ADVICE ON MARRIAGE

Evening Star, Issue 20720, 17 February 1931, Page 11

ADVICE ON MARRIAGE

“ MARVELLOUS PARTNERSHIP” ENGLISH BISHOP'S COUNSEL A remarkable pastoral letter oit Christian marriage, from the Bishop of Chichester, addressed to those who desire to bo married in any church or chapel of the Church of England in the County of Sussex, appears in the New Year issue of the Chichester ‘Diocesan Gazette.’ The Bishop said ; “ Marriage is the happiest of all human experiences for the man. or the woman who enters into it with the right partner in the right spirit. 1 trust that you have each made your choice of the other for this wonderful new life together with consideration and prayer. ... “ First, let me say this: Marriage, like every great enterprise in life, makes a very serious demand on those who embark upon it. At this moment each of you thinks the other a very wonderful being. Yov do right. But each is human, and with the long hie together to which you lo’*k forward it doesn’t do to forget that. Nothing really worth while can be dom without effort. . ■ “Marriage is a ending v.hich asks ,for constant and unselfish effort. It is a calling for the whole of life, and not a little t"T..poiar,v affair to be taken up ‘and then put down ns a passing fancy or selfish pleasure dictates. But if there is that effort; and a real unselfishness all life long, marriage becomes a marvellous partnership, both doubling your joys and halving your troubles! . “ You are asking to be married in church, and by that very act you admit special obligations by which you are bound as Christians. The marriage service of the church is definitely intended for those who accept the teaching of Jesus Christ. It is a very' solemn service, very solemnly performed between the man and the woman in the sight of God. “At the centre of the service come the solemn and binding vows which each makes to the other, that ihe one takes the other ‘ for better for worse . . . till deatl) us do part.’ . . . “ Read these vows, read them again, and think about them and all that they mean. Don’t take thorn idly. It is clear that the vow taken by each party to tlio marriage is for life, whatever may’ happen in the future. Thus it is ‘ for hotter for worse,’ even if one of-the parties proves unfaithful to the other or it turns out in the course of time that husband and wife prove wholly nnsujted to each.other.

“Again, ‘for richer for poorer’ includes the total loss of material possessions. ‘ln sickness and in health’ includes the possibility tlint one of tho parties may become incurably ill in bodv or in mind,'

“ ‘ Till death us do part ’ implies that, until one of the parties dies the othei is not free, for any cause whatsoever, to take another partner. “ Once you have taken such vows vou are bound, as an honourable man or woman, to keep them at all costs. If vou are not both honest or settled in Vour resolve to maintain thorn lor life"; if you are among those who think that marriage is merely an experiment, and that if it does not answer it can be brought to an end, I beg you do not como to he married in church. “To take vows you are not absolutely determined to keep is making a mockery alike of marriage and of the -service and of its witnesses in church. “ Those who are not prepared to regard marriage as the church regards it can obtain legal sanction for their union by being married at a registry office;. , ~ . . „ “ Even marriage belore the registrar is a binding ceremony not to bo lightly set aside, but the service in church puts before you the meaning of Christian marriage, and no -Act of Parliament can alter its character—no man-made law can free from their vows a man and a woman who have solemnly pledged themselves before God to bo true to one another, ‘ till death us do PJ ‘‘ t You will lind that the recollection of your solemn vows will help you mightily to meet iho inevitable rubs ol married life in a right spirit. . .. . The bishop added some advice regarding the responsibilities of parenthood, which he described as “ The Glory of Married Life.”