Section LXXVIII. The Inner Revelation and the Conscience. (Concl'd) · SECTION CXLIII.

Moral sexual love being a love of the persons to each other, and the moral personality of the one being per se equal to that of the other in moral worth, and consequently also in moral rights, hence that giving up of the one person, as a complete moral possession, to the other, which is required by sexual communion, is only then possible when this surrender is a mutual one, that is, when the two persons belong to each other exclusively; and hence moral sexual love exists only in the marriage of two persons, in view of sexual communion and consequently of complete personal life-communion. Polygamy is morally impossible,—is but legally regulated whoredom, makes a real personal love-surrender, and hence marriage itself, impossible. For the same reason, marriage is morally indissoluble. Marriage is not a mere right, is not simply allowed, but it is a divinely-willed and expressly ordained moral communion, and hence the entering upon it is not a merely natural but also a religious action, which, standing as it does under the express, promise of the divine blessing, is very naturally invested with a religious .

The extra-Christian notion of polygamy absolutely excludes the moral essence of marriage; in it the woman is indeed the man’s property, but not man the woman’s; this involves a difference in the moral worth and rights of the sexes, which, from a moral stand-point, is impossible; for it denies the moral personality of the woman; and in fact, in polygamy, woman is only a slave. Of the polygamy of the Old Testament it is not here the place to speak. The primitive divine institution of marriage recognizes only the marriage with one woman, and the New Testament presupposes this throughout [Matt. xix, 3 sqq.; 1 Cor. vii, 2; xi, 11; Eph, v, 28; 1 Tim. iii, 2].

As marriage rests entirely on personal love to a person, hence it is not a mere legal relation; and as in it the persons belong entirely to each other,—are to each other a mutual property, the essence and strength of which is love,—hence to view marriage as a merely legal relation not only falls below the moral idea of marriage, but is per se immoral, for a contract-relation presupposes the non-presence of mutually-confiding love,—excludes a perfect moral life-and-body-communion, the reciprocal belonging to each other as a moral property; on the contrary, such a contract tends to raise between the two persons, as exclusively bent on their personal advantage, the separation-wall of distrust, and delivers the one consort to the other for mere stipulated service and use. As little as a contract-relation is conceivable between parents and children in their mutual family duties, just so little is it morally possible between husband and wife. Sexual communion when based on a mere legal contract is only respectable concubinage; it stands essentially on an equal footing with polygamy.—The generating of children is not so much the purpose as rather the blessing of marriage; its purpose is absolutely the fulfilling of moral love; marriage is and continues in full validity even where this blessing is wanting. The legal principle that “the chief end of marriage is the generating and training of children,” is consistent rather with a legalized concubinage or with polygamy than with the moral idea of marriage, and would in consistency require that barrenness be regarded as a perfectly valid ground for divorce.

For the simple reason that consorts belong to each other as moral property, marriage admits morally of no dissolution. A moral property is inseparably united with the moral peculiarity, and hence with the personal essence of the individual,—is, like this essence, inalienable. It is as impossible morally to dissolve a marriage as it is for a person to separate from his personal life, his peculiar character, and hence from his own self; and, as a violent internal anarchy of the spirit, namely, in insanity, is conceivable only in a sinfully-disordered state, so also is a dissolution of marriage conceivable only in a state of sinfully morbid disorder,—it is in fact an ethical insanity, a moral ruin of the two self-separating consorts. Christ affirms this moral impossibility of divorce [Matt. xix, 3-9], and bases his doctrine on this significant reason: “They are no more twain, but one flesh; what therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” This is not two reasons but only one; God has joined together marriage in his primative instituting of it, that is, by his creative will, which established the essence of marriage to consist in the fact that the two consorts should be one flesh, one single absolutely inseparable life as to soul and body, even as every living body is a single inseparable whole, and any dissevering of it, the death of the same. The indissolubility of marriage is still more strongly emphasized by Christ by his citing the words of the Creator at its institution: “I For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh.” Man is not to abandon his father and mother with his love, though he may outwardly withdraw from them in order to build up a family of his own; but still more intimate than the bond between parents and children, is the bond between husband and wife, who mutually fully belong to each other. Now if the bond of love and unity between parents and children can never be dissolved without great moral violence, still less can the bond between husband and wife be morally dissolved. The unity of the “flesh” is not to be understood merely, nor even chiefly, of the bodily union, but alludes to the highest and perfect moral union of the whole life of both body and soul. A merely spiritual unity is designated by μία καρδία και ψυχή [Acts iv, 32], but husband and wife are also εἱς μιάν σάρκα [1 Cor. vi, 16; comp. vii, 4; Eph. v, 28 sqq.]. Adultery alone works divorce, and all divorce is in its moral essence adultery [comp. 1 Cor. vii, 10], and, as relating to the children, a ruthless annihilating of the family.

It is of high significancy that the Scriptures expressly affirm the divine institution of marriage, and give to moral marriage a promise of special blessing [Gen. i, 28; ii, 24; ix, 7; Matt. xix, 4; comp. Psa. cxxviii, 3; cxxvii, 3-5]. Hence marriage cannot in any sense be implicated in unsanctity or lowness, so as to be inconsistent with a truly spiritual and holy life; otherwise God, when he introduced woman to man as called to be holy, would have encouraged him to turn aside from his high destination, and Adam would have had not merely the right but in fact also the duty of declining this gift of divine love; the creation of the woman would really have been the first temptation. In a normal, uncorrupted state of humanity it is not only the right, but also the duty, of the morally and corporeally mature individual to live in this God-instituted state of marriage; it is not marriage itself but the particular choice of the consort that is left to the particular, personal preference of love. God’s declaration: “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help-meet for him,” distinctly implies that celibacy per se is not the better but the less good state,—as well for man, for he ought to have a help-meet, as also for woman, for her express destination is to be a help-meet for the man. Of the relations of marriage after the fall into sin, it is not here the place to speak.

The fact that in all not totally savage nations marriage is not constituted simply by the consent of the two persons, but by some sort of solemn and, most usually, religious ceremony, is a significant implication of the moral essence of marriage; and the importance that a people places on the religiously-moral of marriage, is a pretty safe criterion of its morality in relation to the sexual life.