Page:Vindicationoflaw00hath.djvu/25

Rh by heathen authors as instances of depraved affection.

I can take my stand then on social grounds, independently of revelation, in saying that human laws have in all ages restricted marriage. I say they have rightly done so. What, indeed, is marriage itself but a restriction of promiscuous intercourse? Is this right or wrong? To him who does not admit revelation the test must be—does it produce more or less happiness? I will not stop to argue this. No Englishman, at present at least, will uphold promiscuous intercourse, or even polygamy. The home, the undivided affection of the wife, the children, not too numerous for the exercise of the affections, nor the offspring of so many mothers as to create family dissension, are felt to justify the restraint independently of higher motives. The restriction then of marriage itself, as was beautifully said by the Bishop of Oxford at the