Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

HOME AND MARRIAGE.

BY WILLIAM ADAMS.

WHEREVER man appears there society appears, simultaneously as it were, and coeval with his existence. Man as made was one, it is true, at first, but afterwards, when "the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone," from his flesh and bones was made a partner for him. And since then, man as born has always come into societyhe has been born into it. And this society made up of a pair, a man and a woman living together-a husband and a wife. This pair, with their offspring, constitute the family. Their dwelling is called home.

Hence result a multitude of relations of persons-of husband to wife -of wife to husband-of parents to children-of children to parentsof brothers to sisters-of sisters to brothers. All these manifestly are relations between persons in society, and that society composed of these persons is the family.

And again, owing to the nature of man, which is a nature in space and time, this society, the family, has a place of inhabitation, a dwelling to itself exclusive, in which only the one family dwells, or ought naturally to dwell, the home: and the society therein is, as it were, set apart from the rest of the world by visible and tangible limits; defined by them to be, although composed of many members and many relations. naturally, still one only. One by exclusion of others from without; one by union of interests and feelings and mutual aid within; one by authority and by love. A oneness of organization with manifoldness of members and relations and affections. There is authority there, in the authority of the father. And there also naturally exists the unity of love, represented in all its possible relations, and flowing, as it were, from one fountain, the mother.

We come now to examine into the nature of this society, and the affections that are in the heart towards it.

And first, the question is, Whence comes it? How was it organized? Whence its laws? This I conceive a question worth noting, but not worth examining. I see the man that was made by the hand of God, by him brought into society-but all men that are born, born into a family. The family, I see, by the most ancient of histories-the Bible -to have been instituted of God. I then, as a plain matter of fact, take it for granted that it was so: that for one man and one woman to live together as husband and wife all their days, that this was the original institution. That those who lived otherwise were not they who lived as at first, but they who broke off and diverged from the original institution. Heathens may say

"First men crawled out from the earth, a brute and dumb class of animals, fighting with fists and nails for acorns and wild fruits, then with cudgels, and with arms which necessity invented. Then their rude cries they gradually formed into articulate language; and lawgivers came, who taught them marriage and instructed them in law."

This is the heathen view entirely. The christian is, that marriage was the original state, and language a divine gift, and law a thing natural to man from his own reason and from the nature of society and of God; and that if men were found in a state such as above described, it was because they had sunk voluntarily into it.

But to resume: Men, asked any questions with regard to the family when they are possessed with this Heathen notion, will answer, the law makes it so; taking it for granted unwittingly that the law could make it otherwise.

But with regard to marriage, does not the law enact it? Does it not inflict penalties upon those who shall transgress this enactment? and thereby first cast the family into a precise and definite shape, and then by its action to retain it?

Granting that it does all this-all this will not be to constitute it, but only to protect, guarantee, and define it, by the consent and legislative power of the nation. If the thing be "right," then legislation sanctioning it is good; but if it be not "right," then no legislation can make it so.

The foundation, then, of the family and its law, I seek in the nature of man and of society, and in the express law of God. These are they that make and constitute the law of marriage and the law of the family; and human legislation is good so far as it expresses and reflects these.

But when human legislation upon any point opposes these, and says that it shall not be so, but otherwise, then human legislation fails. Mohammed permitted and enacted polygamy-and Nature starts up and says, "Nay, it shall not be: polygamy, the allotment of many wives to one man, cannot be the law of a nation, for only one woman throughout a nation shall be born for one man. And thence throughout the nation that human law is wholly inoperative as a law-that is, as an universal rule of life; and the only effect is tolerated licentiousness among the rich and great, and a decay of principle among the poor, and a decrease of happiness and prosperity in the nation.

If law be according to the nature and being of man and according to the law of God, then it is right, and sanctions that which is right; but if it be not "right," "ruled," that is, according to the eternal measure of immutable and unchangeable morality, then it is not so good. The will of God externally-the nature of man internally-as interpreted by the universal reason in society-these are the measures of all human legislation. And these always and for ever agree.

Having so digressed, we shall, for a while leave the legal consideration of "Marriage," the "Family," and the "Home," and go to the ethical consideration, that which examines not its laws under legislation, but its foundations in the nature of man, and in the law of God.

The

Now with regard to nature, we find the feelings of the oneness and exclusiveness of the marriage so prevalent among men from the beginning, that it gave rise to many pretty and interesting fables. soul of man and woman," says one ancient Greek fable, "was originally one; it was then divided by Jove into two portions, half to one body, and half to the other; and hence the one soul, with instinctive patience, seeks its lost half, and will wander over the world for it, and, if united with it, shall be happy, if not, miserable."

Behold a theory which at one blow accounts for all traveling and emigration, as well as all happiness and unhappiness of the marriage tie, and yet expressing sufficiently the sense the author of it had of the spiritual harmony of marriage.

"Behold," say the Cabalists-those Jewish retailers of absurd philosophy and foolish wisdom-"man was originally one, both soul and body, the 'Ish Kadmon,' or primitive created being, and then God separated them, and man fell!" a most absurd and ridiculous notion, and yet showing the sense these strange philosophers had of the intimate relation of unity which the masculine character bears to the feminine.

Strange fables, these, and yet bearing witness to the natural fact of unity brought about and realized by the marriage tie.

In fact, through all time antecedent to Christ, the fables of all nations, extravagant as they may be, still bear witness to the feeling and persuasions of a union the most intimate between the parties, a union of body, soul, and spirit as effectual as if they had actually become one body, one soul, one spirit. And this persuasion and universal sentiment assumes manifold forms, some amusing and ridiculous, and some interesting and even sublime, according to the nature and temper of the narrators.

And in philosophic earnestness and truth, when we examine the nature of man and woman, we shall find that one is, as it were, the complement and counterpart of the other, that which renders it perfect; so that in the natural quest to feel and determine what would be the perfection of humanity, we should have to combine and unite the various attributes and qualities of both minds, the masculine and the feminine, and would find that all qualities of the one nature would, as it were, combine with and perfect those of the other.

For instance, the intellect of man, being intellect, is still a very different thing in nature from the intellect of woman, but so different as to correspond to and complete it. And when we come to imagine the height and perfection of intellect, not barely great intellect, but the utmost degree and topmost summit of all greatness of mental power, then we naturally fall into a combination of both. We unite the tenderness, the grace, the delicacy of the female intellect, with the boldness, and strength, and robustness of the masculine mind; and we find this combination actually to exist in Shakspeare, Dante, Homer, in the men of the highest reach always, but not in men of second-rate powers.

And when we look at these faces of the loftiest genius, then shall we see the tenderness of the female countenance uniting itself with the strength of the masculine; as may easily be seen in the portrait of Dante, of Shakspeare, or even of Milton.

In the same way, if we take the whole nature-the conscience, the reason, the affections, the will, the understanding-in the case of all these, they are the same in both sexes; but in one there is a certain quality we call "masculine," and in the other, a quality we call "feminine," and one is supplementary, as it were, to the other, completes and perfects it. No wonder then that this constitutional adaptedness, this natural agreement of two different natures towards unity of end, should be explained by such extravagant philosophies, existent as that harmony is in all faculties of the whole being.

But the sense of harmony in two towards one purpose, or rather

66

towards oneness of life, is manifested exceedingly in the ordinations and definitions of legislators. "Nuptiae sive matrimonium," says the Roman law, "est viri et mulieris conjunctio individuam vitæ consuetudinem constituens." 'Marriage is the union of man and woman, constituting a united habitual course of life, never to be separated;" and again the same Roman law defines it to be a "Partnership of the whole life—a mutual sharing in all rights, human and divine."

But much as the Roman law acknowledges this natural unity; or rather tendency and adaptedness for unity of life, much further the English Common Law goes, for it actually considers, for all legal purposes, man and wife to be " one person."

To quote a modern writer: "The English law goes further, and considers the husband and wife as one person. As the lawyers state it, The very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated in that of her husband, under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs every thing, and is, therefore, in our law-French, called feme coverte, and her condition during her marriage is called her coverture.

"Hence a man cannot grant any thing to his wife by a legal act, or enter into a covenant with her, for this would be to covenant with himself. The husband is bound by law to provide his wife with the necessaries of life; if she incur debts for such things, he is obliged to pay them. Even if the debts of the wife have been incurred before marriage, the husband is bound to discharge them, for he has espoused her and her circumstances together. If she suffers an injury, she applies for redress in her husband's name, as well as her own. If any one has a claim upon her, the suit must be directed against her husband also. In criminal prosecutions, indeed, the wife may be indicted and prosecuted separately, for the union is only a civil union. But even in such cases, husband and wife are not allowed to be evidence for or against each other, justly,' say the lawyers, because it is impossible their testimony should be impartial;' but principally because of the union of person. For being thus one person, if they were admitted witnesses for each other, they would contradict one maxim of law: 'No one can be a witness in his own cause;' and if against each other, they would contradict another maxim: 'No one is bound to accuse himself.""

This is the doctrine of that English Common Law, which its ablest advocates have pronounced the "perfection of reason," and which, undoubtedly, from the oldest Saxon times, has been the free element in the constitution of England. This dogma, therefore, that civilly the effect of marriage is the union of the two into one person, is the decision of the Common Law; a decision, we fear not to say, that nearer expresses the truth than any other. For, as we have shown, the natural feeling of the human heart, expressed in many fables, many philosophies, and many legal enactments, is such that it confesses a union of the closest and most intimate kind between the husband and the wife—a union so closely drawn and intimate, that by no other words can we clearly express the fulness of it, than by those of the Anglo-Saxon law-"these two individuals make one person."

So, when we come to the scriptures, we find the same doctrine most plainly held forth. The doctrine that these, being two individuals, "are

one flesh," one humanity-that is, one, not only in union of interest, will, sympathies, and affections, for this is a figurative oneness, but one as no other oneness is: so one, that by Christ's law nothing but death can disunite them; one, so that the unbelieving husband or wife is sanctified by the believer; one, as Christ and his church are one; one "in a mystery"—that is to say, the fact is to us impossible and imcomprehensible as a fact, yet, as being revealed to us by the word of God, is true; while the means whereby it is so, the grounds, the consequences of it, these lie far beyond us, deep hidden in the limitless power and the inscrutable wisdom of the eternal God. This, as may be seen from the words of St. Paul and of our Lord Jesus, is the true doctrine of the scripture and the church concerning the marriage union:

"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the Saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be subject to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own body. For he that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church; for we are members of his body, his flesh, and his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery; and this I apply to Christ and the church." Eph. 5: 22.

This is the plain doctrine of scripture; a doctrine that says that, in the very being and constitution of mau by his creation, there is a mystery in reference to marriage.

A mystery, in the Scripture language, is "a thing declared to us as a fact, and therefore to be received upon the evidence of Almighty God, and yet the reasons and causes of which are hidden from us." So is "the Incarnation," the fact that God was born of a woman and assumed flesh -this is a "mystery," a fact declared and shown, and for which, on natural grounds, the grounds of mere reason, we cannot account.

Thus marriage is a "Mystery," and the Mystery is, that as "Christ and the Church" are actually one, so should the husband and wife be one that as we, having mortal bodies here upon earth, are united with his Spiritual and Immortal Humanity upon the throne, and are thus one with him, so should two, the Man and the Woman, being two, become and be one flesh.

And hence that, as the Church obeys Christ, so should the wife obey the husband: not through compulsion, but through love; and so should the husband love the wife, as Christ loved the church, because this is the natural consequence of his position, and because "she is his fresh, and no one hateth his own flesh."

Here is the mystery The apostle takes it for granted that they are actually and really one, and argues therefrom as it is so; but the reason of the union that makes it so he does not declare-only that it is.

« AnteriorContinuar »