young, the continued union of the parents is neces sary 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.

1032. 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 sepa. rated, 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 ar 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 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 presents to us a Conception of Marriage much lower and less pure than that to which a moderate moral culture directs us.

1033. 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 come 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.

1034. 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 it only as the consequence of adultery on one side, and then with great difficulty), I shall not attempt to decide.

1035. 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 (633) 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 say that when it 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 that interpretation, is equivalent to adultery. Divorce 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 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 shown, when in the beginning God made them male and female.

1036. 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, there have been those who have condemned them. But yet, 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.

1037. 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.

1038. 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.

1039. Without attempting to exhibit, in a more definite shape, the reasons and feelings which have made men look with horror upon any connexion of a conjugal nature, between the nearest family relatives; it may suffice to say, that all such 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. 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 persons may not marry, because they are relatives, from those in which they may marry.

This

1040. 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