God's Part in Marriage

The Encyclical lays down to begin with this immutable fundamental doctrine: Matrimony was not instituted or restored by man, but by God ; not by man were the laws made to strengthen and confirm and elevate it but by God, the Author of nature, and by Christ our Lord by whom nature was redeemed.

The Encyclical tells us:¹ This is the doctrine of Holy Scripture, this is the constant tradition of the Universal Church, this is the solemn definition of the Sacred Council of Trent, which declares and establishes from the words of Holy Writ itself that God is the author of the perpetual stability of the marriage bond, its unity and its firmness. Genesis records that God gave the first woman as a companion to Adam, who, by Divine inspiration, as the Council of Trent tells us,² exclaimed: “This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: wherefore a man shall leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh.” This is what comes about by the use of marriage. God confirmed this inspiration by blessing them both and saying to them: “Increase and multiply.” Our Lord Himself quoted the words of Adam as containing the Divine law of unity, which limits true marriage to two persons.

¹ Pp. 22, 23.

² Sess. XXIV, De Sacramento Matrimony, at the beginning.

We mean that these laws are written in man’s very nature, even apart from all revelation.

The law of unity; the law of perpetuity; the law of indissolubility.

By human authority, yes. Man, being subject to the rational moral order can in no case derogate from it even for purposes which he thinks good. But God, the Author of nature and of order, can without offense to His own wisdom make some exceptions to laws other than the most principal or most essential ones. This He may do by positive authorization of the exceptions, for ends worthy of Himself, or by tolerating them through consideration of the weakness of human nature, with due regard to all the circumstances. Never has He permitted adultery or free love or fornication ; but He did tolerate among the Jews a certain

polygamy, and even in certain cases the repudiation of the wife.¹

¹ “Every action,” says St. Thomas, whose doctrine we abridge (Supplement 3 P. q. 67, art. 15), “which contradicts the end which nature has in view, is called contrary to the natural law. But such an action may be contrary to a primary or to a secondary end . . . according as it entirely prevents the attainment of the end or only makes its attainment more difficult or less perfect. Thus if an act is so contrary to the end intended by nature as to render a primary purpose directly unattainable, that act is forbidden by a primary precept of the natural law; if it prevents in any way the attainment of a secondary end, or makes a primary end more difficult or less perfect in its realization, it is forbidden, not in virtue of the primary precepts of the natural law, but in virtue of the secondary precepts which are derived from the primary; and in this sense it is contrary to the natural law. Now marriage has for its principal end the procreation and education of children, . . . and for its secondary end, community of life. . . . Plurality of wives does not entirely suppress nor even prevent the attainment of the primary end, since one husband can be a father by several wives and can educate the children they may bear him. But, as regards the secondary end, polygamy, if it does not entirely suppress it, at least places a great obstacle to its realization, for peace will not easily reign in a family where several wives claim the same husband. Thus it is clear that polygamy is in one way contrary to the natural law, while in another way it is not.” It is for this reason that God, but God alone, was able to dispense from the Divine law which made unity a necessary condition of conjugal union. (The same work, art. 2, c.) As for the power of putting away the wife, St. Thomas is of the opinion that it did not render the act licit, but merely exempted it from the legal penalty, and that this power was accorded only to prevent a greater evil, that is the murder of the wife. (The same work, q. 67, art. 3, c.) In the preceding article, however, he names indissolubility among the secondary precepts of the natural law, in which God can give a general dispensation. For that matter, there is no doubt of God’s power to permit divorce for higher reasons of His Providence. (Compare Meyer, Institutiones Juris Naturalis, Part 2, Thesis XVII, p. 99, 5.)

We prove it by the analysis of the sentiment which leads to the conjugal union; by the conjugal union considered in itself; and by the evil consequences of plurality. The sentiment of love, quite a different thing from that of quiet friendship, is jealous and exclusive. “Conjugal love,” says Abbé Dermine,¹ “must be exclusive under pain of dissolving itself. Conjugal love shared with another excites jealousy and divides the heart.” “I want to love you, you alone, you more than all the world. We want to belong to each other, live for each other, share joy and suffering together. That is the way this love expresses itself.”² Moreover the practically equal number of births of the two sexes shows that polygamy is possible only by the killing or mutilation of human beings—two abuses contrary to nature. Besides how could the mutual total self-surrender which the conjugal union implies be realized between more than two people?

Finally, plurality of wives reduces each one to a condition of too great inferiority; plurality of husbands lowers the male sex, and, by throwing doubt upon paternity, takes away from marriage one of the resources intended for the education of the child.

¹ Les lois du mariage chrétien, p. 103.

² Schilgen, Im Dienste des Schöpfers, p. 58.

We prove it by the natural aspiration of the sentiment of love which desires to last forever ; by the irrevocable character of mutual self-surrender, which takes away from the woman her integrity; by the duty of education, which by its nature requires years, and which goes on indefinitely, being renewed at every birth; finally, by the duties of mutual help and mutual upbuilding which are implied in marriage and which do not cease until death.

We prove it by the irreparable consequence which the consummation of marriage entails for the bride; by the obstacle which the mere possibility of divorce puts in the way of a perfect union between the spouses; and by the harm which the breaking of the bond necessarily inflicts upon the children. (See also Number 64 and the following sections.)

Because Christ, in virtue of His Divine power, suppressed polygamy which, even for the Jewish people, had been merely tolerated under the Old Law; and abolished the repudiation of the wife which the law of Moses had allowed in certain cases. In this way He restored to marriage its primitive unity and stability. Therefore [says the Sovereign Pontiff] although before Christ the sublimeness and the severity of the primeval law was so tempered that Moses permitted it to the chosen people of God on account of the hardness of their hearts that a bill of divorce might be given in certain circumstances; nevertheless Christ, by virtue of His supreme legislative power, recalled this concession of greater liberty and restored the primeval law in its integrity by those words which must

never be forgotten: “What God hath joined together let no man put asunder.”¹

¹ P. 31.

Polygamy and repudiation were tolerated in virtue of a Divine dispensation, as being reconcilable strictly speaking with the essential demands of nature. (See Number 11, above.) As regards the reason why, Our Lord Himself in the passage where He restores both the conjugal unity and indissolubility gives but this one reason for it: that the dispensations had been a concession to the moral weakness of the Jewish people.

Yes, the Sovereign Pontiff expressly teaches in this Encyclical that all forms of polygamy are abolished for the entire world. After recalling the fact that the primitive law of marriage was monogamy, the Holy Father adds:¹ And although afterwards this primeval law was relaxed to some extent by God, the Supreme Legislator, there is no doubt that the law of the Gospel fully restored that original and perfect unity and abrogated all dispensations, as the words of Christ and the constant teaching and action of the Church show plainly. With reason therefore does the Sacred Council of Trent solemnly declare: “Christ Our Lord very clearly taught that in this bond two persons only are to be united and joined together when He said: ‘Therefore they are no longer two but one flesh.’” Consequently when the Holy Father, immediately after these words, declares that Our Lord wished “to condemn any form of polygamy or polyandry,” he evidently means a condemnation which applied to the whole world. The restoration of a law which was primitively universal, is itself universal.

¹ Pp. 27, 28.