly aroused; and in these circumstances it may be thought hazardous to attempt an exposition of the subject. We do so well aware that able and earnest brethren have differed in their interpretation of the Word of God on some aspects of it. Yet the social conditions which have arisen during this century, and the changes in the ways of life about us -- changes accelerated by two world wars -- make it desirable that while recognizing the difficulties, some consideration should be given to the subject. We ask careful, thoughtful consideration of what is said, and deliberation in forming judgments, that we may be led to do justly, love mercy and walk humbly before God.

Following the example of the Lord, we turn to the record of creation for the revelation of God's will. Tempted by the

PAGE 12

Pharisees to become embroiled in their strifes on divorce, and by his answer either to become involved in conflict with the Roman authorities or to lose standing with the people, Jesus took the highest ground, and asked their attention to God's will in creating man and woman. "Have ye not read", he asked, "that he which made them in the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they twain shall be one flesh? What therefore, God hath joined together, let not man put asunder" (Matt. 19 :4, 5).

God's purpose was clearly that man and woman joined together in marriage should be joined together for life. Only the death of one of the parties could terminate the bond. Various reasons are discernible for this. The very method of Eve's formation was a preparation for such a pronouncement; the mental and moral endowments of man call for it; and the purposes of marriage in the multiplication of the race demand it.

We will look at each point, taking the last first. There are some animals and birds which are monogamous: that is, they mate for life. A satisfactory reason for this may be found in the need for some species to provide a longer period of protection for their young. Frequently among wild creatures the young are able to seek for food from birth, or within a comparatively short period. Often a season completes the cycle and the young go their way. The shearwaters feed their young assiduously, the young bird growing plump. Then at the call which comes in the wild, the parents leave the young in its burrow, and it cries in vain for the next meal. At last hunger compels it to leave the nest and seek the nearby sea, and it hunts on its own behalf.

PAGE 13

The most helpless of all young is the human baby. It is for a longer time than any other dependent upon its parents for food and home. But this longer period of physical growth provides the time for development of the mind. In animals and birds instinct asserts and governs the actions in migration or search for feeding ground. The human child, without instinct, is yet distinguished by educability. Hence the longer period with the parents. Mental growth calls for instruction in the use of hands, and of tongue, and in the general equipment in knowledge and skill that fits it for life. But, and this is the most important, it is, or should be, the time when reverence for God is cultivated, and a wise outlook on life is formed. This calls for instruction and guidance in what is right, in the growth of good habits, of industry, of kindliness and thoughtfulness, and in the control of the temper or other failings of temperament. The training of a child calls for the careful thought of both father and mother over many years. Such guidance demands that monogamy should be the rule.

There is another factor in human life. With other animals the young of one birth are out in the world before a fresh family appears. But with human beings child may follow child and in a growing family many children are for a long period in need of parental care. This again emphasizes the need for marriage for life.

The more frequent disruption of family life by modern facilities for divorce has clearly revealed the effect upon the unfortunate children who are thus robbed of the care of one or other parent, and some of the increasing juvenile crime of today has been attributed by those with experience of the work of the courts to the effect upon youngsters of the

PAGE 14

breaking up of home life, with the consequent loss of guidance when most needed. But the effect is not limited to the children. The natural feeling for offspring is blunted in one or both parents when separation takes place; "without natural affection" is one of the marks of the last days. There is thus loss to parent and child.

The provision of a companion was one of the reasons for Eve's formation. "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him", said God. A companionship for ever is the lot of immortals, but a companionship for life in the state of mortality can and does provide difficulties. Putting aside the foolish sentiment that befuddles clear thinking, it must be recognized that many marriages reveal much human weakness on one or both sides. No wide survey of difficulties can here be undertaken; but the clash of temperaments, diverging interests in life, sometimes unusual conditions of labour leaving less than the average time for each other's society, may all provide tests of character. The course of life of some few may be comparable to a tranquil stream, but with many some difficulties arise from the stress of life in one way or another. All life provides the conditions and reveals the need for self-discipline, and in the condition of human weakness marriage may in its very nature and intimacy, provide most occasions for patience, self-control and consideration. The problems wisely met may develop the character of two people: but it is essential that both should recognize that a course has been deliberately entered upon, with a solemn undertaking that it would be for life. The indissolubility of the bond recognized, effort is made to meet and to solve the difficulties, and in this very process the characters are developed. On the other hand, when it is thought that a

PAGE 15

solemn covenant can be wantonly broken, no effort to adjust oneself to life is made; free rein is given to individual caprice, wrongs are magnified and in petulance bonds are broken, with the inevitable harmful reaction on the character. "Truce breakers" are sternly reprobated in the Scriptures. As it becomes more easy by human law for marriage ties to be unloosed, so human life degenerates.

What was designed to be perfect companionship with sinless people, loses some of its blessedness through human sin; but in the mixture of the good that remains (much good when both are subject to divine law) and the inevitable evil arising from human frailty and prevailing conditions of life, there are the right conditions for the perfecting by trial and experience of men and women. The failure to face this brings the recompense that is meet: but submission to divine law may lead to perfection at last.

We come to the third consideration which arises from the method employed by God in the formation of Eve. On this Dr. Thomas has written so clearly that we quote his words from Elpis Israel:

"Adam, having been formed in the image, after the likeness of the Elohim on the sixth day, remained for a short time alone in the midst of the earthborns of the field. He had no companion who could reciprocate his intelligence; none who could minister to his wants, or rejoice with him in the delights of creation ; and reflect the glory of his nature. The Elohim are a society, rejoicing in the love and attachment of one another; and Adam, being like them though of inferior nature, required an object which should be calculated to evoke the latent resemblances of his similitude to theirs. It was no better for man to be alone than for them. Formed in their image, he had social feelings

PAGE 16

as well as intellectual and moral facilities, which required scope for the practical and harmonious exercise. A purely intellectual and abstractly moral society, untempered by domesticism, is an imperfect state. It may be very enlightened, very dignified and immaculate; but it would also be very formal, and frigid as the poles. A being might know all things, and he might scrupulously observe the divine law from a sense of duty; but something more is requisite to make him amiable, and beloved by either God or his fellows. This amiability the social feelings enable him to develop; which, however, if unfurnished with a proper object, or wholesome excitation, react upon him unfavourably, and make him disagreeable. Well aware of this, Yahweh Elohim said, 'It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a help fit for him' (Gen. 2:18).

"But previous to the information of this help, God caused 'every living soul' to pass in review before Adam, that he might name them. He saw that each one had its mate; 'but for him there was not found a suitable companion'. It was necessary therefore, to form one, the last and fairest of his handiworks. The Lord had created man in His own 'image and glory'; but He had yet to subdivide him into two; a negative and a positive division; an active and a passive half; male and female, yet one flesh. The negatives or females, of all other species of animals, were formed out of the ground (verse 19); and not out of the sides of their positive mates: so that the lion could not say of the lioness, 'This is bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh; therefore shall a lion leave his sire and dam, and cleave unto the same lioness for ever.' The inferior creatures are under no such law as this; as primaries, indeed, the earth is their common mother, and the Lord, the 'God of all their spirits'. They have no second selves; the sexes in the beginning were from the ground direct; the female was not of the male, though the male is by her: therefore, there is no natural basis for a social, or domestic, law to them.

PAGE 17

"But in the formation of a companion for the first man, the Lord Elohim created her upon a different principle. She was to be a dependent creature; and a sympathy was to be established between them, by which they should be attached inseparably. It would not have been fit, therefore, to have given her an independent origin from the dust of the ground. Had this been the case, there would have been about the same kind of attachment between men and women as subsists among the creatures below them. The woman's companionship was designed to be intellectually and morally sympathetic with 'the image and glory of God', whom she was to revere as her superior. The sympathy of the mutually independent earthborns of the field is purely sensual; and in proportion as generations of mankind lose their intellectual and moral likeness to the Elohim, and fall under the dominion of sensuality, so the sympathy between men and women evaporates into mere animalism. But, I say, such a degenerate result as this was not the end of her formation. She was not simply to be 'the mother of all living'; but to reflect the glory of man as he reflected the glory of God.

"To give being to such a creature, it was necessary she should be formed out of man. This necessity is found in the law which pervades the flesh. If the feeblest member of the body suffer, all the other members suffer with it; that is, pain even in the little finger will produce distress through out the system. Bone sympathizes with bone, and flesh with flesh, in all pleasurable, healthful, and painful feelings. Hence, to separate a portion of Adam's living substance, and from it to build a woman, would be to transfer to her the sympathies of Adam's nature; and though by her organization able to maintain an independent existence, she would never lose from her nature a sympathy with his, in all its intellectual, moral, and physical manifestations. According to this natural law, then, the Lord Elohim made woman in the likeness of man, out of his substance. He might have formed her from his body before he became a

PAGE 18

living soul; but this would have defeated the law of sympathy; for in inanimate matter there is no mental sympathy. She must, therefore, be formed from the living bone and flesh of the man. To do this was to inflict pain; for to cut out a portion of flesh would have created the same sensations in Adam as in any of his posterity. To avoid such an infliction, 'the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept'. While thus unconcious of what was doing, and perfectly insensible to all corporeal impressions, the Lord 'took out one of his ribs, and then closed up the flesh in its place'. This was a delicate operation; and consisted in separating the rib from the breast bone and the spine. But nothing is too difficult for God. The most wonderful part of the work had yet to be performed. The quivering rib, with its nerves and vessels, had to be increased in magnitude, and formed into a human figure, capable of reflecting the glory of the man. This was soon accomplished; for, on the sixth day, 'male and female created he them': and 'the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, he made a woman, and brought her unto the man'. And 'God blessed them, and said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish (fill again) the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that creepeth upon the earth'. . .

"When the Lord God presented the newly formed creature to her parent flesh, Adam said, 'This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Ishah (or Outman), because she was taken out of Ish, or man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh' (Gen. 2:21-22). Thus, Adam pronounced upon himself the sentence that was to bind them together for weal or woe, until death should dissolve the union, and set them free for ever. This was marriage. It was based upon the great fact of her formation out of man; and consisted in Adam

PAGE 19

taking her to himself with her unconstrained consent. There was no religious ceremonial to sanctify the institution; for the Lord Himself even abstained from pronouncing the union. No human ceremony can make marriage more holy than it is in the nature of things. Superstition has made it 'a sacrament', and inconsistently enough, denied it, though 'a holy sacrament', to the very priests she has appointed to administer it. But priests and superstition have no right to meddle with the matter; they only disturb the harmony, and destroy the beauty of God's arrangements. A declaration in the presence of the Lord Elohim, and the consent of the woman, before religion was instituted, is the only ceremonial recorded in the case."

CONTENTS | NEXT