TRIAL MARRIAGES

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 150, 22 December 1922, Page 18

TRIAL MARRIAGES

"AMOCKERY AND A CRIME."-

"It is quite clear that any kind of trial marriage must either -be a mockery or a crime in relation to the life and welfare of .the child," said Rev. N. :''J...Cocks, preaohing on "Modern Marriage," in a Sydney Congregational Church recently '(says the-"Daily Telegraph").,.■ _

"Modern marriage, as recently., advocated, is not in any real sense of the word marriage at all. The great end, that, brings the. ideal and beautiful into' the sex contract, is cruelly, and thoughtlessly sacrificed. There are undoubtedly many difficult situations from which one would gladly see women- or men rescued. There" are matings that become tragic through incompatibility. But, while these sorrowful'things cannot be helped, they may be made.more sorrowful by weakening the sense of responsibility in our community. "While there are some likely, to be led into disastrous experiments, by the offhand statements of a tyro dealing with the realities of life," ;said Mr. Cocks, "for the most part, our people resent the suggestion of modern marriage. The main.element of marriage is, of course, the birth and nurture of children. We havo perhaps been too squeamish or sentimental to make this recognition frankly and sincerely. "The affinities of the parents, while import-ant enough, in the early stages of 'the tome-making, become subordinate to the welfare of those they \)ring into the world. When the whims and even the idiosyncrasies of the parents are sacrificed that the children may be able to live fully and nobly, then it is marriage, an immensely different thing from any mere mating. ''The call to-day should be rather to /return to the heroic ideal of the family as the true unit in the State, -than, to a relaxing of tics that proceeds' from easy sensual inclination. Even the tendency to experiment with everything in Heaven and earth is not sufficient justification for tampering with the foundations." /