Since the infallible and unchangeable laws of God and of
Nature have limited the indulgence of love to married
persons only, it becomes necessary to inquire into the laws
and limitations of marriage itself. What is marriage? and
who are entitled to its rights and benefits?
MARRIAGE DEFINED
The proper definition of marriage is the main point at issue
between the social system of polygamy and that of monogamy,
which it is the object of this treatise to examine and
compare. One system defines marriage to be the exclusive
union of one man to one woman until separated by death or
divorce; the other defines it to be the union of one man to
either one woman or more, until separated, in like manner, by
death or divorce.
Page 41
It now remains for us to determine which of these definitions
is most in harmony with the laws of god and of Nature. And
we shall be better able to do this, by considering carefully
the beneficent purposes which marriage is designed to
subserve.
MARRIAGE BENEFICIAL
Marriage is the first and best of all human institutions, if
it can properly be called human, since it was first
solemnized in Paradise, by the Creator himself, who then
said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will
make him a help meet for him." And God blessed them, and God
said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the
earth, and subdue it."
It is impossible to enumerate all the benefits of marriage,
since there is no vital interest of mankind which it does not
affect favorably. Marriage perpetuates the human race; lays
the foundations of organized society; promotes industry;
accumulates wealth; cultivates the arts, and maintains
religion. It builds the house, tills the soil,
Page 42
supports the family, and fosters every charitable and
benevolent enterprise.
ALL ARE ENTITLED TO ITS BENEFITS
As the word of God has declared marriage to be honorable in
all, so we must infer that his laws have made provision for
the honorable marriage of all; and that every person of each
sex is equally entitled to its rights and benefits. These
rights should no more be restricted to the rich and the
fortunate than are the susceptibilities of love, upon which
marriage properly depends, and from which it derives its only
proper warrant and authority.
"Love, and love only, is the loan for love."
Marriage, when authorized and warranted by the promptings of
an honest love, is a pure and blissful consummation of all
that is divine in humanity; but when it is contracted from
mercenary or ambitious motives, it becomes a most unholy
profanation. Love was not made for marriage, but marriage
for love. Love is an inherent and a necessary attribute of
humanity;
Page 43
marriage a subsequent relationship instituted to minister to
love's wants. Love is the mistress, marriage the handmaid.
Marriage must wait the demands of love, and not love the
demands of marriage. It is, therefore, equally
disrespectful to our Creator, and dishonorable to man, to
require that love should be suppressed because marriage is
inconvenient, and still more dishonorable and disrespectful
to require any one to be deprived of the rights of love on
account of the impossibility of marriage; for marriage ought
to be possible to all. If love be refining and ennobling, if
it be the spontaneous, instinctive birthright of all, and if
our Creator has restricted its indulgence to the marriage
relation, then marriage must be the right of all, or else God
is not a benevolent being. But all nature and all revelation
have demonstrated that he is a benevolent being, and it is
both impious and absurd to believe that his laws have made no
adequate provision for every one to be married who wishes to
be. We may waive our rights, and live in celibacy, if we
prefer to; but no one who loves and who wishes to marry ought
to be compelled to remain unmarried.
Page 44
It is, therefore, demonstrated that any form of society which
fails to provide for the marriage of all is a defective
system, and opposed to the natural, inherent, and inalienable
rights of man.
THESE RIGHTS ARE DENIED TO MANY
Yet we well know that there are very many persons, especially
many women, who are neither married nor have an opportunity
to marry. By some means they have been deprived of their
rights. The fault is not theirs; they would, in almost every
instance, prefer wedded life if it were in their power to
attain it; but it is not. They possess the same
susceptibilities of love, the same yearning for intimate
companionship, that others do, but these tender sensibilities
they are obliged to repress. The fault is not in nature, nor
in the laws of God, but it is in the tyrannical laws and
fashions of the artificial system of social life which now
obtains among us. This system must be at fault, for it does
not and it cannot provide for the marriage of all; and many
who desire to marry are forever deprived of husbands and
homes: while the system of polygamy
Page 45
does provide for all, and is, therefore, the only system
which is in harmony with divine and natural laws. This
proposition is further demonstrated by the simple fact that
the number of marriageable women always exceeds the number of
marriageable men.
MORE WOMEN THAN MEN
The statistics of all States and nations agree in this fact,*
except, occasionally, in those States in
[Please see Footnotes below.]
Page 46
which the population is very largely made up by foreign
immigration. Most of these immigrants are men; and many of
them have left their wives and families in the
mother-country, and do not intend to become permanent
citizens, but hope to make their fortunes and return home to
enjoy them. Yet many persons who have never examined
statistical tables, nor taken any other accurate means of
informing themselves, suppose the number of the men to be
equal to that of the women; and it has been a plausible
objection to polygamy, that if some men have a plurality of
wives, some other men must thereby be deprived of any, and
the system must be unequal and unjust. The objection would
be valid were it based upon valid facts: but it is all an
error; and it is one which a little observation would enable
almost any one readily to correct. One has only to count up
the persons of each sex of marriageable age in all
Page 47
the families of his own acquaintance to satisfy himself that
the females will outnumber the males. It is true, that, at
birth, the number of each sex is nearly equal; that of the
males being slightly in excess, but a much larger proportion
of the males die in childhood, than of the females.*
Generally, about fifty per cent of all male children die
before the age of twenty-one years; while only about
thirty-three per cent, or two-thirds as many females, die
during the same period.** And then, as they
Page 48
grow up to manhood, the boys and young men are constantly
exposed to hardships and dangers, from which the softer sex
is exempt; and hence the excess of the females goes on
continually increasing, as we see by the statistical tables,
from the beginning to the end of the marriageable age. All
this in times of peace: the excess must be much greater than
usual after destructive war; for during the late civil war in
America there were lost from both parties nearly a million of
men in the most productive period of life.
Page 49
Young women become marriageable at a much earlier age than
young men do. There is a natural or constitutional
difference of several years, and prudential considerations
cause the difference to become practically greater. But few
young men are born to large fortunes, which these times of
extravagance require for the fashionable maintenance of a
family; and those who are rich are not always the most prompt
to marry. They prefer to spend their early manhood in
dissipation, and are unwilling to bow to the yoke of wedlock
till
Page 50
they begin to feel the infirmities of age; while the poor man
must devote several years of his majority to toil before he
becomes able to assume matrimonial expenses. The result is
that most men do not marry until between twenty-five and
thirty-five years of age, and many at a later period; while a
large majority of women who marry at all are married between
the ages of fifteen and twenty-five. On the whole,
therefore, women are practically marriageable ten years
younger than men are, a period which constitutes a third part
of the average duration of adult life. From these two causes
alone, - the greater number of women, and their being
marriageable so much younger, - the proportion of
marriageable women to marriageable men would be about two to
one.
MANY MEN REFUSE TO MARRY
But the practical difference is still greater. For after men
have arrived at adult manhood, and have acquired the means of
supporting a family, many of them refuse marriage. Some have
out-lived their youthful desires, and have acquired decided
habits of celibacy; some are too gay and
Page 51
too profligate; others too busy and too selfish; others so
broken down by early dissipation and diseased by the
contagious poison of low vice, that they are totally unfit
to marry: while there are many others whose occupations (such
as sailors and soldiers) most commonly prevent marriage. From
these disabilities the other sex is much more exempt. They
are exposed to fewer temptations; they are more susceptible
to religious impressions; they are more immediately under the
control of parents and guardians, and are saved from many of
those enervating and degrading habits which beset young men,
rendering them either disinclined to marriage, or unfit for
it, or both.
FEW WOMEN DECLINE MARRIAGE
There are, on the other hand, few women who are unwilling to
marry. They are naturally dependent upon their male friends;
and, after the period of childhood, this dependence is seldom
happy or even tolerable, except in the marriage relation.
The former is a dependence of necessity, the latter is, or
ought to be, a dependence of love; and this distinction makes
all the difference in the world.
Page 52
Hence it needs no argument to prove what is so universally
admitted, that women fulfil their highest destiny in life
only by becoming wives and mothers. I will cite a woman's
testimony, and submit the case, quoting the earnest words of
"GAIL HAMILTON." "There is not one woman in a million who
would not be married if ... she could have a chance. How do I
know? Just as I know that the stars are now shining in the
sky, though it is high noon. I never saw a star at noonday;
but I know it is in the nature of stars to shine in the sky,
and of the sky to hold its stars. Genius or fool, rich or
poor, beauty or the beast, if marriage were what it should
be, what God meant it to be, what even, with the world's
present possibilities, it might be, it would be the Elysium,
the sole, complete Elysium, of woman, yes, and of man.
Greatness, glory, usefulness, happiness, await her
otherwheres; but here alone all her powers, all her being,
can find full play. No condition, no character even, can
quite hide the gleam of the sacred fire; but on the household
hearth it joins the warmth of earth to the hues of heaven.
Brilliant, dazzling, vivid, a beacon and a blessing
Page 53
her light may be; but only a happy home blends the prismatic
rays into a soft, serene whiteness, that floods the world
with divine illumination. Without wifely and motherly love,
a part of her nature must remain enclosed, a spring shut up,
a fountain sealed."
New Atmosphere, p.55
MONOGAMY PREVENTS MARRIAGE
But under the system of monogamy it is impossible for half
the women to live in the enjoyment of the married state.
This cruel and oppressive system is compelling them either
to repress the fondest sensibilities and the most imperative
demands of Nature, and to renounce their dearest rights, or
else to assert them in a clandestine and forbidden manner,
and thus to abandon themselves to a life of infamy and an
eternity of shame and woe.
In older and more wealthy countries practising monogamy, the
comparative number of unmarried to married women is even
greater. the statistical tables of England show that less
than one-third of the marriageable women of that country were
living in marriage at the time of the last census.
Page 54
At the period of the highest glory of the Roman empire, and
also during its long decline, while wealth and luxury
increased, and the artificial conventionalities of society
were greatly multiplied, it was observed, with alarm, that
marriages became less and less frequent, and were consummated
later and later in life: and all the power of the government
was exerted in vain to arrest the growing evil. Heavy fines
and special taxes were levied upon old bachelors, and high
premium paid to persons having numerous families; but the
evil continued to increase till the empire was dismembered.*
Page 55
In respect to the mode of performing the marriage ceremony,
the divine law does not prescribe any: and nothing more was
necessary, in ancient times, to constitute a valid marriage
than a mutual agreement, or actual cohabitation. The
ancient Romans had three different modes of tying the
hymeneal knot, each with a different degree of looseness, but
none of them so firm as it should be. The ceremony has
always varied in different States, and at different times in
the same State, and should never be regarded as any thing
more than a public recognition of a relationship already
formed and completed between the parties. Yet as marriage
Page 56
is a matter of important consequence to the friends and
kindred of the parties, and also to the whole State,
involving public as well as private obligations, it is
eminently proper that some appropriate ceremony should be
performed, and that is should be sufficiently public to leave
no doubt as to its reality. Yet marriages are made in
heaven; the claim of the Roman Church to make and unmake them
is a blasphemous assumption. No ceremony can add to their
religious validity; and it can only be necessary to their
legality and publicity.
_____________________________________________________________
Footnotes:
*"The censuses heretofore taken of more than on hundred
millions of the population of Europe exhibit the remarkable
fact, that in those countries, during the first fifteen years
of life, the males uniformly exceed the females in number,
but that, subsequently to this age, the females become most
numerous, and increasingly so with increase of age. The same
is true with regard to the proportionate numbers of the sexes
in Massachusetts and the other New-England States.
"During the ten years 1856-65, the total number of births
registered in Massachusetts was 334,493, of which 171,584, or
51.29 per cent, were males; 161,715, or 48.35 per cent, were
females; and of 1,194, or 1\3 of one per cent, the sex was
not stated. During the first ten years of life, the deaths of
males exceeded those of females in a ratio beyond that of the
relative number of the sexes at birth.
"In 1855, there were 32,301 more females than males in
Massachusetts; in 1860, 37,640 more females; and the excess
of females in 1865 was 63,011." - Census of Massachusetts for
1865, pp.286,287.
"Ever since the first census of 1765, there has been found
and excess of females over males in Massachusetts; the
disparity has increased somewhat rapidly since 1850." -
Massachusetts Registration Report of Births, Marriages, and
Deaths for 1866. O. Warner, Secretary of Commonwealth,
Boston, 1867.
*In Massachusetts the percentage of the deaths of male
children under one year of age during the year 1866 was
22.25, that of female children during the same year was
17.42. See Massachusetts Registration Report for 1866, p.
44.
**STATISTICAL TABLES
POP. OF MASSACHUSETTS, COLORED POP. N.Y. CITY 1860-
June 1, A.D. 1860 Male Female
Male Female Under 1 year, 82 114
Under 1 year, 15,869 15,666 1 and under 5, 410 453
1 and under 5, 60,059 59,695 5 " 10, 566 574
5 " 10, 64,476 64,050 10 " 15, 565 531
10 " 15, 57,544 56,804 15, " 20, 446 648
15 " 20, 57,070 63,730 20, " 30, 1,120 1,655
20 " 30, 112,413 132,106
Total 5,468 7,106
Total 596,713 634,353
WHITE POP. OF SUFFOLK CO., POP. OF PENNSYLVANIA, 1860
(City of Boston), Mass., 1860
Male Female Male Female
Under 1 year, 44,167 42,704
Under 1 year, 2,707 2,743 1 and under 5, 179,253 176,115
1 and under 5, 9,358 9,334 5 " 10, 194,258 191,094
5 " 10, 9,730 9,945 10 " 15, 171,162 167,025
10 " 15, 8,224 8,313 15 " 20, 149,531 160,357
15 " 20, 19,865 23,906 20 " 30, 246,343 263,931
Total 91,045 99,234 Total 1,454,419 1,451,796
POP. OF N. YORK STATE, 1860 POP. OF PHIL. CO., PENN.,
Male Female (White), 1860.
Under 1 year, 52,175 51,257 Male Female
1 and under 5, 216,112 210,591 Under 1 year, 7,829 7,475
5 " 10, 232,426 227,413 1 and under 5, 30,864 30,533
10 " 15, 203,453 197,884 5 " 10, 31,981 31,737
15 " 20, 188,893 205,604 10 " 15, 26,135 27,113
20 " 30, 341,037 386,141 15 " 20, 23,425 29,294
20 " 30, 49,667 61,380
Total 1,933,532 1,947,203 Total 260,156 283,188
WHITE POP. OF N.Y. CITY, 1860 POP. OF PHILADELPHIA
(Colored),1860
Male Female Male Female
Under 1 year, 12,246 12,072 Under 1 year, 187 209
1and under 5, 47,074 46,025 1 and under 5 809 1,065
5 " 10, 46,380 45,452 5 " 10, 1,019 1,195
10 " 15, 36,283 34,936 10 " 15, 996 1,199
15 " 20, 33,344 39,628 15 " 20, 915 1,452
20 " 30, 77,747 97,627 20 " 30, 1,875 2,864
Total 391,521 409,567 Total 9,177 13,008
The foregoing statistics are compiled from the United-States
Census for 1860. The following are from the Census of
Massachusetts for 1865, published under the supervision of O.
Warner, Secretary of the Commonwealth. Table I. p. 2.
POP. OF MASSACHUSETTS, POP. OF SUFFOLK CO., MASS.
June 1, 1865. (City of Boston), June 1, 1865.
Male Female Male Female
Under 1 year, 11,974 11,745 Under 1 year, 2,145 2,017
1 and under 2, 12,898 12,431 1 and under 2, 2,003 1,819
2 " 3, 13,643 13,515 2 " 3, 2,288 2,255
3 " 4, 14,161 14,188 3 " 4, 2,205 2,233
4 " 5, 14,735 14,653 4 " 5, 2,280 2,301
5 " 10, 71,777 71,614 5 " 10, 11,267 11,623
10 " 15, 63,853 62,838 10 " 15, 9,848 9,971
15 " 20, 55,281 61,890 15 " 20, 8,527 10,267
20 " 30, 96,027 129,479 20 " 30, 17,601 25,618
Total 602,010 665,021 Total 96,529 111,683
In the above table the excess of females between the ages of
15 and 20 is 6,609, or about 1/8 of the number of males;
between 20 and 30 it is 33,452 , or more than 1/3 of the
number of males.
*"But neither rewards nor penalties proved effectual to check
the increasing tendency to celibacy; and at the period of the
Gracchi an alarm was sounded that the old Roman race was
becoming rapidly extinguished.....When the legislation of
Julius Caesar was found ineffectual for controlling the still
growing evil, it was re-enforced by his successor with fresh
penalties and rewards." - Merivale'a Hist. of the Romans,
chap. 33, vol. 2, pp. 37, 38.
"But upon this one point the master of the Romans [Augustus]
could make no impression upon the dogged disobedience of his
subjects: both the men and the women preferred the loose
terms of union upon which they had consented to cohabit, &c."
- Ibid.
"Augustus most anxiously, both by law and precept, encouraged
marriage; but the profligacy of the manners which then
prevailed was such that all the honors and rewards and
immunities which he prepared were of but little avail." -
Keightley's Hist. of the Roman Empire, chap i., p. 11.
"The principal cause of the prevalent aversion to marriage
was the extreme dissoluteness of manners at that time,
exceeding any thing known in modern days.....The first law on
the subject was the Julian 'De Maritandis Ordinibus,' of 736;
and this having proved ineffectual, a new and more
comprehensive law, embracing all the provisions of the
Julian, and named the 'Papia-Poppaean,' was passed in the
year 762." - Ibid., chap. 2, p. 34.
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