PUBLICITY OF MARRIAGE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10404, 31 March 1897, Page 6

PUBLICITY OF MARRIAGE.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir,—Certainly marriage affects the whole community. Certainly not only every marriagebut every eugagement ought to be made public, and engagements should be only valid when made by signed, witnessed, and stamped document. Again, the Government of every country should control matrimony for the public good. Thus the stage of physiological history we have now reached demands that the inter-marriage of cousins should be prohibited, and also the marriage of people that have evident tendencies to insanity and certain diseases, like consumption. But it is most unfortunate that all the legislation of democratic countries (where civilisation is on a socialist or human basis instead of on a religious and Divine basis) lias tended to weaken the marriage tie and degrade the estate of matrimony. Your correspondent was suggesting a revolution in modern feeling and legislation. The English Church has always treat id marriage as a public matter; the banns, which are so seldom heard since it has been looked upon as more aristocratic to get a license from the Bishop to do without them, are an admirable institution, and my humble opinion is that one duty every man and woman contemplating matrimony owes to the community is to be married hy banns; licenses should be used most rarely. But there is one other and a potent factor in the degradation of marriage, and this is one where the women are the worst offenders—a wedding is treated os a show spectacle instead of a most solemn service. I have not the slightest hesitation jn calling marriage a sacrament—solemn and joyful, holy and hopetul. Many a couple wish to be married at home or in a Church a little out of the main road ia order to be solemn and serious, and to avoid making themselves a spectacle to a crowd of gaping, criticising females, and •■■o avoid being hung up to view in the society paper, by flimsy veils aud streaming ribbons. Of course, this is largely their own fault, but then everyone has not got the courage to break through the absurdity of over-dressing, since the world demands "it. But the real thing which will help to make marriage the sicial and religious sacrament it truly is, is the raising the tone and sense of the whole commuuity to a higher and more solemn view of life in every aspect. Mere legislation will uo more cure matrimonial scandals and atrocities, than it will make the people pure, sober, or honest. But your idea of newspaper publication is good in its way, only fees are high enough already, and it should be done gratia, either by Government or the paner. It certainly would not diminish circulation of the paper.—l am, etc., W. Edward , Lcsh.