MARRIAGE AMENDMENT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18051, 27 September 1920, Page 4

MARRIAGE AMENDMENT.

Jv the Marriage Amendment Bill (No. 2) introduced into trie Legislative Council last week by the Hon. J. MacGregor be rogarded as the logical outcome of the Marriage Amendment Bill (No. 1), which with its amendments has been referred back to the House of Representatives for approval, the Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Amendment Bill which has just been read a third time and passed by the Council may be considered in the same logical succession. These several attempts at legislative amendment in the most serious and important matter of marriage inevitabfy excite certain reflections to which due heed should calmly and dispassionately be given. The undoubted trend of the proposed legislation is to reduce marriage to a purely civil contract, not only eliminating from the bond all the influences of religion but also expressly forbidding any of the churches from placing their veto upon unions which contravene their official creed or conflict with their deepest conviction and most sincere belief. As with marriage so with divorce, both are to be considered and decided upon civil and material grounds alone without any reference to the teachings of religion. Recently we referred pointedly to the growth of certain tendencies in modern society which, in the opinion of those qualified to give an opinion, constitate a menace to the institution of marriage, threatening its stability and permanency and opening the door to an increased and increasing immorality. The remedies would seem to lie along the lines of education as to what marriage really means to the contracting parties and the serious responsibilities which it entails, together with the inculcation of self-control and self-restraint as an ideal to be kept steadily in view by those who decide to enter upon the marriage state. la such education and inculcation it is the mission of the Churches to play a leading part; and it is to be feared that legislation which apparently has for its goal the complete secularisation of marriage, may add to the existing decadent trend rather than help to avert it. A phrase in Holy Writ may profitably in this connection be pondered by the legislators of the dominion. It is this: " For what the Law could not do in that it was weak"—the manifest implication might be extended to measures other than Marriage Amendment and Divorce Bills. The moral in this particular instance is that any law will fail of its objective and betray its weakness if it offends against the ethical sense of right and wrong which is inherent in civilised society. And any legislation which prohibits the Church from placing its imprimatur upon the marriage ceremony strikes right at the root of what is known the world over as Christian marriage. As the years pass changes are accepted in the form of the marriage service, as for instance the decision of the Congregational Union in the Homeland to delete the word "obey" from the ceremony; such verbal alterations are, however, but a reflection of the evolution of thought in regard to the relation of the sexes. The greatest teacher .the world has ever known on one occasion said, "Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to put away your wives; but from the beginning it was not so," and in so important a question as the one under discussion it may be well to get right back to the fundamental principle upon which marriage is based. The higher the ideal of marriage the more stable and permanent will he the nature of the bond and the more beneficial the contribution which such marriages will make to the welfare of the community. While it is in the highest degree desirable' that the State shall rigidly safeguard the marriage contract in the general interest, and while scientific research and political economy have a right to be heard in regard to the relation of the sexes, it is the voice of religion which should exercise the strongest influence in this regard. The marriage ceremony is by the vast majority still deemed a religious rite and the purity of marriage lies at the root of the virtue of the nation. Such are some of the con siderations to which Parliament should give careful heed before proceeding to legislation to which such grave-excep-tion can bo taken and which, if persevered in, promises to provoke themosi, strenuous opposition from the chief Churches of the land.