In leaving the moorland of general principles for the fields of particular
problems it will be convenient to group sex natures under three heads: (1)
the normal or hetero-sexual, (2) the invert or homo-sexual, and (3) the
neuter or sexless. It is necessary only to add that it will not be
possible to deal in more than the merest outline with any of these
important questions.
The most prominent of the problems concerned with the normal group is that
of divorce. The problem arises because on the one hand there is a sense
that marriage ought to be a permanent state, while on the other, there are
many human exigences which go to break up particular marriages.
Separation, without permission to re-marry, is of course an admitted
remedy. But the question then arises whether parties so separated will
continue to live as celibates; and as it appears certain that the vast
majority will not, we have to ask whether it is better to legalise the
fresh unions which are formed, or to permit adultery.
Every modern State has wrestled with this problem, and for the most part
ineffectually. Where there is no divorce, as in England before 1857,[10]
or among the poorer classes who cannot afford divorce, irregular unions
and prostitution undoubtedly flourish. Where a compromise is introduced,
the permanence of marriage, and therefore of the home, becomes
correspondingly impaired, while there are left a number of unhappy cases
for which divorce is not allowed.[11] The English civil law is
particularly unhappy in its compromise. It is based on the Protestant
interpretation of the passage in St. Matthew already mentioned, namely
that divorce is permissible where adultery has occurred, and it goes on to
make it easier for the husband to sue for divorce when the wife has
committed adultery than for the wife to do so in the reverse
circumstances. Hence it places a premium on adultery, and exaggerates its
importance as regards other sins. It deliberately incites an unhappy wife
to commit adultery in order to obtain relief--she can usually evade the
vigilance of the King's Proctor--and it singles out adultery as a worse
sin than, let us say, cruelty or habitual drunkenness, for which divorce
is not at present obtainable. In fact it is difficult to find any logical
or moral defence for the English law as it stands.
Let us first see how far the popular critics of the Catholic doctrine of
indissoluble marriage are wrong. They regard marriage as simply a
contract, from which it follows that divorce should be obtained by mutual
consent, or even on the application of one of the parties. But this
ignores, among other things, one vital natural law. Marriage begets
parenthood, and between the parents of the same child there is a definite
and permanent relationship. No Act of Parliament can make men and women
cease to be the parents of their own children. Nor, even in childless
marriages, is the sense of permanence an artificial convention which can
be abolished by the decree of a court. The deeper the love, the more
permanent must its nature tend to be. Love is not a contract; it is a
spiritual bond.
It is impossible, I contend, to think of a normally healthy marriage
without realizing that both the man and woman naturally enter into it with
the assumption that it will be a permanent relationship. The possibility
of a family, the break-up of the maiden life--even the furnishing of a
home, is evidence of a strong probability in the minds of the parties that
the step which is being taken is something more than a temporary contract.
Indeed, the marriage is only temporary if unhappiness arises. Men and
women marry because they want to enter into as permanent a relationship as
possible; they enter into it because, as they say, they wish to "settle
down." The natural desire of man is that marriage should be permanent.
A reversion to free love would be more than the undoing of the evolution
from animal to man. It would completely change the basis of human society.
And in proportion as any divorce law encourages the conception of a
temporary contract this dangerous instability of home-life is threatened.
Americans sometimes describe their own laws as approaching the "ideal."
"The question will soon be," wrote a journalist describing the American
"smart set," "who is to be your husband next year?"--or, "Has your last
season's wife re-married yet?" This is of course an exaggeration; but it
is a warning as to logical developments.
In fact, divorce tends to create itself. Divorce is only applied for where
the marriage is unhappy. A fair proportion of unhappy marriages arise
because they have been hastily entered into; with due inquiry many of
them could have been prevented. But the easier divorce is to obtain, the
more incentive will be given to enter into these hasty marriages--the type
of union which so often gives rise to divorce.
On the other hand, whatever their cause, there are marriages in which all
trace of love has disappeared, and it may fairly be argued that the union
is dead. Thus a husband may, in later years, become incurably insane or
habitually drunk. There are many unions in which the one party has married
in blind infatuation only to discover that the partner is so contemptible
a creature as to destroy all vestige of love. Such unions remain marriages
in formality only; their pretended existence is a sacrilege, particularly
if there are no children and the husband and wife are not therefore
co-related as parents.
For all such cases the Catholic Church permits divorce (_a mensa et
thoro_)--or separation, as it is known in civil law, without permission to
re-marry. The issue, therefore, becomes simply a question as to whether it
is right to expect the parties so separated to remain celibate.
In an outline such as this, I suppose that one can only attempt a summary
reply to these questions. If, for a moment, we are to exclude the
complications of a subsequent love-affair there appears to me to be no
reason whatever why any man or woman should not remain celibate during the
lifetime of the divorced partner. The _journalese_ theory that it is
unnatural and unhealthy for people so to remain is simply untrue, so long
as the celibacy takes the form of sublimation or transmutation and not
repression. The complication of an intense love-romance however, is a
serious proposition. Ought two people in love to remain sexually apart
simply because one of them is still married to, let us say, an incurable
lunatic? In principle there seems to be every reason why they should; no
actual physical or mental harm is done to them, provided they have a
sufficiently developed will-power to transfer their sex-desire into other
channels of activity. The sacrifice will be immense, but it is no more
than any man has to make who refrains from marrying his beloved because he
is too poor or is suffering from some disease which may affect his
children. In this case the sacrifice is offered for the supremely
important principle that only God, by the act of death, can undo the
vinculum of the original marriage.
But I am equally sure that most people under these or less intense
circumstances will not remain celibate.
Therefore, to descend from theory to practice, I see no alternative but to
draw a rigid line between civil and religious marriages. The State must
make its own arrangements and go its own way. But there should always be a
higher type of marriage where the Catholic Church has been invoked for her
blessing. And for those who choose to ask for this sacrament, the union
should be irrevocable, save by death. The parties will receive that
sacrament knowing what a heavy responsibility they are assuming. And it is
only right that the Church should be far more particular in refusing to
prostitute her sacramental grace on unions which ought not to be
consummated. She ought, I conceive, rigidly to inquire into the
desirability of the union, and not to give her blessing unless she is
satisfied that both parties are giving their consent with as full a
knowledge of the facts as is humanly possible. Equally she should refuse
her ministrations where she is unconvinced that love is the motive of the
marriage. I see no reason why some form of sponsorship should not be
demanded.
And I think it may be argued that a consent without a knowledge of the
facts is not a valid consent, and that such a union is null. I should
welcome a careful extension of the decree of nullity, for that reason.