And so, if oiu- Christianity is destined to decay, the loss will be soon shown in the family relations. Even now a race of women is springing up who seem to have
caught their inspiration from some of the high dames — the Fulvias and Julias — of the expiring IJoman republic.
The neglect to look at the religious and moral side of marriage is also doing great e\-il in this countr*-. In fact, a state of things now exists which our fathers hardly dreamed of, and which makes reflecting men tremble for the future. Eash and ill-sorted marriages have always existed ; but where divorce laws, so loose as to be opposed to the very idea of marriage, open an easy door to get out of an uncomfortable relation, the tendency is that parties will marrj- with divorce before their eyes, and that, instead of forbearance and patience, they will magnify their present evils, and give to one another only half a heart. In the old times there were few who did not look upon large families as a blessing ; at present it is established beyond doubt that a midti- tude of women, in one part of the countrj-, regard chil- dren as an evil to be prevented or avoided, and do actu- ally use the means for such flagitious ends. See Infan- ticide. Some of these Avomen are communicants in Christian churches, as physicians assert who profess to know. This shows that the verj^ notion of marriage in many minds is a degraded and a corrupting one — that this union is entered into as an honest way of gratify- ing the lowest desires of human beings, and for no higher purpose. Nor are there wanting representatives of these base views, who practice upon them in their commimi- ties and defend them before the world. Who will ques- tion that the extreme of ancient asceticism, which gave to the word chastity tlie sense of rigid abstinence, as we give to the word temperance the same perverted mean- ing, was infinitely nearer to the Christian standard, in fact to any respectable pagan standard of morals, than feelings which can tolerate such practices? That they can exist and even be common is an alarming sign for the future of our country-. The conscience of men and women needs to be enlightened on a point of morals which can hardly be referred to from the pulpit. We ought not to hear Catholics twit the Protestantism of the country with winking at methods of preventing the increase of families. We ought to strike at that ex- travagance of living and showmess of dress which tempt the less wealthy to such thuigs. We ought to hear from every quarter where the subject can be mentioned that " thev who do such things cannot inherit the kmg- domofGod." (T. D.W.)
See Grove, Moi: Phil, ii, 470; Paley, Mar. Phil. voL i, chap, viii, p. 339 ; Leslie, Sermons on Marriage (1702, 8vo); Fordyce, J/om/ P^//os. (1769, 8vo) ; Delany,^e?- atice Ditties (1750, 8vo) ; Beattie, Elem. Moral Science, vol. ii; 'Q^a.n, Christian Minister's Advice to a New- married Couple (Lond. 1793) ; Guide to Domestic Hap- piness; Advantages and Disadvantages of the Married State ; Stennett, On Domestic Duties ; Jay, Essay on Marriage ; Dodcbidge, Lect. (8vo edit.) i, 225, 234, 265 ; Evan, Philosophy of Marriage, in its Social, Moral, and Physical Relations (Lond. 1839, 12mo) ; Evans, Chris- tian Doctrine of Mania ge (Bait., Md., 1860, 8vo) ; Klee, Die Ehe : eine dogma f.-archceol. A hhandl. ; Tradition, ou hisioire de I'eglise sur le sacrement de mariage ; tii-ee des monumens les j)lus autkentiques de chaque siecle tant I'orient que de I'occident (Paris, 1725, 3 vols. 4to) ; SchaflF, Ch. Hist, i, 325 sq. ; ii, 111 sq., 242 sq. ; Lea, Sacerdotal Celibacy (see Index) ; Frj- (John), Marriage between Kin- dred (1773, 8vo) ; Ma7-riage Rites, Customs, and Ceremo- nies of the Nations of the Universe (Lond. 1824, 8vo) ; Wuttke, Ethics (transl. by Prof. Lacroix, N. Y. 1873, 2 vols. 12mo), ii, 310 sq. ; Brit, and For. Rev. 1844, p. 95 sq. ; Engl. Rev. iii, 129; Biblical Repository, ii, 70 sq. ; Biblioth. Sacra, i, 283 sq. ; Eraser's Magazine, xli, 112 sq. ; (Z,o/if/.) Q««r^ i?ef. IxxxV; 84 sq. ; Lond. Qu. Rev. s., 545; Princet.Rev. xv, 182, 420'; Meth. Qu. Rev. 1866, p. 137 ; Christian Remembr. 1, 130 ; Evangel. Qu. Rev. 1870, p. 482 sq. ; North Brit. Reviev;, xii, 286, 532 ; 1870, p. 267 sq.; New Engl. 1870 (July), p. 540; Am. Qu. Con- greg. Rev. 1871, p. 627; South. Rev. 1871 (Jan.), art. v. See also Herzog, Real-Encyklop. xix, 458 ; iii, 666, tat.
MARRIAGE
794
MARRIAGE
Ehe ; and for early literature, Walch, Bihl. ; and for En<?lisli writers, especially sermons on this snbject, Mal- colm, Theol. Index, s. v. For modern half or left-hand matrimony in Cliristendom, see JIokgaxatic Mar- lUAtiE. For marriage as a sacrament, see Matrimony.
\. Maj-ria(/e with Believers. — The importance of reg- ulating the conjugal alliance on religious principles was, according to the record of the Old Testament, practically recognised at a very early period. Indeed, the corrup- tion of manners which rendered the Flood necessary is directly traced to such mixed marriages (Gen. vi, 1-4). The intermixture, by marriage, of the professed serv- ants and worshippers of God, with those by whom his authority was disowned, was first branded, and after- wards positively forbidden by divine authority ; being denounced as an evil, the results of which were most injurious to the interests of religion, and which exposed those who fell into it to the condign and awful dis- pleasure of the Most High (Exod. xxxiv, IG). Now, although there were sojne circumstances attending the marriages in this manner denounced which do not di- rectly apply to the state of society in our own conntrj' (especially the circumstance that the people with whom such intercourse was forbidden were idolaters), yet there is much, as must be evident to every pious observer, that illustrates the sin and danger of forming so inti- mate and permanent a union in life with the ungodlj'. The general fact is hence clearly deducible that there is an influence in marriage strongly affecting the char- acter, which demands from those who are anxious for moral rectitude and improvement much of caution as to the manner in which their affections are fixed ; and that unequal alliances — alliances where the parties are actu- ated by different spiritual habits and desires, and where good is made to meet and combine with liad, encounter- ing most imminently the danger of seduction and pollu- tion— are guilty, unnatural, and monstrous. The ex- j)ression of the divine authority, in application to the Jews, is to be regarded as comprehending the principle of his people in all ages, that here they ought not to walk in the counsel of the ungodly, nor to stand in the way of sinners.