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 Historically, asceticism is one of the two grand enemies of the female sex; the other is sensuality, and these two, if so familiar a phrase may be allowed, play into one another's hands. Asceticism belittles what sensuality degrades. When, at a somewhat later stage of Christian history, the theologians of the Church elaborated the doctrine of the Incarnation, this consequence was seen to follow—that all truly human relationships receive a divine authentication and an eternal significance. Marriage as the human relationship par excellence was more than any other exalted by this fact.

II.—For, and this must be counted a distinct cause, the historic Incarnation was effected by the means of a natural birth. "When the fulness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman". The Church was early called to emphasise the moral importance of this fact, and the presence in the Apostles Creed of an explicit declaration of belief in the birth of Christ from a human mother must be regarded