Page:Marie Corelli - the writer and the woman (IA mariecorelliwrit00coat).pdf/315

 society. The Divorce Court record is certainly a proof that a good many of the weddings that are "arranged" are certainly not made in Heaven. Marie Corelli thinks, indeed, that many women have forgotten what marriage is, and she declares it to be an absolute grim fact that in England many women of the upper classes are not to-day married, but merely bought for a price.

"Marriage is not the church, the ritual, the blessing of clergymen, or the ratifying and approving presence of one's friends and relations at the ceremony; still less is it a matter of settlements and expensive millinery. It is the taking of a solemn vow before the throne of the Eternal—a vow which declares that the man and woman concerned have discovered in each other his or her true mate; that they feel life is alone valuable and worth living in each other's company; that they are prepared to endure trouble, poverty, pain, sickness, death itself, provided that they may only be together; and that all the world is a mere grain of dust in worth as compared to the exalted passion which fills their souls and moves them to become one in flesh as well as in spirit. Nothing can make marriage an absolutely sacred thing except the great love, combined with the pure and faithful intention of the vow involved."

Amongst all classes a very large number of marriages mean all that. Amongst the poorer classes—not the lowest classes—the proportion is probably the largest, and amongst the middle