The Marriage Institution

83:8.1Mar­riage which cul­mi­nates in the home is in­deed man’s most ex­alted in­sti­tu­tion, but it is es­sen­tially hu­man; it should never have been called a sacra­ment. The Sethite priests made mar­riage a re­li­gious rit­ual; but for thou­sands of years af­ter Eden, mat­ing con­tin­ued as a purely so­cial and civil in­sti­tu­tion.

83:8.2The liken­ing of hu­man as­so­ci­a­tions to di­vine as­so­ci­a­tions is most un­for­tu­nate. The union of hus­band and wife in the mar­riage-home re­la­tion­ship is a ma­te­rial func­tion of the mor­tals of the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds. True, in­deed, much spir­i­tual prog­ress may ac­crue con­se­quent upon the sin­cere hu­man ef­forts of hus­band and wife to pro­gress, but this does not mean that mar­riage is nec­es­sar­ily sa­cred. Spir­i­tual prog­ress is at­ten­dant upon sin­cere ap­pli­ca­tion to other av­enues of hu­man en­deavor.

83:8.3Nei­ther can mar­riage be truly com­pared to the re­la­tion of the Ad­juster to man nor to the fra­ter­nity of Christ Mi­chael and his hu­man breth­ren. At scarcely any point are such re­la­tion­ships com­pa­ra­ble to the as­so­ci­a­tion of hus­band and wife. And it is most un­for­tu­nate that the hu­man mis­con­cep­tion of these re­la­tion­ships has pro­duced so much con­fu­sion as to the sta­tus of mar­riage.

83:8.4It is also un­for­tu­nate that cer­tain groups of mor­tals have con­ceived of mar­riage as be­ing con­sum­mated by di­vine ac­tion. Such be­liefs lead di­rectly to the con­cept of the in­dis­sol­u­bil­ity of the mar­i­tal state re­gard­less of the cir­cum­stances or wishes of the con­tract­ing par­ties. But the very fact of mar­riage dis­so­lu­tion it­self in­di­cates that De­ity is not a con­join­ing party to such unions. If God has once joined any two things or per­sons to­gether, they will re­main thus joined un­til such a time as the di­vine will de­crees their sep­a­ra­tion. But, re­gard­ing mar­riage, which is a hu­man in­sti­tu­tion, who shall pre­sume to sit in judg­ment, to say which mar­riages are unions that might be ap­proved by the uni­verse super­vi­sors in con­trast with those which are purely hu­man in na­ture and ori­gin?

83:8.5Nev­er­the­less, there is an ideal of mar­riage on the spheres on high. On the cap­i­tal of each lo­cal sys­tem the Ma­te­rial Sons and Daugh­ters of God do por­tray the height of the ide­als of the union of man and woman in the bonds of mar­riage and for the pur­pose of pro­cre­at­ing and rear­ing off­spring. Af­ter all, the ideal mor­tal mar­riage is hu­manly sa­cred.

83:8.6Mar­riage al­ways has been and still is man’s su­preme dream of tem­po­ral ide­al­ity. Though this beau­ti­ful dream is sel­dom re­al­ized in its en­tirety, it en­dures as a glo­ri­ous ideal, ever lur­ing pro­gress­ing man­kind on to greater striv­ings for hu­man hap­pi­ness. But young men and women should be taught some­thing of the re­al­i­ties of mar­riage be­fore they are plunged into the ex­act­ing de­mands of the in­teras­so­ci­a­tions of fam­ily life; youth­ful ide­al­iza­tion should be tem­pered with some de­gree of pre­mar­i­tal dis­il­lu­sion­ment.

83:8.7The youth­ful ide­al­iza­tion of mar­riage should not, how­ever, be dis­cour­aged; such dreams are the vi­su­al­iza­tion of the fu­ture goal of fam­ily life. This at­ti­tude is both stim­u­lat­ing and help­ful pro­vid­ing it does not pro­duce an in­sen­si­tiv­ity to the re­al­iza­tion of the prac­ti­cal and com­mon­place re­quire­ments of mar­riage and sub­se­quent fam­ily life.

83:8.8The ide­als of mar­riage have made great prog­ress in re­cent times; among some peo­ples woman en­joys prac­ti­cally equal rights with her con­sort. In con­cept, at least, the fam­ily is be­com­ing a loyal part­ner­ship for rear­ing off­spring, ac­com­pa­nied by sex­ual fi­delity. But even this newer ver­sion of mar­riage need not pre­sume to swing so far to the ex­treme as to con­fer mu­tual monopoly of all per­son­al­ity and in­di­vid­u­al­ity. Mar­riage is not just an in­di­vid­u­al­is­tic ideal; it is the evolv­ing so­cial part­ner­ship of a man and a woman, ex­ist­ing and func­tion­ing un­der the cur­rent mores, re­stricted by the taboos, and en­forced by the laws and reg­u­la­tions of so­ci­ety.

83:8.9Twen­ti­eth-cen­tury mar­riages stand high in com­par­i­son with those of past ages, not­with­stand­ing that the home in­sti­tu­tion is now un­der­go­ing a se­ri­ous test­ing be­cause of the prob­lems so sud­denly thrust upon the so­cial or­ga­ni­za­tion by the pre­cip­i­tate aug­men­ta­tion of woman’s lib­er­ties, rights so long de­nied her in the tardy evo­lu­tion of the mores of past gen­er­a­tions.

83:8.10[Pre­sented by the Chief of Ser­a­phim sta­tioned on Uran­tia.]