and not merely sensual purposes, may be honoured and practised. No union is acknowledged as Marriage, which does not profess to be for life. It has been said, that if men and women were left free to settle the terms of the Marriage Contract, they would, in most cases, be led to make it a Contract for life. The number of cases of Concubinage which occur show that this is true only in a very limited sense. But even if this were true, why does the Legislator reject the cases in which the parties do not wish this? If persons wish to make such a Contract for a limited time, why does he not sanction and enforce it? Why does he, on the contrary, make rules which stamp it with a character of degradation and disgrace? Manifestly, because he wishes to impress upon the citizens the great social and moral dignity of a complete union for life, and its superiority over a temporary or capricious cohabitation. Every Law, then, which establishes Marriage, must have for its object to teach what Marriage ought to be.

972 But Marriage ought to be, not only an engagement of mutual affection for life, but also a provision for rearing a family of children; and this is a further reason against allowing a Marriage, once made, to be dissolved. While the children are young, the continued union of the parents is necessary for the support, protection, and education of the woman and the children. And the necessary offices of mutual service among the members of the Family, cannot be effectually performed, except they arise, not from the terms of a Contract, but from the family affections: and such affections must want the very nature of love, if they can look forward to the time when they can terminate. The ties of Family and Society are not commonly looked upon as the Obligations of a Contract, which may be dissolved at the Will of the parties. The Law of Marriage would be at variance with the general feeling of mankind, if it so treated them. Men do not think those excusable who desert their children, or their parents, in their need, even if it had been previously agreed between the parties that they should be nothing to each other. And further: as we consider it a Duty, and even an Obligation, of the parents, to support and educate the children, it is also a Duty to give them that Family Education which the permanent union of the parents alone can give.

973 In order to show that the divorce of the parents would not deprive the children of necessary support, care, and connexion, it has been urged that marriages are constantly dissolved by the death of the parties, at all ages of the children; and that this

event does not prevent the proper education of the children. And undoubtedly, if the parents be separated, by whatever event, the children may still be brought up, and even excellently brought up. But among the beneficial influences which operate to form their hearts and moral principles, their regard towards their parents must have an important place. And it must make a very material difference in this regard, whether they have to look upon their parents as united by an affection which lasted through life, though one be now taken away: or as separated by a voluntary act, and perhaps living in wedlock with new spouses. If the Law were to lend its aid to the distribution of the children in such cases, as readily and as approvingly as to the arrangements of an unbroken family, it would present to us a Conception of Marriage much lower and less pure than that to which a moderate moral culture directs us.

974 It is said that an engagement to retain our affection through life is absurd, since we cannot command our affections; and that to bind two persons together, who have begun to hate, instead of love. each other, is to inflict upon them an useless torment. But though we cannot command our affections, we can examine our hearts before we make the engagement: when this is faithfully done, married life itself, well conducted, tends to give permanency to affection; and nothing can more impress upon us the necessity of being faithful to our hearts in the choice we make, than the knowledge that the step, once taken, is taken for life. Again, this same knowledge, that the union cannot be dissolved, tends to control the impulses of caprice, ill-temper, and weariness, in married life; and to keep two people together, and on the whole, very tolerably happy, who might have separated on some transient provocation, if Divorce had been easily attainable. And thus, the exclusion of Divorce tends both ways to the promotion of conjugal love and conjugal happiness.

975 All that we have hitherto said, tends to this: not that, in any given state of society, Divorce should be absolutely prohibited, but that the highest Conception of Marriage is expressed by making Marriage indissoluble; that the duty of the State, which is, among other Duties, to establish such Laws as may maintain and elevate the Moral Culture of the citizens, requires the Lawgiver constantly to tend towards this Conception of Marriage, and this condition. Whether, at the existing point of the moral progress of this Country, the moral teaching of the Law is made most effectual by prohibiting Divorce in general, (allowing

K K

it only as the consequence of adultery on one side, and then with great difficulty,) I shall not attempt to decide.

976 So far, we have considered the subject in the light in which it is presented to us by Rational Morality. If we now take into account Christian Morality, we find that in it the highest view which we can form of the entireness and permanence of the marriage union is confirmed. We have already noticed (527) the condemnation delivered by Jesus Christ against the practice of Divorce, as it then existed among the Jews. It has been most commonly understood, that these expressions contain a condemnation of Divorce under all circumstances, except in the case of adultery. But there have not been wanting those who have explained these passages otherwise. They allege that when it is said, Those whom God hath joined together, let not man put asunder, we are to recollect that God has not joined together those between whom there is a settled unfitness for the marriage union, though man may have done so. When it is said that Moses allowed Divorce to the Jews for the hardness of their heart, it cannot be meant that he allowed a sin which, according to the common interpretation, is equivalent to adultery. Divorce, they urge, was allowed for the hardness of men's hearts, as all law exists in consequence of the hardness of men's hearts, that is, in consequence of their tendency to do wrong. Divorce was given especially for the hardness of heart of those who abused the privilege at the time of our Saviour, for it was the means of their showing the hardness of their hearts. And when it is said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, it is to be understood that these acts were part of the same design: such a design is undoubtedly adulterous. Such are the arguments for the less strict interpretation of this passage. But even with this interpretation, the leading point of Christ's teaching is plain; that the Christian was not to be content with such an imperfect view of the marriage union as was placed before the Jew, but was to aim at that higher view which was manifested, when in the beginning God made them male and female.

977 It may be said, the view we have been taking, that marriage is an entire and interminable union of the pair, would lead us to reject all second marriages; and that the law, in order to express the highest Conception of Marriage, ought to prohibit these. And undoubtedly, a very high view of the sacredness and entireness of the marriage union may easily lead to a disapprobation of second marriages; and among Christians, in every age,

But yet,

there have been those who have condemned them. when the life of one of the parties is prolonged beyond that of the other, and when, after the sorrow of the separation has subsided into calm, the survivor sees before him or her, perhaps at an early age, and after a brief married life, an indefinite remainder of life; the same causes which impel persons to marriage at first, must often operate again with equal power, and supply the same reasons why there should be marriage. And the law, in sanctioning such marriages, divests the union of none of its entireness and permanence; for the engagement is still for life on both sides. When the act of God has dissolved the first engagement, the law does not make that which is past and gone, a fetter upon the present and future; but allows a new origin of conjugal life, making what remains of the person's life as if it were the whole; which, as to all engagements, it is.

978 Most States have, in some way or other, punished Adultery, at least on the part of the wife. Yet the Law of England, placing Rights as much as possible on the basis of property, gives the injured husband pecuniary damages from the adulterer; and leaves the public crime to the cognizance of the spiritual courts.

979 There is another subject, on which it is necessary to say a few words; namely, the degrees of relationship within which Marriage is to be permitted by Law. In framing a system of Morality, the Moralist is often compelled to dwell upon subjects from which, on other accounts, he would wish always to turn the thoughts of men away: Incest is one of these subjects. But it will suffice us to treat it in a very brief and general manner.

980 Without attempting to exhibit, in a more definite shape, the reasons and feelings which have made men look with horrour upon any connexion of a conjugal nature, between the nearest family relatives; it may suffice to say, that all family relations make the man the natural Guardian of the woman's purity. This feeling of Guardianship on this subject, commonly infused into the affections, from their earliest origin, extinguishes the very seeds of desire, and leaves only Fraternal Love. On the other hand, when no such relation exists, desiring love may grow up; and in societies where men are free to choose their partners, there is a constant and universal feeling of courtship between the sexes, which tinges their manners towards each other. This feeling of courtship, in however many folds it may involve the spark of desire, is yet inconsistent with the chaste guardianship of Fraternal Love. Hence, the necessity of separating the cases in which per

sons may not marry, because they are relatives, from those in which they may marry.

981 Where the separation line is to be drawn, in any given state of Society, is a question difficult of solution, and necessarily in some degree arbitrary. The rule may be different in different states of Society; for it must depend, in a great measure, upon the Structure of Families, and the kind of the early intercourse of their members with each other, and with other Families. Hence, although the primary family relations must always have the same consequences, more remote relationships may be subjected to different Rules of intermarriage in different countries; and one Country or Age is no absolute Rule for another: except only, that the long-continued past existence of a Rule, on this subject, is a very strong reason for retaining and observing the Rule; since the separation of the two classes of cases, so necessary to the purity of families, produces its effect by being familiar to men's minds.

982 Some persons have sought a ground for the prohibition of marriages between near relatives in physiological reasons, and in the supposed degeneracy of the offspring when such a practice is continued. But if this result were far more certain than it is, we could not consistently make it a ground of legislation, except we were also prepared to prohibit unions which are far more certainly the cause of physiological evil: as for instance, when there is a great disparity of years; or hereditary disease, or insanity, on either side.

983 A question of prohibited degrees of kindred, which has been much discussed, is this: Whether a man may marry his deceased wife's sister. On this we may observe, that though much argument on the subject has been drawn from the law of Moses, such argument is of no direct force; since, as we have said, one Nation is no Rule for another; and the habits of society, and the relations of families, on which the Rule ought to depend, were very different among the ancient Jews, and in our own country at present. So far as the Jewish law has been the basis of the Rule hitherto received, it has weight; since, as we have also said, an existing Rule is entitled to great respect. As to the grounds of decision belonging to our own state of Society, we have mainly to consider, whether, by marrying one sister, men in general are placed upon the footing of Fraternal Love with the other sisters; and whether it is requisite to the purity of this Fraternal Love (on both sides) that there should be no possibility