ment to live together in faith and love till death. Why
should not they, who have devised something better than
old-fashioned Marriage, give their bantling a distinctive name,
and not appropriate ours ? They have been often enough
warned off our premises ; shall we never be able to shame
them out of their unwarrantable poaching ?
I am perfectly willing to see all social experiments tried
that any earnest, rational being deems calculated to promote
the well-being of the human family ; but I insist that this
matter of Marriage and Divorce has passed beyond the rea-
sonable scope of experiment. The ground has all been
travelled over and over : ā from Indissoluble Monogamic
Marriage down through Polygamy, Concubinage, easy Divorce,
to absolute Free Love, mankind have tried every possible
modification and shade of relation between Man and Woman.
If these multiform, protracted, diversified, infinitely repeated,
experiments have not established the superiority of the union
of one man to one woman for life ā in short, Marriage ā to
all other forms of sexual relation, then History is a deluding
mist, and Man has hitherto lived in vain.
But you assert that the people of Indiana are emphatically
moral and chaste in their domestic relations. That may be ;
at aU events, / have not yet called it in question. Indiana
is yet a young State, ā not so old as either you or I, ā and
most of her adult population were born, and I think most of
them were reared and married, in States which teach and
maintain the Indissolubility of Man-iage. That population is
yet sparse ; the greater part of it in moderate circumstances,
engaged in rural industry, and but slightly exposed to the
temptations born of crowds, luxury, and idleness. In such
circumstances, continence would probably be general, even
were Marriage unknown. But let Time and Change do their
MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. 581
work, and then see ! Given the population of Italy in the
days of the Caesars, with easy divorce, and I believe the
residt would be like that experienced by the Roman Eepublic,
which, under the sway of easy divorce, rotted away and
perished, ā blasted by the mildew of unchaste mothers and
dissolute homes.
If experiments are to be tried in the direction you favor, I
insist that they shall be tried fairly, ā not under cover of
false promises and baseless j^retences. Let those who will
take each other on trial ; but let such unions have a distinct
name as in Paris or Hayti, and let us know just wlio are
married (old style), and who have formed unions to be main-
tained or terminated as circumstances shall dictate. Those
who choose the latter will of course consummate it without
benefit of clergy ; but I do not see how they need even so
much ceremony as that of jumping the broomstick. " I 'H
love you so long as I 'm able, and swear for no longer than
this," ā what need is there of any solemnity to hallow such
a union ? A\^iat libertine would hesitate to promise that
much, even if fully resolved to decamp next morning ? If
man and woman are to be true to each other only so long as
they shall each find constancy the dictate of their several
inclinations, there can be no such crime as adultery, and
mankind have too long been defrauded of innocent enjoyment
by priestly anathemas and ghostly maledictions. Let us
each do what for the moment shall give lis pleasurable sensa-
tions, and let all such fantasies as God, Duty, Conscience,
Retribution, Eternity, be banished to the moles and the bats,
with other forgotten rubbish of bygone ages of darkness and
unreal terrors.
But if ā as I firmly believe ā Marriage is a matter which
concerns not only the men and women who contract it, but
the State, the community, mankind, ā if its object be not
merely the mutual gratification and advantage of the husband
and wife, but the due sustenance, nurture, and education of
their children, ā if, in other words, those who voluntarily
incur the obligations of parentage can only discharge those
582 MISCELLANIES.
obligations personally and conjointly, and to that end are
bound to live together in love, at least until their youngest
child shall have attained perfect physical and intellectual
maturity, ā then I deny tliat a marriage can be dissolved
save by death or that crime which alone renders its continu-
ance impossible. I look beyond the special case to the gen-
eral law, and to the reason which underlies that law ; and I
say, ā No couple can innocently take upon themselves the
obligations of Marriage until they know that they are one in
spirit, and so must remain forever. If they rashly lay pro-
fane hands on the ark, theirs alone is the blame ; be theirs
alone the penalty ! They have no right to cast it on that
public which admonished and entreated them to forbear, but
admonished and entreated in vain. Yours,
HoKACE Greeley.
New York, March 5, 1860.
MR. OWEN'S REJOINDER.*
To THE Hon. Horace Greeley : ā
My dear Sir : In one matter we shall not differ, and that
is in the opinion that Jesus of Nazareth should be considered
better authority as to what is Christian ā and I wiU add as
to what is conducive to public morals ā than either you or I.
The longer I live, the more I settle down to the conviction
that the one great miracle of history is, that a system of
ethics so far in advance as was the Christian System, not only
of the semi-barbarism of Jewish life eighteen hundred yeara
ago, but of what we term the civilization of our own day,
should have taken root, and lived, and spread, where every
opinion seemed adverse and every influence hostile. But,
before we take Christ's opinion on the subject in hand, let us
go a little further back.
You tell us that " the very essence of marriage " is, that
* From The Tribune of March 12, 1860.
MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. 583
the married should " cleave to each other till death." And,
as a corollary, you insist that, if this condition is ever violated
(as by the action of a divorce law), then it is not Marriage
which prevails, but only a substitute. You add : ā
" I insist that whoever would recommend such substitute should
clearly, specifically set forth its uatiu-e and conditions, and shoidd
caU it by its distinctive name. There may be something better
than Marriage, but nothing is Marriage but a solemn engagement
to live together till death. Why should not they who have de-
vised something better than old-fashioned Man-iage give their
bantling a distinctive Tuime, and not appropriate ours ] They
have been often warned off our premises ; shall we never be able
to shame them out of their unwarrantable poaching*?" [The
Italics are yours.]
This is plain. If the law regards Marriage as a contract
which, under any circumstances, may be terminated, then
(you allege) men and women live together under what is but
a substitute for marriage, ā under what should go by the
name of concubinage, or some similar term. Such is the
state of things, you infer, under the present Indiana law.
ā¢ I do not think you reflected what a sweeping assertion you
were here making. For there is not a State in the Union
ā not even New York ā which is without a divorce law.
In every State of the Union, therefore. Marriage is a contract
of such a nature that contingencies may arise under which
the married may iiot " live together until death them do
part." If, then, the possible contingency of separation, legally
admitted, annuls " the very essence of marriage," and con-
verts it into concubinage, in what condition, I pray you, are
married people living throughout the United States ?
The same state of things prevails in all Protestant countries.
Only in those which acknowledge the Pope as their relig-
ious head is Marriage an indissoluble sacrament. Is it your
opinion that Catholics only are really married ?
But this is a mere instalment of the difficulties which in-
here in your proposition. Moses, of whom we are told (Deu-
teronomy V. 31) that God said to him : " Stand thou here by
584 MISCELLANIES.
me, and I will speak unto thee all the commandments, and
the statutes, and the judgments which thou shalt teach my
people," promidgated to the Jews a law of divorce. Our
divorce-law in Indiana must be, even in your eyes, a moral
statute, compared to that of the Jewish lawgiver ; for the
latter provided : " When a man hath taken a wife and married
her, and it come to pass that she find no favor in his eyes,
then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in
her hand, and send her out of liis house. And when she is
departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's
wife." (Deuteronomy xxiv. 1.) This, unless you deny the
record, you must admit to be God's own law. It was first
declared, according to the usual chronology, about 1450
years before the Christian era. It remained unchanged till
Christ's day. Joseph and Mary were married under it ; and
the former, when he doubted Mary's fidelity, was " minded to
put her away privily." For fourteen centuries and a haK, then,
God's chosen people, living under His law, had, according to
you, a mere substitute for marriage. What distinctive name
the " bantling " deserves, I leave to your judgment. We
have been accustomed to regard it as "old-fashioned mar-
riage." It is certain, however, that the contract, under such
a law, was, " I will be your husband just as long as you find
favor in my eyes ; and, as soon as you cease to do so, you
shall have a bill of divorcement, and be sent out of my house.
Then you may marry whom you please."
Jesus tells us that this law was given "because of the
hardness of their hearts " ; or, as we should now express it,
because of the low grade of morality then existing in Judea.
Nevertheless, if it really be God's own law, how can you
allege that it is ^vrong in itself ? But, if it be not ā v\Tong, then
divorce, even of the easiest attainment, must, in a certain
state of society, be right. And hence results another impor-
tant principle ; namely, that there is no absolute right or
wrong about this matter of divorce ; but that it may proper-
ly vary in its details at different stages of civilization. It is
certain that, under the Divine Economy, our modern sense of
MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. 585
propriety and morality lias been so developed, that we should
not tolerate the Jewish statute giving uncontrolled license to
the husband, but no right of relief whatever to the wife.
Jesus, discarding the old law, is stated to have proposed
(as you remind us) to the people of his day a substitute where
there was but a single cause for divorce, ā the same recognized
by the New York statute. But his idea of conjugal infidelity
was not that entertained in our courts of law. He looked,
beyond surface-morality, to the heart. In his pure eyes, the
thought and the act were of equal criminality. His w^ords
were : " Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath
committed adultery with her already in his heart." (Mat-
thew V. 28.) The fair inference seems to be, that the proper
cause for divorce is, not the mere physical act of infidelity,
but that adultery of the heart which quenches conjugal love ;
thus destroying that which, far more justly than your cohabi-
tation till death, may be regarded as " the very essence of
Marriage."
I do not allege that Jesus so connected his two teachings,
ā that regarding divorce and that defining adultery, ā that
the Jews of his day, gross-minded as they were, might detect
the connection and perceive its inference. If the Hebrews,
in Moses' time, were so steeped in barbarism that nothing
better than the bill-of-divorcement privilege was suitable for
them, we may readily imagine that, even after fourteen cen-
turies had elapsed, enough of the hardness of heart would
remain to justify a law, in advance of the other, indeed, but
still only adapted to a hard, material race, ā a race who had
not learned that the letter kiUeth, but the spirit givetli life, ā
a race who cannot be supposed to have been capable of appre-
ciating, hardly of comprehending, a morality of standard so
exalted that the thought is brought to judgment though the
deed disclose it not.
I will go further and admit that, if the words of Jesus, in
the text quoted by you, have come down to us reported with
strict accuracy, he may have intended the men of his day to
put upon them, as best adapted to their social status, the lit-
586 MISCELLANIES.
erally material interpretation which seems to have suggested
itseK to the framers of the New York divorce law. Jesus
was not one who urged reform, as some modern innovators
do, raslily or prematurely. Prudence was one of his distin-
guishing characteristics. He said not all that was in itself
true and proper to be said at some time, but only all the
truths which the people to whom he addressed himself were
prepared to receive. That he kept back a part, we have his
own words to prove : " I have yet many things to say unto
you, but ye cannot bear them now ; howbeit, when He, the
Spirit of Truth, is come, he wiU guide you into aU truth."
(John xvi. 12, 13.)
Yet, even if your law-makers but received the same impres-
sion that was produced on the Jews by Jesus' words, it by no
means follows that it is the one adapted to our wants and
progress. It by no means follows that we should not look be-
yond the dead letter to the living spirit. If the divorce law
promulgated from Mount Sinai was no longer adapted to a
world grown fifteen hundred years older, are we to suppose
that eighteen hundred years more, passed away, have brought
with them no need for another advance and a more enlight-
ened interpretation ?
Thus, I think, I have shown you : ā
First. That it wiU not do to warn us who think Divorce a
moralizing engine, as poachers, off your seK-enfeoffed prem-
ises ; or to bid us seek some name other than Marriage where-
with to designate our legal unions. The Bible teUs us that
the ancestors of Christ were really married; and I never
heard this denied, tiU your doctrine denied it.
Second. That, according to the Old Testament, easy divorce
was expressly permitted, three thousand years ago, by the
Deity himself.
Tliircl. That divorce laws may properly vary, in different
stages of civilization. And
Fourth. That the language of Jesus, fairly construed, des-
ignates the proper cause of divorce to be, that infidelity of
the heart which defeats the true purpose of marriage.
MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. 587
In conclusion, permit me to say, as to the quasi-divorce to
which, under the name of " separation from bed and board,"
you refer, and which you think "just right," that of all the
various kinds of divorce it has been found, in practice, to be
the most immoral in its tendency. The subjects of it, in that
nondescript state which is neither manded nor single, are
exposed ā as every person of strong affection must be who
takes a vow of celibacy yet mixes with the world ā to pow-
erful temptations. Unable to marry, the chances are, that
these law-condemned cehbates may do worse. I think that
those members of your bar with whom the procurement of
legal separations is a specialty could make to you some
startling disclosures on this subject.
But, be this as it may, what becomes of the " mutual and
solemn vow to live together till death them do part " ? "What
becomes of the dictionary definitions which you adduce about
being " united for life," and about " affection and fidehty till
death shall separate them " ? Does not your policy of " sep-
aration from bed and board " as effectually extinguish these,
and thus, according to your view, as completely convert Mar-
riage into a concubinal substitute, as my remedy of Divorce ?
I am, my dear sir, faithfully yours,
KoBEKT Dale Owen.
New York, March 6, 1860.
MR. GREELEY AGAIN.*
To THE Hon. Robert Dale Owen op Indiana : ā
Dear Sir : In my former letter, I asserted, and I think
proved, that
I. The established, express, unequivocal dictionary meaning
of Marriage is union for life. Wliether any other sort of
union of man and woman be or be not more rational, more
beneficent, more moral, more Christian, than this, it is cer-
* Prom The Tribune of March 17, 1860.
688 MISCELLANIES.
tain that this is Marriage, and that that other is some-
tliing else.
II. That this is what we who are legally married ā at all
events, if married by the ministers of any Christian denomi-
nation ā uniformly covenant to do. I distinctly remember
that my marriage covenant was " for better, for worse," and
" until death do part." I presume yours was the same.
III. That Jesus of ISTazareth, in opposition to the ideas and
usages current in his time, alike among Jews and Gentiles,
expressly declared Adultery to be the only valid reason for
dissolving a marriage.
IV. That the nature and inherent reason of Marriage in-
exorably demand that it be indissoluble except for that one
crime which destroys its essential condition. In other words,
no marriage can be innocently dissolved ; but the husband or
wife may be released from the engagement upon proof of the
utter and flagrant violation of its essential condition by the
other party.
And now, allow me to say that I do not see that yom-
second letter successfully assails any of these positions. You
do not, and cannot, deny that our standard dictionaries define
Marriage as I do, and deny the name to any temporary ar-
rangement ; you do not deny that I haA^e truly stated Christ's
doctrine on the subject (whereof the Christian ceremonial of
Marriage, whether in the Catholic or Protestant Churches, is
a standing evidence) ; and I am willing to let your criticism
on Christ's statement pass without comment. So with regard
to Moses : I am content to leave Moses's law of divorce to the
brief but pungent commentary of Jesus, ^nd his unquestion-
ably correct averment that " from the beginning, it was not so."
But you say that, if my position is sound, I make "a sweep-
ing assertion" against the validity of the marriages now
existing in Indiana and other divorcing States. no, sir !
Nine tenths of the people in those States ā I trust, ninety-
nine hundredths ā were married by Christian ministers, under
the law of Christ. They solemnly covenanted to remain
faithful until death, and they are fulfilling that promise.
MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. 589
Your easy-divorce laws are nothing to them ; their conscience
and their lives have no part in those laws. Your State might
decree that any couple may divorce themselves at pleasure,
and still those who regard Jesus as their Divine Master and
Teacher, would hold fast to his Word, and live according to
a " higher law " than that revised and relaxed by you.
I dissent entirely from your dictum that the words of Jesus
relative to Marriage and Divorce may have been intended to
have a local and temporary application. On the contrary, I
believe he, unlike Moses, promulgated the eternal and univer-
sal law, founded, not in accommodation to special circum-
stances, but in the essential nature of God and man. I admit
that he may sometimes have withheld the truth that he
deemed his auditors unable to comprehend and accept, but I
insist that what he did set forth was the absolute, imchanging
fact. But I did not cite him to overbear reason by authority,
but because you referred first to Cliristianity and the will of
God, and because I believe what he said respectmg Marriage
to be the very truth. Can you seriously imagine that your
personal exegesis on his words should outweigh the uniform
tradition and practice of all Christendom ?
You understand, I presume, that I hold to separations
"from bed and board " ā as the laws of tliis State allow them
ā only in cases wliere the party thus separated is in danger
of bodily harm from the ferocity of an insane, intemperate,
or otherwise brutalized, infuriated husband or ^vife. I do not
admit that even such peril can release one from the vow of
continence, which is the vital condition of Marriage. It may
possibly be that there is " temptation " involved in the posi-
tion of one thus legally separated ; but I judge this evil far
less than that which must result from the easy dissolution of
Marriage.
For here is the vital truth that your theory overlooks : The
Divine end of Marriage is parentage, or the perpetuation and
increase of the Human Eace. To this end, it is indispensable
ā at least, eminently desirable ā that each child should en-
joy protection, nurture, sustenance, at the hands of a mother
690 MISCELLANIES.
not only, but of a father also. In other words, the parents
should be so attached, so devoted to each other, that they shall
be practically separable but by death. Creatm-es of appetite,
fools of temptation, lovers of change, as men are, there is but
one talisman potent to distinguish between genuine affection
and its meretricious counterfeit; and that is the solemn,
searching question, " Do you know this woman so thoroughly,
and love her so profoundly, that you can assuredly promise
that you will forsake aU others and cleave to her only imtil
death ? " If you can, your union is one that God has hal-
lowed, and man may honor and approve ; but, if not, wait tiU
you can thus pledge yourself to some one irrevocably, invok-
ing heaven and earth to witness your truth. If you rush
into a union with one whom you do not thus know and love,
and who does not thus know and love you, yours is the crime,
the shame ; yours be the life-long penalty. I do not think,
as men and women actually are, this law can be improved ;
when we reach the spirit-world, I presume we shall find a
Divine law adapted to its requirements, and to our moral
condition. Here, I am satisfied with that set forth by Jesus
Christ. And, while I admit that individual cases of hardship
arise under this law, I hold that there is seldom an unhappy
marriage that was not originally an unworthy one, ā hasty
and heedless, if not positively vicious. And, if people will
transgress, God can scarcely save them from consequent suf-
fering ; and I do not think you or I can.
Yours,
HoKACE Greeley.
New York, March 11, 1860,
A CORRECTION.*
To THE Editor of The N, Y. Tribune : ā
Sir: Your paper of yesterday, 12th inst., contains a letter
bearing the signature of Robert Dale Owen. After eulogizing
* From The Tribune of March 12, 1860.
MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. 691
the doctrine of the New Testament, which is carried out in
the law of the State of New York, and which only permits
divorce in case of adultery, the writer falls foul of that " semi-
barbarous " people, the Jews, and their legislator, Moses,
whose law of divorce Mr. E. D. Owen professes to quote ver-
latim from Deuteronomy xxiv. 1 : " When a man hath taken
a wife and married her, and it come to pass that she find no
favor in his eyes, then let him write her a bill of divorcement
and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house."
Now, I would respectfully ask of JNlr. E. D. Owen, how is it,
that, in transcribing these words out of the Bible, he has left
out and altogether omitted the words " because he hath found
some uucleanness in her," wliich form an integi'al part of
the first verse in the twenty-fourth chapter of Deuteronomy,
after the sentence, " find no favor' in his eyes," and before the
sentence, " then let him AATite," &c.
These words omitted by Mr. E. D. Owen form the gist of
the whole law on Divorce. For the Hebrew word ervah,
which the English version here renders " uncleanness," is
throughout sacred Scripture invariably used to express illicit
sexual intercourse. Vide Leviticus xviii., where the word
occurs several times, and is rendered " nakedness."
Into the argument on Divorce it is not my intention to en-
ter ; and, as it is not parliamentary to impute motives, I must
not say that Mr. E. Owen intentionally mutilated the text he
quotes, leaving out words which fully prove that this Word
of God, through Moses His servant, so cavalierly, not to say
unfairly, treated by Mr. E. D. Owen, is identical with the
law of our State, which he praises as derived from the New
Testament. But I should like to know, and I ask you, Mr.
Editor, what degree of confidence and consideration can be
due to the assertions and opinions of a disputant who, pro-
fessing to quote verhatim from a book so well known as the
Bible, "somehow" contrives to omit the pith and marrow
of a law against which he directs his assault ?
Yours,
A Semi-Baebaeous Eabbi.
592 MISCELLANIES.
REPLY BY MR. OWEN.*
To " A Semi-Barbarous Rabbi " : ā