THE MARRIAGE PROBLEM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18711, 17 May 1924, Page 24 (Supplement)

THE MARRIAGE PROBLEM.

J.'-^-^VBI ; VIVIEN.v.v. . . , V Progress in art and science and medij cine, increased knowledge of people and countries : and things, advancement in educational - and eoonumic matters, spiritual and ' mental enlightenment :in countless different ways— .these ■ play their part in our boasted modern civilisation. And yet with it all, -it, is a strange and terrible thing that men and women have not yet more than begun to understand the simple elementary laws of loving and living, the sacred : fundamental principles - which lie at the very root of all true morality. Everywhere the ghastly ■ total of unhappy marriages and irregular unions, divorces and legal .. separations grows year by: year more warming,, everywhere there are innumerable " evidences and aspects of matrimonial tragedies, a • thousand variations of the " human tri-

angle." . > * V*' Ah, the pity of it, the terrible pity of It, that for so many the way 'to ; peace and truth and happiness , should lie only over the Stony road of ; a broken engagement, an irregular union or divorce! ■Why,' why are we so merciless and unjust in our judgments, . so warped , and distorted of vision, so crooked and dishonest of mind in our thoughts and views concerning these . great questions of love and marriage ? Why are the young bo cruelly, so thoughtlessly allowed vto plunge headlong into unhappy, unsuitable marriages? Why do parents not tram their daughters to •" know their own minds and to understand something of the laws of true blending, true mating, true mental and spiritual as well as physical union'} Why do they not teach their sons the &wiul responsibility that lies in . their hands, the jsacreduess and immensity of the " trust committed to them, the importance of a ' wise and rational .' and thoughtful choice of life-part.ners Whv, above all. do we encourage the utterly stupid , convention that it is more honourable to . contract or continue a loveless marriage than to break an engagement or .dissolve a union that has become ' intolerable ' . . _ ,t.- v The whole ■ trouble is that, there-is far too much crooked .thinking, too much cowardice and. pretence, too much hideous injustice and unfairness in the world re-; garding this vexed problem of love - and marriage. "An irresponsible, . unthinking carelessness of attitude, 5 a growing ton-, deney to .calculating, mercenary seJish.ness,. mistaken motives and false . con-. ceptions of honour and duty, confusion of thought arid dishonesty of purpose— these are only some of the contributing causes which lead to unsuitable unions and domestic upheavals. And it is a strange paradox that,' 1 though it is 'usually women who suffer most by ' these • tragedies, it is also women whose judg- ' meat ,of others in such cases is most : merciless and. hard and narrow. Ihe appalling fact remains,; however,ttha t . every day, people, who are hopelessly ;unsuited go to the altar without - the slightest regard for ! the saci'edness and importance of the. institution ' they.,, are desecrating. "- 1 " 'I' • v'-i t As ? a result there . are' thousands 'of people in the world to-day . whose marries are : little better : ~ than legalised immorality—thousands whose unions, having the sanction of the world's approval and the outward respectability •of a ceremony, are yet nothing . but a . hideous mockery, a tragedy, a desecration of what ought to be the greatest and .moat sacred and .cmost beautuul : institution in the world. In actual truth, a ; girl who secures a home and husband' uy posing as kind and sympathetic, lovable and sincere ■when in reality she cares little or nothing for the man her selfishness desires, a woman who marries . without a. wholehearted love for her partner, a wife whose children are fathered by a husband for l whom she has neither affection nor respect, is far less worthy of honour ; than are : some rof those whom - J she condemns for 1 being the victims of a genuine and tremendous but forbidden 10ve.,., s , Similarly, for a man to marry and give, his name .and his children, to one woman, knowing all the time that v the deepest, greatest love of. his inmost heart is . given ~to 'another, is to inflict the -most terrible wrong on both women. In the case of the one, his acceptance of what she has to give is a deadly insult, an outrage to her womanhood. In , the case .of the other, his denial of that which •by all the laws of love and truth is hers, and hers ; alone, is a cruel , and monstrous injustice, a betrayal of his manhood, a desecration of honesty and \ ' truth. -. He • may not, probably: does • not, realise ■ it, but: the fact remains that on the day when he contracts such a union, he steeps his. soul in dishonour. He is true neither to i God nor to himself, neither to his wife nor to his love. .His marriage is a lie,'his pledges and vows are false and unworthy because, > in > * spirit and in , essence, if not in letter, they are utterly. : impossible of ; fulfilment and should never have been made. . " . Even his subsequent loyalty to the pledge of marriage he has given, or to the contract he has actually undertaken, is based =: on a * false and mistaken conception of honour, and, because it is a desecration of truth, is foredoomed to failure, disillusionment, and unhappiness. Yet' the tragedy is that there are thousands of noble - men and women who all their-lives bravely and unselfishly crurify themselves and. sacrifice those they love on the; altar of mistaken loyalty, solely-.be-cause 5 they fail to rea'ise that loyalty to lies :is not ' only foolish and unnecessary brt actively wrone, for the simple reason that 'it is disloyalty to truth. ; ;• • . - The crux of: the whole matter is, that all < real, - true, sacred marriage must, be a -mental and . spiritual union - first, a ' physical onion afterwards. Most of our tragic ! matrimonial ,tangles are due to the fatal mistake of reversing the process, only ;to - find out afterwards, . that there is no spiritual union at all, and never ' can tw. Yet a man who contracts .. a legal union with one woman when spiritually he is already and, forever ;marned to another. is » surely, : lowenng : and desecrating the" mora! code -as if he had committed bigamy. For It Is the spintral ' bond ' alone that can never,.,; never be broken, the ' spiritual bond alone that is S indissoluble, the spiritual bond alone that holds, through life and: death and all eternity. t •m ■^