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Title: |
Arcanum
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Descr.: |
On Christian Marriage
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Pope: |
Pope Leo XIII
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Date: |
February 10, 1880
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To
the Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, and Bishops of the Catholic
World in Grace and Communion with the Apostolic See.
1.
The hidden design of the divine wisdom, which Jesus Christ the
Savior of men came to carry out on earth, had this end in view,
that, by Himself and in Himself, He should divinely renew the
world, which was sinking, as it were, with length of years into
decline. The Apostle Paul summed this up in words of dignity and
majesty when he wrote to the Ephesians, thus: "That He might
make known unto us the mystery of His will...to re-establish all
things in Christ that are in heaven and on earth."(1)
2.
In truth, Christ our Lord, setting Himself to fulfill the
commandment which His Father had given Him, straightway imparted a
new form and fresh beauty to all things, taking away the effects
of their time-worn age. For He healed the wounds which the sin of
our first father had inflicted on the human race; He brought all
men, by nature children of wrath, into favor with God; He led to
the light of truth men wearied out by longstanding errors; He
renewed to every virtue those who were weakened by lawlessness of
every kind; and, giving them again an inheritance of never-ending
bliss, He added a sure hope that their mortal and perishable
bodies should one day be partakers of immortality and of the glory
of heaven. In order that these unparalleled benefits might last as
long as men should be found on earth, He entrusted to His Church
the continuance of His work; and, looking to future times, He
commanded her to set in order whatever might have become deranged
in human society, and to restore whatever might have fallen into
ruin.
3.
Although the divine renewal we have spoken of chiefly and directly
affected men as constituted in the supernatural order of grace,
nevertheless some of its precious and salutary fruits were also
bestowed abundantly in the order of nature. Hence, not only
individual men, but also the whole mass of the human race, have in
every respect received no small degree of worthiness. For, so soon
as Christian order was once established in the world, it became
possible for all men, one by one, to learn what God's fatherly
providence is, and to dwell in it habitually, thereby fostering
that hope of heavenly help which never confoundeth. From all this
outflowed fortitude, self-control, constancy, and the evenness of
a peaceful mind, together with many high virtues and noble deeds.
4.
Wondrous, indeed, was the extent of dignity, steadfastness, and
goodness which thus accrued to the State as well as to the family.
The authority of rulers became more just and revered; the
obedience of the people more ready and unforced; the union of
citizens closer; the rights of dominion more secure. In very
truth, the Christian religion thought of and provided for all
things which are held to be advantageous in a State; so much so,
indeed, that, according to St. Augustine, one cannot see how it
could have offered greater help in the matter of living well and
happily, had it been instituted for the single object of procuring
or increasing those things which contributed to the conveniences
or advantages of this mortal life.
5.
Still, the purpose We have set before Us is not to recount, in
detail, benefits of this kind; Our wish is rather to speak about
that family union of which marriage is the beginning and the
foundation. The true origin of marriage, venerable brothers, is
well known to all. Though revilers of the Christian faith refuse
to acknowledge the never-interrupted doctrine of the Church on
this subject, and have long striven to destroy the testimony of
all nations and of all times, they have nevertheless failed not
only to quench the powerful light of truth, but even to lessen it.
We record what is to all known, and cannot be doubted by any, that
God, on the sixth day of creation, having made man from the slime
of the earth, and having breathed into his face the breath of
life, gave him a companion, whom He miraculously took from the
side of Adam when he was locked in sleep. God thus, in His most
far-reaching foresight, decreed that this husband and wife should
be the natural beginning of the human race, from whom it might be
propagated and preserved by an unfailing fruitfulness throughout
all futurity of time. And this union of man and woman, that it
might answer more fittingly to the infinite wise counsels of God,
even from the beginning manifested chiefly two most excellent
properties - deeply sealed, as it were, and signed upon it -
namely,
unity and perpetuity. From the Gospel we see clearly that this
doctrine was declared and openly confirmed by the divine authority
of Jesus Christ. He bore witness to the Jews and to His Apostles
that marriage, from its institution, should exist between two
only, that is, between one man and one woman; that of two they are
made, so to say, one flesh; and that the marriage bond is by the
will of God so closely and strongly made fast that no man may
dissolve it or render it asunder. "For this cause shall a man
leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they
two shall be in one flesh. Therefore now they are not two, but one
flesh. What, therefore, God hath joined together, let no man put
asunder."(2)
6.
This form of marriage, however, so excellent and so pre-eminent,
began to be corrupted by degrees, and to disappear among the
heathen; and became even among the Jewish race clouded in a
measure and obscured. For in their midst a common custom was
gradually introduced, by which it was accounted as lawful for a
man to have more than one wife; and eventually when "by
reason of the hardness of their heart,"(3) Moses indulgently
permitted them to put away their wives, the way was open to
divorce.
7.
But the corruption and change which fell on marriage among the
Gentiles seem almost incredible, inasmuch as it was exposed in
every land to floods of error and of the most shameful lusts. All
nations seem, more or less, to have forgotten the true notion and
origin of marriage; and thus everywhere laws were enacted with
reference to marriage, prompted to all appearance by State
reasons, but not such as nature required. Solemn rites, invented
at will of the law-givers, brought about that women should, as
might be, bear either the honorable name of wife or the
disgraceful name of concubine; and things came to such a pitch
that permission to marry, or the refusal of the permission,
depended on the will of the heads of the State, whose laws were
greatly against equity or even to the highest degree unjust.
Moreover, plurality of wives and husbands, as well as divorce,
caused the nuptial bond to be relaxed exceedingly. Hence, too,
sprang up the greatest confusion as to the mutual rights and
duties of husbands and wives, inasmuch as a man assumed right of
dominion over his wife, ordering her to go about her business,
often without any just cause; while he was himself at liberty
"to run headlong with impunity into lust, unbridled and
unrestrained, in houses of ill-fame and amongst his female slaves,
as if the dignity of the persons sinned with, and not the will of
the sinner, made the guilt."(4) When the licentiousness of a
husband thus showed itself, nothing could be more piteous than the
wife, sunk so low as to be all but reckoned as a means for the
gratification of passion, or for the production of offspring.
Without any feeling of shame, marriageable girls were bought and
sold, like so much merchandise,(5) and power was sometimes given
to the father and to the husband to inflict capital punishment on
the wife. Of necessity, the offspring of such marriages as these
were either reckoned among the stock in trade of the common-wealth
or held to be the property of the father of the family;(6) and the
law permitted him to make and unmake the marriages of his children
at his mere will, and even to exercise against them the monstrous
power of life and death.
8.
So manifold being the vices and so great the ignominies with which
marriage was defiled, an alleviation and a remedy were at length
bestowed from on high. Jesus Christ, who restored our human
dignity and who perfected the Mosaic law, applied early in His
ministry no little solicitude to the question of marriage. He
ennobled the marriage in Cana of Galilee by His presence, and made
it memorable by the first of the miracles which he wrought;(7) and
for this reason, even from that day forth, it seemed as if the
beginning of new holiness had been conferred on human marriages.
Later on He brought back matrimony to the nobility of its primeval
origin by condemning the customs of the Jews in their abuse of the
plurality of wives and of the power of giving bills of divorce;
and still more by commanding most strictly that no one should dare
to dissolve that union which God Himself had sanctioned by a bond
perpetual. Hence, having set aside the difficulties which were
adduced from the law of Moses, He, in character of supreme
Lawgiver, decreed as follows concerning husbands and wives,
"I say to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, except
it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth
adultery; and he that shall marry her that is put away committeth
adultery."(8)
9.
But what was decreed and constituted in respect to marriage by the
authority of God has been more fully and more clearly handed down
to us, by tradition and the written Word, through the Apostles,
those heralds of the laws of God. To the Apostles, indeed, as our
masters, are to be referred the doctrines which "our holy
Fathers, the Councils, and the Tradition of the Universal Church
have always taught,"(9) namely, that Christ our Lord raised
marriage to the dignity of a sacrament; that to husband and wife,
guarded and strengthened by the heavenly grace which His merits
gained for them, He gave power to attain holiness in the married
state; and that, in a wondrous way, making marriage an example of
the mystical union between Himself and His Church, He not only
perfected that love which is according to nature,(10) but also
made the naturally indivisible union of one man with one woman far
more perfect through the bond of heavenly love. Paul says to the
Ephesians: "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved
the Church, and delivered Himself up for it, that He might
sanctify it...So also ought men to love their wives as their own
bodies...For no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and
cherisheth it, as also Christ doth the Church; because we are
members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. For this
cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to
his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh. This is a great
sacrament; but I speak in Christ and in the Church."(11) In
like manner from the teaching of the Apostles we learn that the
unity of marriage and its perpetual indissolubility, the
indispensable conditions of its very origin, must, according to
the command of Christ, be holy and inviolable without exception.
Paul says again: "To them that are married, not I, but the
Lord commandeth that the wife depart not from her husband; and if
she depart, that she remain unmarried or be reconciled to her
husband."(12) And again: "A woman is bound by the law as
long as her husband liveth; but if her husband die, she is at
liberty."(13) It is for these reasons that marriage is
"a great sacrament";(14) "honorable in
all,"(15) holy, pure, and to be reverenced as a type and
symbol of most high mysteries.
10.
Furthermore, the Christian perfection and completeness of marriage
are not comprised in those points only which have been mentioned.
For, first, there has been vouchsafed to the marriage union a
higher and nobler purpose than was ever previously given to it. By
the command of Christ, it not only looks to the propagation of the
human race, but to the bringing forth of children for the Church,
"fellow citizens with the saints, and the domestics of
God";(16) so that "a people might be born and brought up
for the worship and religion of the true God and our Savior Jesus
Christ."(17)
11.
Secondly, the mutual duties of husband and wife have been defined,
and their several rights accurately established. They are bound,
namely, to have such feelings for one another as to cherish always
very great mutual love, to be ever faithful to their marriage vow,
and to give one another an unfailing and unselfish help. The
husband is the chief of the family and the head of the wife. The
woman, because she is flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone,
must be subject to her husband and obey him; not, indeed, as a
servant, but as a companion, so that her obedience shall be
wanting in neither honor nor dignity. Since the husband represents
Christ, and since the wife represents the Church, let there always
be, both in him who commands and in her who obeys, a heaven-born
love guiding both in their respective duties. For "the
husband is the head of the wife; as Christ is the head of the
Church...Therefore, as the Church is subject to Christ, so also
let wives be to their husbands in all things."(18)
12.
As regards children, they ought to submit to the parents and obey
them, and give them honor for conscience' sake; while, on the
other hand, parents are bound to give all care and watchful
thought to the education of their offspring and their virtuous
bringing up: "Fathers,... [bring your children up] in the discipline and correction of the
Lord."(19) From this we see clearly that the duties of
husbands and wives are neither few nor light; although to married
people who are good these burdens become not only bearable but
agreeable, owing to the strength which they gain through the
sacrament.
13.
Christ, therefore, having renewed marriage to such and so great
excellence, commended and entrusted all the discipline bearing
upon these matters to His Church. The Church, always and
everywhere, has so used her power with reference to the marriages
of Christians that men have seen clearly how it belongs to her as
of native right; not being made hers by any human grant, but given
divinely to her by the will of her Founder. Her constant and
watchful care in guarding marriage, by the preservation of its
sanctity, is so well understood as to not need proof. That the
judgment of the Council of Jerusalem reprobated licentious and
free love,(20) we all know; as also that the incestuous Corinthian
was condemned by the authority of blessed Paul.(21) Again, in the
very beginning of the Christian Church were repulsed and defeated,
with the like unremitting determination, the efforts of many who
aimed at the destruction of Christian marriage, such as the
Gnostics, Manichaeans, and Montanists; and in our own time
Mormons, St. Simonians, phalansterians, and communists.(22)
14.
In like manner, moreover, a law of marriage just to all, and the
same for all, was enacted by the abolition of the old distinction
between slaves and free-born men and women; and thus the rights
of husbands and wives were made equal: for, as St. Jerome says,
"with us that which is unlawful for women is unlawful for men
also, and the same restraint is imposed on equal
conditions."(23) The self-same rights also were firmly
established for reciprocal affection and for the interchange of
duties; the dignity of the woman was asserted and assured; and it
was forbidden to the man to inflict capital punishment for
adultery,(25) or lustfully and shamelessly to violate his plighted
faith.
15.
It is also a great blessing that the Church has limited, so far as
is needful, the power of fathers of families, so that sons and
daughters, wishing to marry, are not in any way deprived of their
rightful freedom; (26) that, for the purpose of spreading more
widely the supernatural love of husbands and wives, she has
decreed marriages within certain degrees of consanguinity or
affinity to be null and void;(27) that she has taken the greatest
pains to safeguard marriage, as much as is possible, from error
and violence and deceit; (28) that she has always wished to
preserve the holy chasteness of the marriage bed, the security of
persons,(29) the honor of husband and wife,(30) and the sanctity
of religion.(31) Lastly, with such foresight of legislation has
the Church guarded its divine institution that no one who thinks
rightfully of these matters can fail to see how, with regard to
marriage, she is the best guardian and defender of the human race;
and how, withal, her wisdom has come forth victorious from the
lapse of years, from the assaults of men, and from the countless
changes of public events.
16.
Yet, owing to the efforts of the archenemy of mankind, there are
persons who, thanklessly casting away so many other blessings of
redemption, despise also or utterly ignore the restoration of
marriage to its original perfection. It is a reproach to some of
the ancients that they showed themselves the enemies of marriage
in many ways; but in our own age, much more pernicious is the sin
of those who would fain pervert utterly the nature of marriage,
perfect though it is, and complete in all its details and parts.
The chief reason why they act in this way is because very many,
imbued with the maxims of a false philosophy and corrupted in
morals, judge nothing so unbearable as submission and obedience;
and strive with all their might to bring about that not only
individual men, but families, also - indeed, human society itself
- may in haughty pride despise the sovereignty of God.
17.
Now, since the family and human society at large spring from
marriage, these men will on no account allow matrimony to be the
subject of the jurisdiction of the Church. Nay, they endeavor to
deprive it of all holiness, and so bring it within the contracted
sphere of those rights which, having been instituted by man, are
ruled and administered by the civil jurisprudence of the
community. Wherefore it necessarily follows that they attribute
all power over marriage to civil rulers, and allow none whatever
to the Church; and, when the Church exercises any such power, they
think that she acts either by favor of the civil authority or to
its injury. Now is the time, they say, for the heads of the State
to vindicate their rights unflinchingly, and to do their best to
settle all that relates to marriage according as to them seems
good.
18.
Hence are owing civil marriages, commonly so called; hence laws
are framed which impose impediments to marriage; hence arise
judicial sentences affecting the marriage contract, as to whether
or not it have been rightly made. Lastly, all power of prescribing
and passing judgment in this class of cases is, as we see, of set
purpose denied to the Catholic Church, so that no regard is paid
either to her divine power or to her prudent laws. Yet, under
these, for so many centuries, have the nations lived on whom the
light of civilization shone bright with the wisdom of Christ
Jesus.
19.
Nevertheless, the naturalists,(32) as well as all who profess that
they worship above all things the divinity of the State, and
strive to disturb whole communities with such wicked doctrines,
cannot escape the charge of delusion. Marriage has God for its
Author, and was from the very beginning a kind of foreshadowing of
the Incarnation of His Son; and therefore there abides in it a
something holy and religious; not extraneous, but innate; not
derived from men, but implanted by nature. Innocent III,
therefore, and Honorius III, our predecessors, affirmed not
falsely nor rashly that a sacrament of marriage existed ever
amongst the faithful and unbelievers.(33) We call to witness the
monuments of antiquity, as also the manners and customs of those
people who, being the most civilized, had the greatest knowledge
of law and equity. In the minds of all of them it was a fixed and
foregone conclusion that, when marriage was thought of, it was
thought of as conjoined with religion and holiness. Hence, among
those, marriages were commonly celebrated with religious
ceremonies, under the authority of pontiffs, and with the ministry
of priests. So mighty, even in the souls ignorant of heavenly
doctrine, was the force of nature, of the remembrance of their
origin, and of the conscience of the human race. As, then,
marriage is holy by its own power, in its own nature, and of
itself, it ought not to be regulated and administered by the will
of civil rulers, but by the divine authority of the Church, which
alone in sacred matters professes the office of teaching.
20.
Next, the dignity of the sacrament must be considered, for through
addition of the sacrament the marriages of Christians have become
far the noblest of all matrimonial unions. But to decree and
ordain concerning the sacrament is, by the will of Christ Himself,
so much a part of the power and duty of the Church that it is
plainly absurd to maintain that even the very smallest fraction of
such power has been transferred to the civil ruler.
21.
Lastly should be borne in mind the great weight and crucial test
of history, by which it is plainly proved that the legislative and
judicial authority of which We are speaking has been freely and
constantly used by the Church, even in times when some foolishly
suppose the head of the State either to have consented to it or
connived at it. It would, for instance, be incredible and
altogether absurd to assume that Christ our Lord condemned the
long-standing practice of polygamy and divorce by authority
delegated to Him by the procurator of the province, or the
principal ruler of the Jews. And it would be equally extravagant
to think that, when the Apostle Paul taught that divorces and
incestuous marriages were not lawful, it was because Tiberius,
Caligula, and Nero agreed with him or secretly commanded him so to
teach. No man in his senses could ever be persuaded that the
Church made so many laws about the holiness and indissolubility of
marriage,(34) and the marriages of slaves with the free-born,(35)
by power received from Roman emperors, most hostile to the
Christian name, whose strongest desire was to destroy by violence
and murder the rising Church of Christ. Still less could anyone
believe this to be the case, when the law of the Church was
sometimes so divergent from the civil law that Ignatius the
Martyr,(36) Justin,(37) Athenagoras,(38) and Tertullian(39)
publicly denounced as unjust and adulterous certain marriages
which had been sanctioned by imperial law.
22.
Futhermore, after all power had devolved upon the Christian
emperors, the supreme pontiffs and bishops assembled in council
persisted with the same independence and consciousness of their
right in commanding or forbidding in regard to marriage whatever
they judged to be profitable or expedient for the time being,
however much it might seem to be at variance with the laws of the
State. It is well known that, with respect to the impediments
arising from the marriage bond, through vow, disparity of worship,
blood relationship, certain forms of crime, and from previously
plighted troth, many decrees were issued by the rulers of the
Church at the Councils of Granada,(40) Arles,(41) Chalcedon,(42)
the second of Milevum,(43) and others, which were often widely
different from the decrees sanctioned by the laws of the empire.
Futhermore, so far were Christian princes from arrogating any
power in the matter of Christian marriage that they on the
contrary acknowledged and declared that it belonged exclusively in
all its fullness to the Church. In fact, Honorius, the younger
Theodosius, and Justinian,(44) also, hesitated not to confess that
the only power belonging to them in relation to marriage was that
of acting as guardians and defenders of the holy canons. If at any
time they enacted anything by their edicts concerning impediments
of marriage, they voluntarily explained the reason, affirming that
they took it upon themselves so to act, by leave and authority of
the Church,(45) whose judgment they were wont to appeal to and
reverently to accept in all questions that concerned
legitimacy(46) and divorce;(47) as also in all those points which
in any way have a necessary connection with the marriage bond.(48)
The Council of Trent, therefore, had the clearest right to define
that it is in the Church's power "to establish diriment
impediments of matrimony,"(49) and
that "matrimonial causes pertain to ecclesiastical
judges."(50)
23.
Let no one, then, be deceived by the distinction which some civil
jurists have so strongly insisted upon - the distinction, namely, by
virtue of which they sever the matrimonial contract from the
sacrament, with intent to hand over the contract to the power and
will of the rulers of the State, while reserving questions
concerning the sacrament to the Church. A distinction, or rather
severance, of this kind cannot be approved; for certain it is that
in Christian marriage the contract is inseparable from the
sacrament, and that, for this reason, the contract cannot be true
and legitimate without being a sacrament as well. For Christ our
Lord added to marriage the dignity of a sacrament; but marriage is
the contract itself, whenever that contract is lawfully concluded.
24.
Marriage, moreover, is a sacrament, because it is a holy sign
which gives grace, showing forth an image of the mystical nuptials
of Christ with the Church. But the form and image of these
nuptials is shown precisely by the very bond of that most close
union in which man and woman are bound together in one; which bond
is nothing else but the marriage itself. Hence it is clear that
among Christians every true marriage is, in itself and by itself,
a sacrament; and that nothing can be further from the truth than
to say that the sacrament is a certain added ornament, or outward
endowment, which can be separated and torn away from the contract
at the caprice of man. Neither, therefore, by reasoning can it be
shown, nor by any testimony of history be proved, that power over
the marriages of Christians has ever lawfully been handed over to
the rulers of the State. If, in this matter, the right of anyone
else has ever been violated, no one can truly say that it has been
violated by the Church. Would that the teaching of the
naturalists, besides being full of falsehood and injustice, were
not also the fertile source of much detriment and calamity! But it
is easy to see at a glance the greatness of the evil which
unhallowed marriages have brought, and ever will bring, on the
whole of human society.
25.
From the beginning of the world, indeed, it was divinely ordained
that things instituted by God and by nature should be proved by us
to be the more profitable and salutary the more they remain
unchanged in their full integrity. For God, the Maker of all
things, well knowing what was good for the institution and
preservation of each of His creatures, so ordered them by His will
and mind that each might adequately attain the end for which it
was made. If the rashness or the wickedness of human agency
venture to change or disturb that order of things which has been
constituted with fullest foresight, then the designs of infinite
wisdom and usefulness begin either to be hurtful or cease to be
profitable, partly because through the change undergone they have
lost their power of benefiting, and partly because God chooses to
inflict punishment on the pride and audacity of man. Now, those
who deny that marriage is holy, and who relegate it, striped of
all holiness, among the class of common secular things, uproot
thereby the foundations of nature, not only resisting the designs
of Providence, but, so far as they can, destroying the order that
God has ordained. No one, therefore, should wonder if from such
insane and impious attempts there spring up a crop of evils
pernicious in the highest degree both to the salvation of souls
and to the safety of the commonwealth.
26.
If, then, we consider the end of the divine institution of
marriage, we shall see very clearly that God intended it to be a
most fruitful source of individual benefit and of public welfare,
Not only, in strict truth, was marriage instituted for the
propagation of the human race, but also that the lives of husbands
and wives might be made better and happier. This comes about in
many ways: by their lightening each other's burdens through mutual
help; by constant and faithful love; by having all their
possessions in common; and by the heavenly grace which flows from
the sacrament. Marriage also can do much for the good of families,
for, so long as it is conformable to nature and in accordance with
the counsels of God, it has power to strengthen union of heart in
the parents; to secure the holy education of children; to temper
the authority of the father by the example of the divine
authority; to render children obedient to their parents and
servants obedient to their masters. From such marriages as these
the State may rightly expect a race of citizens animated by a good
spirit and filled with reverence and love for God, recognizing it
their duty to obey those who rule justly and lawfully, to love
all, and to injure no one.
27.
These many and glorious fruits were ever the product of marriage,
so long as it retained those gifts of holiness, unity, and
indissolubility from which proceeded all its fertile and saving
power; nor can anyone doubt but that it would always have brought
forth such fruits, at all times and in all places, had it been
under the power and guardianship of the Church, the trustworthy
preserver and protector of these gifts. But, now, there is a
spreading wish to supplant natural and divine law by human law;
and hence has begun a gradual extinction of that most excellent
ideal of marriage which nature herself had impressed on the soul
of man, and sealed, as it were, with her own seal; nay, more, even
in Christian marriages this power, productive of so great good,
has been weakened by the sinfulness of man. Of what advantage is
it if a state can institute nuptials estranged from the Christian
religion, which is the mother of all good, cherishing all sublime
virtues, quickening and urging us to everything that is the glory
of a lofty and generous soul? When the Christian religion is
rejected and repudiated, marriage sinks of necessity into the
slavery of man's vicious nature and vile passions, and finds but
little protection in the help of natural goodness. A very torrent
of evil has flowed from this source, not only into private
families, but also into States. For, the salutary fear of God
being removed, and there being no longer that refreshment in toil
which is nowhere more abounding than in the Christian religion, it
very often happens, as indeed is natural, that the mutual services
and duties of marriage seem almost unbearable; and thus very many
yearn for the loosening of the tie which they believe to be woven
by human law and of their own will, whenever incompatibility of
temper, or quarrels, or the violation of the marriage vow, or
mutual consent, or other reasons induce them to think that it
would be well to be set free. Then, if they are hindered by law
from carrying out this shameless desire, they contend that the
laws are iniquitous, inhuman, and at variance with the rights of
free citizens; adding that every effort should be made to repeal
such enactments, and to introduce a more humane code sanctioning
divorce.
28.
Now, however much the legislators of these our days may wish to
guard themselves against the impiety of men such as we have been
speaking of, they are unable to do so, seeing that they profess to
hold and defend the very same principles of jurisprudence; and
hence they have to go with times, and render divorce easily
obtainable. History itself shows this; for, to pass over other
instances, we find that, at the close of the last century,
divorces were sanctioned by law in that upheaval or, rather, as it
might be called, conflagration in France, when society was wholly
degraded by the abandoning of God. Many at the present time would
fain have those laws reenacted, because they wish God and His
Church to be altogether exiled and excluded from the midst of
human society, madly thinking that in such laws a final remedy
must be sought for that moral corruption which is advancing with
rapid strides.
29.
Truly, it is hardly possible to describe how great are the evils
that flow from divorce. Matrimonial contracts are by it made
variable; mutual kindness is weakened; deplorable inducements to
unfaithfulness are supplied; harm is done to the education and
training of children; occasion is afforded for the breaking up of
homes; the seeds of dissension are sown among families; the
dignity of womanhood is lessened and brought low, and women run
the risk of being deserted after having ministered to the
pleasures of men. Since, then, nothing has such power to lay waste
families and destroy the mainstay of kingdoms as the corruption of
morals, it is easily seen that divorces are in the highest degree
hostile to the prosperity of families and States, springing as
they do from the depraved morals of the people, and, as experience
shows us, opening out a way to every kind of evil-doing in public
and in private life.
30.
Further still, if the matter be duly pondered, we shall clearly
see these evils to be the more especially dangerous, because,
divorce once being tolerated, there will be no restraint powerful
enough to keep it within the bounds marked out or presurmised.
Great indeed is the force of example, and even greater still the
might of passion. With such incitements it must needs follow that
the eagerness for divorce, daily spreading by devious ways, will
seize upon the minds of many like a virulent contagious disease,
or like a flood of water bursting through every barrier. These are
truths that doubtlessly are all clear in themselves, but they will
become clearer yet if we call to mind the teachings of experience.
So soon as the road to divorce began to be made smooth by law, at
once quarrels, jealousies, and judicial separations largely
increased; and such shamelessness of life followed that men who
had been in favor of these divorces repented of what they had
done, and feared that, if they did not carefully seek a remedy by
repealing the law, the State itself might come to ruin. The Romans
of old are said to have shrunk with horror from the first example
of divorce, but before long all sense of decency was blunted in their
soul; the meager restraint of passion died out, and the marriage
vow was so often broken that what some writers have affirmed would
seem to be true - namely, women used to reckon years not by the
change of consuls, but of their husbands. In like manner, at the
beginning, Protestants allowed legalized divorces in certain
although but few cases, and yet from the affinity of circumstances
of like kind, the number of divorces increased to such extent in
Germany, America, and elsewhere that all wise thinkers deplored
the boundless corruption of morals, and judged the recklessness of
the laws to be simply intolerable.
31.
Even in Catholic States the evil existed. For whenever at any time
divorce was introduced, the abundance of misery that followed far
exceeded all that the framers of the law could have foreseen. In
fact, many lent their minds to contrive all kinds of fraud and
device, and by accusations of cruelty, violence, and adultery to
feign grounds for the dissolution of the matrimonial bond of which
they had grown weary; and all this with so great havoc to morals
that an amendment of the laws was deemed to be urgently needed.
32.
Can anyone, therefore, doubt that laws in favor of divorce would
have a result equally baneful and calamitous were they to be
passed in these our days? There exists not, indeed, in the
projects and enactments of men any power to change the character
and tendency which things have received from nature. Those men,
therefore, show but little wisdom in the idea they have formed of
the well-being of the commonwealth who think that the inherent
character of marriage can be perverted with impunity; and who,
disregarding the sanctity of religion and of the sacrament, seem
to wish to degrade and dishonor marriage more basely than was done
even by heathen laws. Indeed, if they do not change their views,
not only private families, but all public society, will have
unceasing cause to fear lest they should be miserably driven into
that general confusion and overthrow of order which is even now
the wicked aim of socialists and communists. Thus we see most
clearly how foolish and senseless it is to expect any public good
from divorce, when, on the contrary, it tends to the certain
destruction of society.
33.
It must consequently be acknowledged that the Church has deserved
exceedingly well of all nations by her ever watchful care in
guarding the sanctity and the indissolubility of marriage. Again,
no small amount of gratitude is owing to her for having, during
the last hundred years, openly denounced the wicked laws which
have grievously offended on this particular subject; (51) as well
as for her having branded with anathema the baneful heresy
obtaining among Protestants touching divorce and separation;(52)
also, for having in many ways condemned the habitual dissolution
of marriage among the Greeks;(53) for having declared invalid all
marriages contracted upon the understanding that they may be at
some future time dissolved;(54) and, lastly, for having, from the
earliest times, repudiated the imperial laws which disastrously
favored divorce.(55)
34.
As often, indeed, as the supreme pontiffs have resisted the most
powerful among rulers, in their threatening demands that divorces
carried out by them should be confirmed by the Church, so often
must we account them to have been contending for the safety, not
only of religion, but also of the human race. For this reason all
generations of men will admire the proofs of unbending courage
which are to be found in the decrees of Nicholas I against Lothair;
of Urban II and Paschal II against Philip I of France; of
Celestine III and Innocent III against Alphonsus of Leon and
Philip II of France; of Clement VII and Paul III against Henry
VIII; and, lastly, of Pius VII, that holy and courageous pontiff,
against Napoleon I... This being so, all rulers and
administrators of the State who are desirous of following the
dictates of reason and wisdom, and anxious for the good of their
people, ought to make up their minds to keep the holy laws of
marriage intact, and to make use of the proffered aid of the
Church for securing the safety of morals and the happiness of
families, rather than suspect her of hostile intention and falsely
and wickedly accuse her of violating the civil law.
35.
They should do this the more readily because the Catholic Church,
though powerless in any way to abandon the duties of her office or
the defense of her authority, still very greatly inclines to
kindness and indulgence whenever they are consistent with the
safety of her rights and the sanctity of her duties. Wherefore she
makes no decrees in relation to marriage without having regard to
the state of the body politic and the condition of the general
public; and has besides more than once mitigated, as far as
possible, the enactments of her own laws when there were just and
weighty reasons. Moreover, she is not unaware, and never calls in
doubt, that the sacrament of marriage, being instituted for the
preservation and increase of the human race, has a necessary
relation to circumstances of life which, though connected with
marriage, belong to the civil order, and about which the State
rightly makes strict inquiry and justly promulgates decrees.
36.
Yet, no one doubts that Jesus Christ, the Founder of the Church,
willed her sacred power to be distinct from the civil power, and
each power to be free and unshackled in its own sphere: with this
condition, however - a condition good for both, and of advantage to
all men - that union and concord should be maintained between them;
and that on those questions which are, though in different ways,
of common right and authority, the power to which secular matters
have been entrusted should happily and becomingly depend on the
other power which has in its charge the interests of heaven. In
such arrangement and harmony is found not only the best line of
action for each power, but also the most opportune and efficacious
method of helping men in all that pertains to their life here, and
to their hope of salvation hereafter. For, as We have shown in
former encyclical letters,(56) the intellect of man is greatly
ennobled by the Christian faith, and made better able to shun and
banish all error, while faith borrows in turn no little help from
the intellect; and in like manner, when the civil power is on
friendly terms with the sacred authority of the Church, there
accrues to both a great increase of usefulness. The dignity of the
one is exalted, and so long as religion is its guide it will never
rule unjustly; while the other receives help of protection and
defense for the public good of the faithful.
37.
Being moved, therefore, by these considerations, as We have
exhorted rulers at other times, so still more earnestly We exhort
them now, to concord and friendly feeling; and we are the first to
stretch out Our hand to them with fatherly benevolence, and to
offer to them the help of Our supreme authority, a help which is
the more necessary at this time when, in public opinion, the
authority of rulers is wounded and enfeebled. Now that the minds
of so many are inflamed with a reckless spirit of liberty, and men
are wickedly endeavoring to get rid of every restraint of
authority, however legitimate it may be, the public safety demands
that both powers should unite their strength to avert the evils
which are hanging, not only over the Church, but also over civil
society.
38.
But, while earnestly exhorting all to a friendly union of will,
and beseeching God, the Prince of peace, to infuse a love of
concord into all hearts, We cannot, venerable brothers, refrain
from urging you more and more to fresh earnestness, and zeal, and
watchfulness, though we know that these are already very great.
With every effort and with all authority, strive, as much as you
are able, to preserve whole and undefiled among the people
committed to your charge the doctrine which Christ our Lord taught
us; which the Apostles, the interpreters of the will of God, have
handed down; and which the Catholic Church has herself
scrupulously guarded, and commanded to be believed in all ages by
the faithful of Christ.
39.
Let special care be taken that the people be well instructed in
the precepts of Christian wisdom, so that they may always remember
that marriage was not instituted by the will of man, but, from the
very beginning, by the authority and command of God; that it does
not admit of plurality of wives or husbands; that Christ, the
Author of the New Covenant, raised it from a rite of nature to be
a sacrament, and gave to His Church legislative and judicial power
with regard to the bond of union. On this point the very greatest
care must be taken to instruct them, lest their minds should be
led into error by the unsound conclusions of adversaries who
desire that the Church should be deprived of that power.
40.
In like manner, all ought to understand clearly that, if there be
any union of a man and a woman among the faithful of Christ which
is not a sacrament, such union has not the force and nature of a
proper marriage; that, although contracted in accordance with the
laws of the State, it cannot be more than a rite or custom
introduced by the civil law. Further, the civil law can deal with
and decide those matters alone which in the civil order spring
from marriage, and which cannot possibly exist, as is evident,
unless there be a true and lawful cause of them, that is to say,
the nuptial bond. It is of the greatest consequence to husband and
wife that all these things should be known and well understood by
them, in order that they may conform to the laws of the State, if
there be no objection on the part of the Church; for the Church
wishes the effects of marriage to be guarded in all possible ways,
and that no harm may come to the children.
41.
In the great confusion of opinions, however, which day by day is
spreading more and more widely, it should further be known that no
power can dissolve the bond of Christian marriage whenever this
has been ratified and consummated; and that, of a consequence,
those husbands and wives are guilty of a manifest crime who plan,
for whatever reason, to be united in a second marriage before the
first one has been ended by death. When, indeed, matters have come
to such a pitch that it seems impossible for them to live together
any longer, then the Church allows them to live apart, and strives
at the same time to soften the evils of this separation by such
remedies and helps as are suited to their condition; yet she never
ceases to endeavor to bring about a reconciliation, and never
despairs of doing so. But these are extreme cases; and they would
seldom exist if men and women entered into the married state with
proper dispositions, not influenced by passion, but entertaining
right ideas of the duties of marriage and of its noble purpose;
neither would they anticipate their marriage by a series of sins
drawing down upon them the wrath of God.
42.
To sum up all in a few words, there would be a calm and quiet
constancy in marriage if married people would gather strength and
life from the virtue of religion alone, which imparts to us
resolution and fortitude; for religion would enable them to bear
tranquilly and even gladly the trials of their state, such as, for
instance, the faults that they discover in one another, the
difference of temper and character, the weight of a mother's
cares, the wearing anxiety about the education of children,
reverses of fortune, and the sorrows of life.
43.
Care also must be taken that they do not easily enter into
marriage with those who are not Catholics; for, when minds do not
agree as to the observances of religion, it is scarcely possible
to hope for agreement in other things. Other reasons also proving
that persons should turn with dread from such marriages are
chiefly these: that they give occasion to forbidden association
and communion in religious matters; endanger the faith of the
Catholic partner; are a hindrance to the proper education of the
children; and often lead to a mixing up of truth and falsehood,
and to the belief that all religions are equally good.
44.
Lastly, since We well know that none should be excluded from Our
charity, We commend, venerable brothers, to your fidelity and
piety those unhappy persons who, carried away by the heat of
passion, and being utterly indifferent to their salvation, live
wickedly together without the bond of lawful marriage. Let your
utmost care be exercised in bringing such persons back to their
duty; and, both by your own efforts and by those of good men who
will consent to help you, strive by every means that they may see
how wrongly they have acted; that they may do penance; and that
they may be induced to enter into a lawful marriage according to
the Catholic rite.
45.
You will at once see, venerable brothers, that the doctrine and
precepts in relation to Christian marriage, which We have thought
good to communicate to you in this letter, tend no less to the
preservation of civil society than to the everlasting salvation of
souls. May God grant that, by reason of their gravity and
importance, minds may everywhere be found docile and ready to obey
them! For this end let us all suppliantly, with humble prayer,
implore the help of the Blessed and Immaculate Virgin Mary, that,
our hearts being quickened to the obedience of faith, she may show
herself our mother and our helper. With equal earnestness let us
ask the princes of the Apostles, Peter and Paul, the destroyers of
heresies, the sowers of the seed of truth, to save the human race
by their powerful patronage from the deluge of errors that is
surging afresh. In the meantime, as an earnest of heavenly gifts,
and a testimony of Our special benevolence, We grant to you all,
venerable brothers, and to the people confided to your charge,
from the depths of Our heart, the apostolic benediction.
Given
at St. Peter's in Rome, the tenth day of February, 1880, the third
year of Our pontificate.
Endnotes:
1.
Eph. 1:9-10. | 2. Mt. 19:5-6. | 3. Mt. 19:8. | 4. Jerome Epist. 77,
3 (PL 22, 691). | 5. Arnobius, Adversus Gentes. | 6. Dionysius Halicarnassus, lib.
II, chs. 26-27. | 7. John 2. | 8.
Mt. 19:9. | 9. Trid., sess. xxiv, in principio. | 10. Trid., sess. xxiv,
cap. 1, De reformatione matrimonii. | 11. Eph. 5:25-32. | 12. 1 Cor.
7:10-11. | 13. 1 Cor. 7:39. | 14. Eph. 5:32. | 15. Heb. 13:4. |
16. Eph. 2:19. | 17. Catech. Rom., ch. 8. | 18. Eph. 5:23-24. | 19.
Eph. 6:4. | 20. Acts 15:29. | 21. 1 Cor. 5:5. | 22. Gnostics:
common name for several early sects claiming a Christian knowledge
(gnosis) higher than faith. Manichaeans: disciples of the Persian
Mani (or Manes, c.216-276) who taught that everything goes back to
two first principles, light and darkness, or good and evil.
Montanises: disciples of Montanus (in Phrygia, last third of the
second century), condemned marriage as a sinful institution.
Mormons: sect founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith, which favored
polygamy. Saint-Simonians: disciples of the French philosopher
Saint-Simon (1760-1825) founder of a "new Christianity"
based upon science instead of faith. Phalansterians: members of a
phalanstery, that is, of a socialist community after the
principles of Charles Fourier (1772-1837). Communists: supporters
of a regime in which property belongs to the body politic, each
member being supposed to work according to his capacity and to
receive according to his wants; communism is usually associated
with the name of Karl Marx (1818-1893). | 23. Cap. l, De conjug.
serv. Corpus juris canonici, ed. Friedberg (Leipzig, 1884), Part
2, cols. 691-692. | 24. Jerome, Epist. 77 (PL 22, 691). | 25. Can.
Interfectores and Canon Admonere, quaest. 2 Corpus juris canonici
(Leipzig, 1879), Part 1, eols. 1152-1154. | 26. Saus. 30, quaest.
3, cap. 3, De cognac. spirit. (op. cit., Part 1, col. 1101). | 27.
Cap. 8, De consang. et affin. (op. cit., Part 2, col. 703); cap 1,
De cognac. Iegali (col. 696). | 28. Cap. 26, De spousal. (op.
cit., Part 2, col. 670); cap. 13/15 (col. 665/6); cap. 29 (col. 671); De spon salibus et matrimonio et alibi. | 29.
Cap. 1, De convers. infid. (op. cit., Part 2, col. 587); cap. 5,
6, De eo qui duxit in marrim. (cols. 688-689). | 30. Cap. 3, 5, 8,
De spousal. et matr. (op. cit., Part 2, cols. 661, 663). Trid.,
sess. xxiv, cap. De reformatione matrimonii. | 31. Cap. 7, De
divort. (op. cit., Part 2, col. 722). | 32. Maintain the
self-sufficiency of the natural order. | 33. Concerning Innocent
III, see Corpus juris canonici, cap. 8, De divort., ed. cit., Part
2, col. 723. Innocent III refers to 1 Cor. 7:13. Concerning
Honorius III, see cap. ii, De transact., (op. cit., Part 2 col.
210). | 34. Canones Apostolorum, 16 17, 18, ed. Fr. Lauchert, J.
C. B. Mohr (Leipzig, 1896) p. 3. | 35. Philosophumena (Oxford,
1851), i.e., Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 9, 12 (PG 16
3386D-3387A). | 36. Epistola ad Polycarpum, cap. 5 (PG 5,
723-724). | 37. Apolog. Maj., 15 (PG 6, 349A, B). | 38. Legal. pro
Christian., 32, 33 (PG 6, 963-968). | 39. De coron. milit., 13 (PL
2, 116). | 40. De Aguirre, Conc. Hispan., Vol. 1, can. 11. | 41.
Harduin, Act. Conch., Vol. 1, can. 11. | 42. Ibid., can. 16. | 43.
Ibid., can. 17. | 44. Novel., 137 (Justinianus, Novellae, ed. C.
E. Z. Lingenthal, Leipzig, 1881, Vol. 2, p. 206). | 45. Fejer,
Matrim. ex instit. Chris. (Pest, 1835). | 46. Cap. 3, De ord. cogn.
(Corpus juris canonici, ed. cit., Part 2, col. 276). | 47. Cap. 3,
De divort. (ed. cit., Part 2, col. 720). | 48. Cap. 13, Qui filii
sint legit. (ed. cit., Part 2, col. 716). | 49. Trid., sess. xxiv,
can. 4. | 50. Ibid., can. 12. | 51. Pius VI, Epist. ad episc.
Lucion., May 20, 1793; Pius VII, encycl. letter, Feb. 17, 1809,
and constitution given July 19, 1817; Pius VIII, encycl. letter,
May 29, 1829; Gregory XVI, constitution given August 15, 1832;
Pius IX, address, Sept. 22, 1852. | 52. Trid., less. xxiv, can. 5,7. | 53. Council of Florence and instructions of Eugene IV to the
Armenians; Benedict XIV, constitution Etsi Pastoralis, May 6, 1742.
| 54. Cap. 7, De condit. appos. (Corpus juru canonici, ed. cit.,
Part 2, col. 684). | 55. Jerome, Epist. 69, ad Oceanum (PL 22,
657); Ambrose, Lib. 8 in cap. 16 Lucae, n. 5 (PL 15, 1857);
Augustine, De nuptiis, 1, 10, 11 (PL 44, 420). Fifty years after
the publication of Arcanum, Pope Pius Xl published his own
encyclical Casti Connubii (December 31 1930). | 56. Aeterni Patris.
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