Page:The Truth about Marriage.djvu/28

Rh It is perfectly right to question marriage as an institution, even to consider abolishing the marriage ceremony. Why not? How can we know what is good or bad unless we investigate them? It is not enough to be told that marriage has always existed as an institution and been preceded by a ceremony of one kind or another.

If marriage cannot withstand the investigation, why not know the facts in the case? But it may prove that marriage is one of those institutions, like parenthood and childhood, that cannot be discarded or disregarded.

We have already seen its social nature. We realize that because of its social nature it must be protected from ruthless iconoclasts who have nothing in mind except the joy of destruction or the lust of plundering marriage sweets.

When the boy who is innocent says to the girl in these modern days, "Let's get married," thinking as he does so that it does not make any particular difference if a mistake is temporarily made, he does not realize that he is playing with parenthood and childhood as if they were temporary things. Possibly he is doing the girl an irreparable injury, and cheapening his own ideals. Probably he is doing irreparable wrong to his own offspring. Rh