CHAPTER XLI

THE LAWS AND CEREMONY OF MARRIAGE

Laws that will be altered during the twentieth century--People will have to pass examinations before they are allowed to marry--The Church should give young couples a happy start, and change the ceremony of marriage.

It is my sincere belief, as it is my fond hope, for the sake of humanity, that the laws of marriage will be altered before this century is fifty years old. Just as the Legislatures of all the civilized nations will change the laws relating to inheritance and the tenure of the land and the treasure therein, so that the earth may be enabled to feed her children and keep her workers in comfort, and that none may enjoy the privileges of wealth who does not return some equivalent for it to the community, just so will these Legislatures alter the present laws of marriage, which now bind people unfit to live together and allow the production of species which ought to get extinct. I believe that by-and-by people will not be allowed to get married just as they please, and simply because they please. Insane, sickly persons will not be permitted to marry and bring insane and sickly children into the world. There will be some careful pruning done for the good of the human race, which, as it is, threatens to overcrowd the earth.

Before the law allows couples to marry, I believe--upon my word, I do!--that it will require them to pass an examination and to prove that they are fit persons for the undertaking, that their bodies and their minds are sound and healthy, that they have means of living and the prospect of keeping the families that may be born to them. Their antecedents will be thoroughly investigated. It will be ascertained that there is no insanity, no hereditary disease in the family of either of them.

Old men of seventy will not be allowed to marry young girls of eighteen or twenty. Old ladies of temporarily unsound minds will not be permitted to be taken to the altar by calculating young men eager to live without working, whatever indemnity the said young men may receive for their adoption by the said old ladies. Marriage will be held sacred, and no one will be allowed to trifle with the institution.

Then it will no longer be the custom to commit adultery or acts of cruelty in order to obtain a divorce. No couples will be compelled to remain fastened together, living a life of misery. If they find it impossible to live happily and comfortably together, their mutual consent to a divorce will be sufficient to secure their freedom.

By the adoption of such laws, with the daily improvement of all sanitary arrangements and the progress of science, disease and misery will disappear, the human race will become more healthy, happy, and beautiful, and more than ever men and women will fall in love with each other.

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Then I hope that the Church will institute a new ceremony of marriage that will give young couples a cheerful start, and do away with the present one, which is dismal and brutal enough to disgust people out of matrimony.

Fancy bringing a sweet, innocent girl, maybe still in her teens, to hear a dull, awful, solemn clergyman say to her, in front of her, close to her: 'Dearly beloved brethren, we are gathered together here, in the face of this congregation, to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony, which is an honourable estate ... not by any to be enterprised, nor taken in hand unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, to satisfy men's carnal lusts and appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding.' And then he goes on to tell you things sufficient to make your hair stand on end. He tells you that matrimony was ordained for a remedy against sin. Yes, you bring your darling young bride to hear herself called a remedy against sin, almost a penance for your sins. There, behind you, stand half a dozen young bridesmaids, blushing, wondering what those brute beasts, that have no understanding, have to do with you, and you feel ready to fall on your knees and implore the forgiveness of the beloved young bride at your side for having brought her there to hear such things. When, finally, that minister says to her, 'Wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband? Wilt thou obey him and serve him, love, honour him?' I wonder she does not exclaim indignantly: 'Not I, indeed, thanks--not for the world!'

I do hope the Church will invent a ceremony that will make a wedding, instead of a fearful ordeal, a thing of beauty never to be forgotten by those who go through it; the Church made a bower of flowers, sweet music, a short address consisting of the most beautiful and pathetic verses from the Proverbs and the Song of Solomon, and a shower of flowers thrown on the path of the bride, when the ceremony is over.

If I had my own way, I would read to them two or three chapters from the second part of that inimitable book which has filled so many French married lives with poetry, 'Monsieur, Madame et Bebe'--only in French; that book cannot possibly be translated into English.