Page:Christian Marriage.djvu/10

vi standard of marital fidelity which is maintained among the citizens. Family discipline determines, more largely than any other factor, public morality; nothing can take the place of home influence in the shaping of character, and this influence is plainly dependent on the view which husband and wife take of their union.

It will not be disputed that the importance of the questions raised by the statesman, the social student and the Christian moralist in connection with marriage is equalled by their difficulty. And this difficulty is gravely enhanced by the circumstance that too generally it is not sufficiently recognised. There are fanatics on both sides of the standing conflict between Church and State who apply the simple logic of fanaticism to the problem of marriage, and avoid by ignoring the questions which none the less must ultimately be answered. That marriage is a contract, and therefore from first to last the creature of the law, is the assumption on the one side; that