forward with high anticipations to the time when The Practical Christian Republic, and through its influence the world, shall actualize your ideal of marriage. I am glad you propose to treat of Divorce. That is a somewhat vexed question on which there are so many opinions, that I should have been very unwilling to remain ignorant of your convictions. will meet again at our earliest convenience.

We

CONVERSATION XIV.

DIVORCE.-Definition and explication-What the bonds of matrimony areNotions of the Free Love Doctors-Priests, magistrates, government not the creators, nor imposers of marriage obligations; they are moral and of God-What society rightfully insists on relative to marriage-The bonds of matrimony threefold-Objections-Adultery the sole cause of justifiable divorce-Proof, explanations, confirmatory reasons-The matter of separations, as distinguished from divorce-Precepts for persons unhappy in marriage-End of Part II.

Ex. We are now to discuss the subject of divorce.

Inq. Yes; and I suppose I already have your doctrine concerning it, in Article VIII., Section 3, of your General Constitution, viz: "Divorce from the bonds of matrimony shall never be allowable within the membership of this Republic, except for adultery conclusively proved against the accused party. But separations for other sufficient reasons may be sanctioned; with the distinct understanding, that neither party shall be at liberty to marry again during the natural lifetime of the other." I have met with some persons who dislike this Section very much. They pronounce it despotic, arbitrary, irrational and incompatible with the progressive spirit of the age. I shall be glad therefore to have the doctrine so explicated, proved and defended, as to demonstrate conclusively that these objectors have no good reasons for their opposition.

Ex. I will endeavor to give you full satisfaction in these particulars. But I do not promise to satisfy the objectors to whom you refer. Many of them are too completely committed to their foregone conclusions, for that. Nothing but time, observation and bitter experience will satisfy them that they are in error. What do I mean by divorce from the bonds of matrimony? A complete dissolution of the marriage contract, covenant, obligation and connection. The civil law of most countries authorizes two kinds of divorce, viz: divorce from

the bonds of matrimony, and divorce from bed and board. Divorce from the bonds of matrimony is a complete discharge of the party obtaining it, and leaves him or her at perfect liberty to marry again. Divorce from bed and board is a personal separation of the parties from matrimonial intimacy, without allowing either of them to contract a new marriage. In our Republic we apply the term divorce only to cases of absolute dissolution of the marriage tie. All other cases are included under the general term, "separations." These are the distinctions to which I shall adhere in expounding the subject. Divorce then is a complete dissolution of the bonds of matrimony. Now what are the bonds of matrimony?

Inq. Are they not the bonds of penal civil law? Are they not the obligations imposed by the priest, or the magistrate, who married the parties?

Ex. No; they are those sacred moral obligations voluntarily assumed by the man and woman when they covenant with each other to be husband and wife. The penal and civil law creates no marriage obligations. It makes no marriage contracts. Priests and magistrates create no bonds of matrimony. The man and woman who agree to take each other as husband and wife, thereby assume the only real obligations which constitute the bonds of matrimony. These bonds are inherent in the relation of husband and wife. They are obligations created by God, in the very nature of the marriage contract. They are determined by irrevocable divine laws. Human laws may recognize and assume to enforce these divinely determined obligations. Civil society may prescribe regulations for the orderly solemnization, record and maintenance of matrimonial bonds. Priests and magistrates may officiate in taking acknowledgment and making record of marriage contracts. And the formalities for all this may be prescribed by human authority in Church or State, or both. But marriage itself is the deed of the parties entering into it. If the ceremony, or the cohabitation of marriage, be enforced on the male or female against consent fairly given, the connection is not real marriage. In that case the coërced party would be a mere slave, held in bondage by might without right. Such cases have existed;

but the party thus held in durance by injurious force could be under no matrimonial obligations in the sight of God.

Inq. From the manner in which some of our Free Marriage, Free Divorce and Free Love Doctors hold forth on this subject, one might suppose that very few people in the married world. ever voluntarily obligated themselves to be husband and wife; but were tied together, nolens volens, by some priest or magistrate, and then kept in their matrimonial yokes by the penal civil law. These Doctors vehemently denounce priests, magistrates and governments, as chiefly responsible for the miseries of married life; and earnestly contend, that if men and women were universally left at perfect liberty to cohabit or separate according to their attractions and repulsions, most of those miseries would be prevented. What do you think of such notions?

Ex. I regard them as very silly, extravagant and mischievous. The miseries of married life are great and complicated, not doubt. But we ought not to ascribe them to mistaken causes, nor propose to cure them by mistaken remedies. Low and deplorable as the married world is, under existing conditions the same persons would sink much lower without marriage, and be far more miserable. The grand difficulty is not in marriage, nor in its solemnizers, nor in the laws, but in the ignorance, imperfection, frailty and perverseness of people themselves. They are intellectually and morally low in the scale of development. They marry badly, live badly, and do almost every thing badly. And until they are trained to think, feel, speak and act in accordance with higher principles, it is vain to expect better things of them. Would we remedy the evils complained of, by giving people full license to follow their sexual impulses, inclinations and wills from day to day, regardless of solemn obligations heretofore assumed? Unless their wills were first rendered less carnal and more spiritual, they would only "leap from the frying pan into the fire." The truth is, that a very large majority of people who are unhappy in their marriage relations are so in consequence of what they themselves were when they married, or of what they have since habitually become, or both. They were ignorant and

full of disorderly passions when they entered into the marriage contract. They knew not themselves, nor their proposed companions, nor the requisites of conjugal happiness. They were wheedled, cajoled and infatuated, either by match-making busybodies, or by unprincipled adventurers, or by their own inordinate lusts, or by a romantic imagination, or by all these partially together. Thus deceiving and being deceived more or less, they launched their connubial ship, and put to sea without compass, chart or rudder. And when overtaken by storms in unknown waters, their stock of love soon failed, mutual reproaches followed, and matters progressed from bad to worse. Then, instead of considering how all this ill luck happened, or how to amend it, or how to make the best of a hard bed fitted up by their own hands, many of them foolishly imagine that if they could only select a new companion, they would escape all their misery and secure a matrimonial paradise at once. Little do they dream, that more than half the goblins which torment them have a hell-nest within their own bosoms, and that they are likely to carry with them the seeds of new wretchedness into the next match. Just in this state of things, our Love Doctors come along and set up a grand denunciation of priests, magistrates, the government and laws, as the principal authors of their conjugal infelicity. These are bad enough, and have great sins to answer for; but I protest against their being accused of sins they never committed. Let those who make bad matches be held responsible for them. Let those who enter into unsuitable marriage contracts bear their own burdens. A couple request me to take acknowledgment of their matrimonial contract before witnesses, and to cause proper record to be made of the fact that they take each other as husband and wife. I comply. After a few weeks or months of intemperate amativeness, they get disgusted with each other and repent of their bargain! Am I to be cursed for their errors and follies? Did I thrust them into wedlock? Was it not their own free act and deed?

Ing. But they complain of you for having been the principal agent of society in solemnizing, establishing and perpetuating their marriage contract; and they complain of the civil law and