MARRIAGE & DIVORCE

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 150, 25 June 1921, Page 7

MARRIAGE & DIVORCE

By J. MacGregor, M.A., M.L.C.)

THE CHURCHES AND SOCIAL REFORM

AN' APOLOGIA,

111. The apathy and indifference of comfortably, if not happily, married people to the sufferings of those who have been less fortunate in their matrimonial ventures can only be paralleled by the fan- ! atio cruelty produced by another super- J stitious belief mainly due to) another text of Scripture, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." In a sermon preached by the (Anglican) Bishop of Dunedin last year at the time of the agitation over the Divorce Bill and the legislation irisiue out of certain teachings and pSes of the Roman Catholic Church, there was much that was. calculated to justify such people in their indifference to the'miseries of others. Here is a charming passage:— ; "When in our marriage service the priest declares that the _ contnoting parties are man and ,wife, in the name of the father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and when, using the very words of our Lord, he says, Those whom' God hath joined together let no man put asunder,1 he says in effect that God has joined man and wife sacramentally through the'- Church; the union is indissoluble; the spiritual blessin°- is given." "What words,' says an eariy writer, "can I find to express the happiness of that marriage which the Church knits together, and ] the Bucharistic Oblation confirms, and a Lenediction seals? The angels report it in Heaven, and their Heavenly Father ratifies it " Well might ,the comfortablymarried women who listened tjo such a sermon appreciate the difference between their -t>wn marriages and those celebrated before a mere Presbyterian minister, who is not able to say that God had joined the parties; together sac,romentally through the Church. A. .for marriage before the Registrar, they would'regard it as not even respectable. . Let us test this sacramental conception of marriage by the expenencea of an English vicar as related by himself recently:—- ■„ , , "As a vicar of a parish I have to publish any banns of marriage that may be put in, so long, as they;are legally rWt, though I may know of my own knowledge that they are 'morally wrong. Furthermore, I have to wed in their , parhh church all and sundry, prcfided they conform to legal requirements, although I may again know of -rrfy. own knowledge that the marriage » not, morally right-nay, more than that, namely, that either or both of the contracting parties have no religious sense or idea of the spiritual side of the ceremony Again, t marry a couple in my ZaTcapJfity of an officM of the State and an officer of the Church. The first part of the ceremony, customarily taken outside the chancel, is the legal part, whilst the'latter part, usually taken within the chancel, is the solemnisation of the marriage. Now, I am neither ashamed nor afraid to confess-that on three occasions I have 'braved any possible ecclesiastical wrath by taking the first part only of the service, and under the following circumstances. Once, when the man and the woman had already had four illegitimate children, and I induced them to allow me to put their cohabitation in legal prder (for nothing would induce either of them togo to the Kegistmr's office). The other two cases v;ere when the man had 'got the woman into trouble,' and,.l\induced the man 'to make an honest woman of his paramour.' " '.'' ' , ' . : , ' Now*: one wonders whether the angels reported these marriages in Heaven, and whether they were entered in the celes-. tial register, and if not, why not? Was it because of the immorality of the parties, or because the marriages were celebrated outside the chancel ? In the passage quoted above from the Bishop's sermon, two points should be especially noticed: (1) That he ga,ve his hearers to understand that the words, "Those whom God" hath joined together let no-mart put asunder," are the very words spoken by Jesus;; and (2) that the meaning of the service is that God has joined man and wife sacramentally, and that consequently the marriage is indissoluble. Evidently the Bishop's object was to show that Christ's words were intended as a law declaring marriage indissoluble; hence his anxiety to make it atvnear that in that sentence we have the very word's of Christ, a proposition thai is in the highest degree disputable. Milton discussed the question,in one of his tracts on divorce, where he points out that a few casual words of Christ's upon a Jewish custom submitted to him for observation were not. intended to form a legal code. Many eminent divines from Cranmor to the present day have endorsed this view, and yet the Anglican Church as a body continues to repeat the parrot-cry of the iniquity of divorce and of the binding effect of a few disputed words, which Gibbon refers to as " flexible to any interpretation which the ■wisdom .of a legislator demands." Supposing that ■Jesus did intend to lav down a law for future generations, liow are wo to account for tho fact that, whilst recognisingl the right of the husband to divorce his wife, He says not a word that would give to the wife a reciprocal right? Can it have been an oversight? But, indeed, any such intention is surely inconceivable, for, if anything is certain regarding Jesus, it is that He expected His own generation to see the end of all things. ,„' What, then, is the real foundation (I do not say the origin) of this dogma of indissolubility? It is to be found in the Roman Catholic Canon Law that Luther burnt at Wittenbere in 1520; and which was some years later (1563) finally reaffirmed and made positive law by tho Council of' Trent. when the whole subject of marriage and divorce waaplaced under ecclesiastical jurisdiction. As the carious . relation to marriage were applied to New Zealand in 1908 by the promulgation here of the Ne Tomere Decree, whioh received so much attention .during the Parliamentary session of. 1920, it may be worth while, quoting a little of it. Here is a paragraph from the preamble :— "The firsV parent of the human race, moved by-the Divine Spirit, pronounced the bond of marriage perpetual and indissoluble when he said: ' This is now bone of my bone and: flesh of my flesh, for which cause a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh.'" Now, outside of the Roman Catholic Church, there are probably few clergymen who do not now admit that " the first parent of .the human race " is sim-'' ply a myth, and the whole story of the Garden of Eden a fable. A Canon of Westminster is reported to have said a short time ago that, so far as* he was, aware, -no Nonconformist divine, no scholar nor eminent man of science has come forward to assert that the fall of man is an historical fact. The Modern Churchman, the organ of the (Anglican) Churchmen's Union* says: "Like Canon. B.irnes, tho modern churchman regards the Fall story as a myth; tho Tree of Knowledge, the talking serpent, and the

seraph with the fiery sword are fiction, - not fact." I direct special attention to the fact that the passage quoted from the Decree is a part of a preamble to v law of the Roman Catholic Church, stating tho reason and intent of that law.; and that reason is that the (mythical) first parent of the human race in the (fabulous) Garden of Eden pronounced the bond of marriage perpetual and indissoluble. I have already referred to Pothier as having described the arguments in support o£ the sacramental idea of marriage as frivolous, and I leavo it to the reader to form .his own opinion of the reasons stated by the Council of Trent for its law of indissolubility. But I, may be reminded of the fact that only a. part of the preamble has been quoted. The preamble proceeds thus : — " And that by this bond alone can two be united. Christ taught more clearly when quoting, Ho said those last words as if given forth by God : ' And so already they arc not twain but one flesh,' and forthwith with these words did Christ confirm the fixity of that bond so long before announced by Adam, 'What, therefore, God hath joined together, let not man put asunder!1 " If the reader will take the trouble to refer to the passage in the second chapter of Genesis and compare it with the-pas-sage in the 19th chapter of Matthew, he will find that the words referred to by Jesus as having been spoken by God are, in Genesis, put into tho mouth of /Adam. Now, we know for certain that Adam is a myth, and that the-story of Eden is fabulous; but in the passage .of Matthew Jesus is represented as replying to the Pharisees thus: "Have ye not read, that he which made them from the beginning made them male and female and said, 'For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the twain shall become one flesh'?" It would appear, then, that if this text is authentic, Jesus accepted as historical fact what we know for certain to be mere fable, and that, on the strength of a fable and a myth which He mistook for historical fact, He proceeded to lay 'down a law binding for all time, and that He intended, thereby to declare marriage to be for ever indissoluble! The probability seems to_ be that the passage is an ecclesiastical interpolation, as verses 10, 11, and 12 of the .same chapter are commonly believed to be, and as verses 18 of chapter 16 must be believed to be by Protestant theologians, although their unreasoning faith in the dogma of scriptural infallibility may prevent them from saying so. How much better it would have been if they had long ago- met the claims of Rome with a bold denial that Jesus ever littered the fatal words—"Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church"—Words that consecrated sacerdotal despotism, and held Christen""' dom bound in ecclesiastical fetters for more than a thousand years, just as the text with, which, I.have been dealing h*s barred for centuries the path of reform, and caused infinite misery. There is another consideration that should weigh with one in considering ■whether the passage in question is an interpolation or not, and that is the mischievous nature of verse 5 (of chapter XIX.): "For this cause shall a map leave his, father and mother," etc. I haven't the least objection to .this sentiment being attributed to Adam, as it is in Genesis, but when Jesus.k represented as homologating.it, I say "Interpolation?" In Genesis it may be nothing more than a reference to the Arab custom of the Beena that leads a man when he marries a woman belonging to another patriarchal family to leave his own family or gronp and join that to which the woman belongs. But, as attributed to Jesus; it becomes a precept which probably millions ■■> of men •• have seized' ■ upon as an excuse for neglecting their •aged parents. It is an interesting question by what amount it has increased the sum required for old-age pensions in England. And yet,' if "the Bishop is right, it follows that in this cabalistic text we have the very -words -of Jesus!