THE INVIOLABLE SANCTITY OF THE MARRIAGE RELATION.
By Ruth
“And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.” “And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. . . . Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh.” Gen. 2:18, 23, 24. “From the beginning” this principle was laid down, without any penalty attached to its infringement, except with regard to the rights of the “head” of the family. No law was given, nor any penalty written, by which a man might know that he must not take as many mistresses to his heart and home as he chose, except this one first principle, and the added warning and admonition of Prov. 5:18–21, which classes all women except “the wife of thy youth” as “strangers.” God, in His infinite wisdom, foreknew that only by actual contact and heart experience could man ever be made to realize the hideousness of sin, and to shun its fearful results; so He left man to interpret that law for himself. The eternal principles of purity, loyalty, indissoluble unity (Matt. 19:6), and inviolable sanctity—the perfection3of love—were all in that law; for whatever God does is holy; when He creates a union, it is holy; any other must be profane, common. But man could not see all this until his eyes were “opened.” If God had drawn the line on this principle in the beginning, without a clear demonstration of the evils of its violation, there would have been “spiritual” adultery, if not actual and rebellious accusations against the justice of the Creator’s decree. And all the way down the ages, till Christ came “to set judgment in the earth,” He let man work out this problem for himself; that is, that the slightest infringement of that sacred relation is fatal to the purity, love, confidence, and unity of spirit which God made possible to exist between the “head” and the “body” of the marriage union. See Christ’s judgments. Eph. 5:22–33. There is in the marriage law, when in perfect operation, a miniature of the government of the kingdom of God. But when man took it upon himself to establish the promise that he could be “one-in-the-flesh” and the “spirit” with any other noble and admired woman beside his wife, and undertook to demonstrate that promise, he found himself, not only a double-bodied monstrosity, but a disunited, disorganized, ruined kingdom; the seeds of anarchy and internal revolt were sown then and there. The only foundation principle upon which a truly prosperous government can exist, the willing, cheerful, and loyal obedience of its subjects, was gone. For only in the mutual law of compensations—reciprocity, the blessing of giving and receiving—can true happiness exist. The joy and pride of the “head,” is the happiness and loyal love of his subjects, as shown by their acts of loving self-sacrifice and glad obedience to his least requirements. And, flowing back to its source, the “head,” with added blessing at each new impulse, the pride and joy of the wife and children are the happiness and loyal love of their “head.” In the noble plan of the Father, perfect happiness was made possible, and perfect happiness is an overflowing cup. Prov. 5:15–18. It requires no more; it desires no more, and it blesses all that are near it. But when, for any fault or lack of response in the love of either, the heart of the husband and father can so far turn from the first source of his consolation as to even wish to take to his heart and home a “stranger,” however good or lovable, just at that point the seeds of disunion and estrangement are sown. Isa. 54:6, 11. And when, by the natural reflow of the heart to old and dear associations, he turns back to comfort and solace the true wife, there is disunion and suffering from the other side, unless, indeed, their hearts have become “hardened” (Matt. 19:8), and indifferent to the sense of bereavement and loss. The “spiritual” heart is the seat of intelligence, the “head.” When any part of the heart supply of love and sympathy that made husband and wife one in the beginning is diverted into a new channel (whether it is made a legal one or not), it must follow that the “body” suffers loss to just the extent of that diversion; and loss of vitality produces stagnation—disease. The germs are soon sown, and jealousy springs into life. It becomes a fever—a fire—which catches up every inflammable material, and fast merges into a conflagration. The husband is literally between two fires now; and when he turns to quench the one, the other burns the more fiercely. And even when these fires can be partially subdued, there is a wasting away. There is a lingering consumption for lack of sufficient vital nourishment; for no spiritual “head” is capable of supporting two or more bodies with the powers given for the support of one. The wife who enjoys the most of her husband’s loving favor leads the most natural and healthful existence, tho necessarily a selfish one; for the measure of her heart content is the measure of the other’s pain and loss. But it is all unnatural, impure, revolting—the most subtle delusion that the author of evil ever betrayed mankind into, and a fertile hot-bed for the hatching of every evil imagination and work. The dual husband finds himself subjected to an internal warfare with himself. He is a dismembered, disorganized ruin of manhood; the royalty of his kingdom is gone; he is committed to spiritual adultery at either turn, and, worst of all, compels the temporarily or permanently forsaken one to the same unnatural commitment. Matt. 5:29, 32. Where is now the “crown” of pride, the free step, the high and noble bearing, the manly boast of a proud, glad husband of a happy and contented wife, king of his realm? And the wife is no longer sole queen of her lord’s heart and home, and rejoicing in his undivided confidence, and in his joy and pride in the children she has borne him, the seal of their union. Where is she as the wife of a dual husband?—She is a dethroned queen, her crown a “crown of thorns” in very truth; the very thought of her husband and children is a pain that is just in proportion to her love for them. Each of the patriarchs in his turn grappled with the free-love monster, to his bitter sorrow and humiliation. Jacob conquered in wrestling with the angel before he could claim the blessing of God, and there were no more children after Rachel’s Ben-oni (son of my sorrow) was born. There were not many wives then, tho there was a sacred obligation; but I believe there were some unselfish “friends,” in the truest, noblest, highest sense of the word; for “even Christ pleased not Himself,” but spent Himself unreservedly for those He loved. Abraham acknowledged the evil when he sent away the bond-maid Hagar, with his heart yearning for his first-born son. Here was the type of a purely mercenary marriage, of all marriages that are contracted for any other than the true motive. God did not “join them together,” and any union that God does not make holy by true, unselfish love, is profane, common—“spiritual” adultery—whether there be any other union or not. David acknowledged the wrong of plural marriages when he saw deadly hate and usurpation break out between the rival claimants to his throne, and when Tamar rent her robe of a virgin princess, and covered her head with the ashes of her humiliation, and the brother-avenger arose to destroy the brother-seducer. But he reaped his bitterest harvest when, with bare feet, his royal head crownless and covered with the ashes of mourning, he climbed Mt. Moriah, weeping as he went—a heart-broken fugitive from a traitor son. Was not this a thorny crown for a king to wear? O, read in 2 Samuel and the Psalms his experience with the many-headed monster! His bowels yearned for his children—all sons of the same father, yet strangers at heart. He was a large-hearted and loving father; but how could he bring up his many-bodied household in the fear of the Lord, with the home circle divided by partition walls stronger and more formidable than walls of iron,—the partition walls of enmity, jealousy, emulations, wrath, and strife, with father a visitor, and mother more widow than wife. He could not be many fathers any more successfully than he could be many husbands. No wonder that Solomon exclaimed, at the conclusion of his colossal experiment, “One man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found.” He never had but one whole heart, and he had to learn, after a wasted lifetime of folly, that that one true, loyal love was worth more than his kingdom; and thus he appeals to her in that wonderful “song of songs:” “Set me as a seal [no one dare break a seal] upon thine heart [the spiritual espousal], as a seal upon thine arm [the outward sign, or form]; for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters can not quench love, neither can the floods drown it; if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it [the price] would utterly be contemned.” Solomon’s Song 8:6, 7. “Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples [margin, “types”]; and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.” 1 Cor. 10:11. And so the law of types and precedents was established and hung up as living chart lessons in God’s great schoolroom, with the index finger of Jesus pointing to them “for our admonition.” Mark 10. But some one will say, “What has all this to do with us in this Christian age of a confessedly Christian nation, where society lines are drawn by the pure principles of Christ’s doctrine, and the sanctity of marriage is protected by the laws of every State in the Union?” True, the legal standard is right and good; but, tho it punishes infringements, yet it grants divorces for the most unworthy causes; and tho society would scorn the “letter” of adultery, and scandalize the perpetrators, yet is not adultery in the spirit rampant in the highest society circles? Is not the goddess of free-love winked at, patronized, even courted, in all places where fashionable society holds sway? Does the society woman dress to shine in the eyes of her “lord” and “master”? Is it that she may enthrone herself the sole queen in her husband’s heart of hearts, that she may so entwine her lovely ways into the very fibers of his being, that naught but death can sever them—is it for this that she studies “charm”? Or is it that she may reign queen of hearts, and bring “strangers” to her feet to worship her beauty and the power of her charms? On the other hand, how many husbands esteem the one faithful heart the pearl above price, above which no earthly pleasure or honor is preferred as even worthy of consideration? Shall we, then, allow the high license of society etiquet to rule in our heart and life? Jude 7. Shall the goddess of free-love invade our home kingdom, and cast down its holy altar, profaning and scattering its precious gifts? Whenever she does, in whatever guise you admit her, let the “king” take off his crown, and come down from his throne; let the “queen” lay aside her royal robes, and the jewels wherewith he has decked her pure beauty; for the royalty, the true sovereignty of love is perished, and the dove of peace and joy has taken her flight from the window, never to return. God grant that we may learn the fulness of blessing that was in that law that accompanied His first and best of all earthly gifts to man. Gen. 2:23, 24. And when we have learned it, I believe we shall know something of the “fellowship” of that holy unity of the Father and Jesus, the Lord in whom and by whom He created all things—of His delight in crowning Him and His children also with “all spiritual blessings,” and exalting His name above every name that is named, because of the full proof of676His love, loyalty, and singleness of heart—the oneness of Christ in God, and God in Christ—His “only-begotten” Son. RUTH.