Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/471

Rh ultimate basis of the marriage relation to be found in spiritual rather than physical unity. Between man and wife here is to be a union in spirit that springs from a love that is not mere passion, but is volitional and moral. When physical surroundings have passed away, then will the spiritual union, which must have accompanied the physical, survive, and the completed family become even more apparently like the completed society, a psychical union. Until this consummation of human progress comes, therefore, the dominant characteristics of the growing kingdom are to be exhibited in this its typical and initial unity.

Thus here, as in other social relations, the spiritual union must supplement and ennoble the physical. "If trust be incomplete, marriage, we know, cannot have its perfect work. If trust be broken, marriage perishes. But by interchange of thought and hope and prayer in marriage, trust ripens into faith."

It is unnecessary for the appreciation of this position of Jesus to follow him in his terminology. It is of little or no consequence whether the basis of this conception of the marriage relation be regarded as a literal divine word or as human nature itself; whether the institution itself be the outcome of a creative fiat or of evolution. The one essential point is its absolute truth from the point of view of both ethics and human history. Marriage is indeed a fundamental human relation; it is in its normal condition when monogamous; it is something more than a living together of man and woman; it is a psychical as well as a physical completion of individuals; and as such it is in the largest sense of the term a fraternity that depends for its perpetuation upon love.

From this point of view Christ's teaching in regard to divorce becomes not only simple but inevitable. So long as marriage is not a mere matter of law, of conventionality, but is one