But the question is not so simple as that. Sex is an exceedingly subtle
and complicated instinct; and the mass of mankind neither know nor
care much about freedom of conscience, which is what Jesus was thinking
about, and are concerned almost to obsession with sex, as to which
Jesus said nothing. In our sexual natures we are torn by an irresistible
attraction and an overwhelming repugnance and disgust. We have two
tyrannous physical passions: concupiscence and chastity. We become mad
in pursuit of sex: we become equally mad in the persecution of that
pursuit. Unless we gratify our desire the race is lost: unless we
restrain it we destroy ourselves. We are thus led to devise marriage
institutions which will at the same time secure opportunities for the
gratification of sex and raise up innumerable obstacles to it; which
will sanctify it and brand it as infamous; which will identify it with
virtue and with sin simultaneously. Obviously it is useless to look for
any consistency in such institutions; and it is only by continual reform
and readjustment, and by a considerable elasticity in their enforcement,
that a tolerable result can be arrived at. I need not repeat here
the long and elaborate examination of them that I prefixed to my play
entitled Getting Married. Here I am concerned only with the views of
Jesus on the question; and it is necessary, in order to understand the
attitude of the world towards them, that we should not attribute the
general approval of the decision of Jesus to remain unmarried as an
endorsement of his views. We are simply in a state of confusion on the
subject; but it is part of the confusion that we should conclude that
Jesus was a celibate, and shrink even from the idea that his birth was
a natural one, yet cling with ferocity to the sacredness of the
institution which provides a refuge from celibacy.