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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 75

Milton'S View the Loftiest

Milton'S View the Loftiest.

Let us contrast with this grossly physical ecclesiastical view of marriage that of Milton—the highest and noblest conception at which the world has yet arrived; a conception which appeals to all that is most noble and most beautiful in life, and is more in consonance with that spiritual view of marriage which finds expression in our noblest literature, according to which marriage is the closest form of friendship between man and woman, having for its primary end the "completion of man's being by some fitting, some ennobling, some lasting companionship and affection." According to the sacerdotalist view as embodied in our law, union in the name of the law is all-important, and union by affection is less important. According to Milton's view, union by affection is the most important, and union in the name of the law the least important. "The internal form and soul of this relation," says Milton, "is conjugal eve arising from a mutual fitness to the dual causes of wedlock." "Law cannot command love, without which matrimony hath no true being, no good, no solace, nothing of God's instituting, nothing but so sordid and so low as to be disdained of any generous parson." "Christ Himself tells," he says, "why should not be put asunder—namely, those whom God bath joined." But, "when is it that God may be said to join ? When the parties and their friends consent? No surely, . . . . Or is it when church rites are finished ? Neither, for the efficacy of those depends upon the presupposed fitness of either party. Undoubtedly a peaceful divorce is a Less evil, and Less in scandal than hateful, hardhearted, and destructive continuance in marriage in the judgment of Moses and of Christ." "What thing more instituted to the delight and solace of man than marriage ? And yet the misinterpreting of some Scripture hath changed the blessing of matrimony into a drooping and disconsolate household captivity, without refuge or redemption. What a sore evil is this under the sun ! What a calamity is this! . . . Not that licence and levity should therein be countenanced, but that some couscunable and tender pity might be had for those who have unwarily, in a thing they never practised before, made themselves the bondmen of a luckless and, helpless matrimony." "Who sees not," he exclaims, "how much more Christianity it would page 4 be to break by divorce that which is broken by undue and forcible keeping" "It is a less bremch of wedlock to put with wise and quiet cousent betimes, than still to foil and profane that mystery of joy and union with a polluting sadness and perpetual distemper; for it is not the outward continuing of marriage that keeps whole that covenant."

It has been well said that nowhere else in the English language, or probably in any other, has the highest and noblest conception of marriage been set forth with such majestic eloquence as in Milton's treatises on the subject; and yet such has been the influence of sacerdotalism and theological dogma that scarcely any progress has been made in the rationalising of our law and customs during the 240 years that have elapsed since the publication of Milton's treatises. For in Milton's day adultly was recognised as a ground of divorce. And even to New Zealand, under a Parliament that boasts of its liberalism in dealing with all social questions, it seems wellnigh impossible to obtain that measure of reform which most of the Australian colonies Introduced years ago. That the ecclesiastical conception of wedlock should still retain such a bold is very remarkable in a community in which marriage by a Catholic priest, or by a Protestant clergyman or minister, has Legally no more virtue than marriage by a registrar, who is merely a civil officar, and in which, indeed, the priest or minister in officiating at a marriage derives his authority from the State, just as much as the registrar. The priest is, in fact, simply a sub-registrar, and yet so superstitious are the notions of must people on the subject that they imagine marriage by a clergyman is something quite diffarent from the same ceremony performed by a registrar. And then it seems quite hopetess to expect the mass of the people to see that such a conception of marriage as we find in Milton is infinitely higher and nobler than the ecclesiastical viaw which he combated. No one who gives the subject any real consideration can help seeing the superiority of Hilton's view, but legicaL conusequces deducible from this conception are so much at variance from the prevailing ideas as to the grounds on which divorcs should be granted that people refuse to recognise the truth. If once it be admitted that "If action is "the internal form and soul" of marriage, and that the mere ceremonial rite has no sacred virtue—that it is the existence of this affection, and not any ceremony, that renders matrimony "holy"—that marriage is divine only when—

Friendship love, and peace combine

To stamp the marriage bond [unclear: divin],—

then in follows that where affection has never existed, or is dead, true marriage does not exist.,

'When love," Milton says, "finds its If utterly nmatched, and justly vanishes—nay, rather cannot but vanish,—the fleshly [unclear: relation] indeed continue, but not holy, not [unclear: pure] beseeming the sacred bond of marriage; [unclear: be] truly gross and more ignob'e than the [unclear: m] kindliness between herds and flocks, [unclear: W] then, shall divorce bs granted for [unclear: was] bodily fidelity and not for want of fitness intimate conversation, whereaa corporal [unclear: be] lence cannot in any human fashion be [unclear: with] this."