The Truth about Marriage/Chapter1
CHAPTER I
MODERN ATTITUDE TOWARDS MARRIAGE
Marriages in our day are entered into very lightly by many people.
And by such people they are quickly dissolved if the marriage ceases to be pleasant to the married partners.
What about the institution of marriage which our ancestors—possibly we ourselves—considered a holy and sacred relationship to be dissolved only by death or infidelity?
Well, for many that idea is like an old piece of furniture belonging in the attic. The continuance of marriage is for them merely a matter of whim or caprice.
We live in another age. People dare question anything.
The world in our generation is trying to think out from new angles every human problem.
The present investigation of marriage is a part of the universal inquiry in this new age into the basic character of all things. We are no longer willing to accept tradition. Men with hammers enter boldly into the sacred precincts of any temple and break down any and all idols. This is an age of vandalism.
Rather it is an age of inquiry, for it is a new age, and everything hitherto accepted must be questioned. Everywhere men are investigating, not always in a spirit to know what is true, but because the old is being attacked, and the breaking of idols is an interesting pastime.
But the old is being overturned, and with many the hope is to be able to rebuild on better foundations.
Probably this latter idea is the spirit of the age, to rebuild a better and a saner world, one more rational and worthy. And it seems necessary to discard everything that does not measure up to new standards.
Yes, the sacred institution of marriage is being attacked, attacked boldly, ruthlessly even.
In the past traditional marriage was too strongly entrenched to talk of investigating it. The mere suggestion of such a thing was somewhat like entering a temple in the presence of priest and worshippers and profaning the altar. The intruder would have been tom limb from limb.
And yet authority—even the authority of tradition in the matter of marriage—has been necessary. Standards are always necessary. Without the authority of church and state upholding tradition there would have been little order in the world.
But for the people who justly belong to the new age, who have thus accepted the scientific spirit, who want to know why they must do or not do the things that have always been done, the standard must inevitably be "Truth as authority, and not authority as truth."
It is in this spirit that we desire to investigate, and discover, if we can, the truth about marriage.