Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/478

466 absolute desertion; that is, would not Jesus so far favor the position of modern law as to grant that desertion is, if not constructive adultery, at least a real severing of both physical and psychical union?

So far as the first of these questions is concerned, a moment's thought will convince one that this is precisely the thing Jesus is attacking. Metaphysically, it may be, such a position would be permissible. Practically, it would be free love. And, further, it is necessary to remember that in this social teaching Jesus is not dealing with the possible situations of isolated individuals, but with society as such. He is here subject to the necessities that surround all those who provide for the common good of society. It is not to the point, therefore, to plead a resulting hardship in specific cases. But it is not so easy to answer the second of these two questions categorically. It is evident that desertion might easily be regarded as a redefinition of "adultery," and that it has good reasons for being admitted on the very grounds by which Jesus establishes his general position. In this case, therefore, we have a question of interpretation of legislation, and there will always be opportunity for question. But it nevertheless seems tolerably clear that, except perhaps in extreme cases, such redefinition is at once repugnant and dangerous. Waiving the exceedingly important considerations as to the ease by which such a conception of adultery could be abused, it seems sufficient to say that as a general interpretation this view is to be rejected. It involves conditions too similar to those which Jesus immediately attacked, and it is a too severe strain upon the plain meaning of the term used by Jesus; it is hinging too many possibilities upon an exceptive clause which is itself omitted by an orignal source.

But it should again be said that at present we are not so much concerned with the applications of the teaching of Jesus as with the discovery of his conception of the ideal forms of social life. It may very likely yet appear that in an attempt at realizing this ideal, legislators and reformers must, like Moses, concede much to the hardness of men's hearts.