Chapter 17

THE SYMBOLISM OF MARRIAGE AND OF SEX-UNION

Notwithstanding the patent fact that the institution of monogamous marriage has not resulted in an ideal condition, it is also plain that any other ideal of sex-union is impossible to a highly developed race.

Monogamy, despite its present unsatisfactory condition, is a promise of the highest ideal to which mortals can aspire; it is the imperfect image of that ideal state which human nature has always striven for. That we have striven for the most part blindly; that we have fallen far short of the ideal aimed at, should not deter us from realizing that the ideal is right.

Monogamy, as a type of the perfect marriage, symbolizes the meeting and the consequent union of a man and a woman who are perfect complementaries.

In order to be a perfect and lasting union, they must be spiritual counterparts. Without this counterpartal affinity as the base of union, no power on earth can force them to unite, although all the laws of men be employed to keep them tied to each other in the body. If two persons belong to each other by the inviolable law of spiritual counterpart, no multitudinous set of man-made laws can keep their souls apart, although these codes may temporarily separate them in the flesh. The bonds of true matrimony are "holy"--the word meaning whole; entire; complete; but these bonds are of an interior nature; they may be judged only from the interior nature of two persons; and any attempt to decide this all-important question from the standpoint of exterior judgment must fail.

The perfect union of the one man and the one woman is the highest ideal of marriage of which we can conceive; but shall we for that reason insist that marriage as a social institution is always complete and holy? When two immature persons come together under the stimulus of no more complementary impulse than the blind force of chemical attraction and cohesion--an instinct, which we share in common with every form of life, from the lowest insect to man--shall they be compelled to abide by that act "as long as they both shall live" in the physical body?

We would say, "Heaven forbid!" only that the appeal is unnecessary. Heaven does forbid, and that is why we see so many attempts to disrupt these immature relationships.

"The striving of sexual elements through affinities, or passional attractions, after congenial marriage unions, is the cause of all the motions, growths, and activities in the physical and moral world," says a writer, and he adds: "The failure to attain the desired end, and the warfare between uncongenial and repulsive elements is the cause of all the broken equilibriums, discords, and collisions in both spheres. If the atomic marriage in nature were perfect, there would be no storms or droughts, or poisons or monstrosities, or disease. If the marriage between the individual will and understanding, between the interior and exterior life, were perfect, we should have regenerated men upon earth, worthy to be called sons of God. If the marriage between the sexes were perfect, we should have a Social Paradise."

Marriage, then, in the sense of the conjugal union of two persons of opposite sex, is the most important function of our lives; every other activity is subsidiary to it. Commerce is carried on, only because of this union; all the laws of man are the outgrowth of marriage; all morality comes from the ideal marriage--the union of Wisdom and Love. To imagine that a function, so vitally important to our exterior life, should have no place in the phases of life which we know as "higher," is a manifest absurdity, and comes from those attenuated concepts of what constitutes spirituality, which Theology has postulated; concepts which, entrenched behind the walls of "thus saith the Lord," have temporarily defied modern progress.

There is no wide gulf between the spiritual and the material worlds, although the material is but an imperfect reflection of the basic principle of life.

Marriage, then, is eternally going on, "Nature is a system of nuptials," says a writer, and nature is only the language of spirit or Divine Life.

How it came about that Theology made the mistake of degrading sex-union and of limiting it to the ephemeral life of the body only, we shall come to later. For the present, a brief resume of the types of marriage ceremony, which have been universal, will convince us that Nature has always sought to convey to the human mind this great secret of eternal and never-ceasing union of complementaries.

Take, for example, the symbol of the wedding-ring. This custom, varying only in unimportant details, consistent with the prevailing social custom of the times, has come down to us from prehistoric days. The golden circle, sometimes worn only by the bride, but frequently by both bride and groom, is emblematical of the completion of the circle of wisdom and the final attainment, in "the twain made one," of the finding by each of "the other half." The circle is always used to express the Absolute; Aum; the Supreme Power that is "without beginning and without end."

According to the old Jewish law, the wedding ring must be made of pure gold and must be earned and paid for by the bridegroom; he might not acquire it by credit or gift. There is in this custom something more than mere thrift; or the assurance of the bridegroom's ability to sustain the needs and comforts of his wife and prospective family. It symbolizes the truth that no one may hope to acquire this priceless blessing of perfect conjugal union, other than by his own efforts. Immortality must be earned, and perfect union, counterpartal union--which means actually "twain made one," comes only by dint of strife and demand and proof of our fitness for the Perfect Life.

Another custom, which has been in almost universal vogue, is that of drinking wine, emblematical of the "wine of life," at the completion of a marriage ceremony. Sometimes this has been the prerogative of the bride and groom only; and sometimes of the officiating priest; but more generally the entire company has shared in this custom. Wine drinking thus symbolizes eternal youth and virility, which can be enjoyed only by those who have attained to the complete life--the divine or spiritual sex-union.

This symbolism is obvious when we take into our consciousness the truth that only complementaries have the power to act and react, without change, or loss. Equilibrium is maintained by a perfect balance of two forces; if one force be ever so small a fraction less than the other, perfect balance is lacking.

Another marriage custom in general use among the ancients was the donning of a crown on the wedding day. This custom formerly included the bridegroom as well as the bride, but later was confined to the bride alone, as was also the custom of wearing a veil. At early Greek marriages crowns made of gold or silver were placed upon the heads of both bride and groom; tapers were lighted; and rings exchanged.

We have a similar custom today in all fashionable church weddings. We have the lighted tapers, signifying the quenchless fires of love; and the circlet which symbolizes eternity.

The crown symbolizes the truth that a truly spiritual union bestows the crown of immortality; the power of Godhood in the Kingdom of Love; which supersedes all earthly kingdoms in splendor. This is a literal truth, although it cannot be understood in its full significance until we are _fit for the kingdom_.

The veil which the bride lifts at the completion of the ceremony symbolizes the truth that when we shall have attained to the spiritual marriage, the veil that separates the interior from the exterior life, shall be lifted; it is so thin that the illusion, of which the wedding veil is made, rightly symbolizes this apparent separation of the physical life from the spiritual. When the veil is lifted, we shall know our completement in the bliss of perfect union; and when we have found that other half of our being, which is the underlying urge of our every thought and act, we shall find the veil lifted. The entire panorama of the universe becomes an open book. There is no "visible" and "invisible;" it is all One, with our own bi-une sex nature for the pivotal center.

So simple and so obvious are all these symbols of the natural man that we are astounded, when we have found the key, that we did not sooner penetrate their meaning. "She will have a crown in Heaven," we say of some self-sacrificing and loving soul, and the phrase suggests to most of us the power of earthly kings and queens with all their splendor of jewels and retainers; but there is an inner meaning which the splendor and the crowns of earth's kings and queens symbolizes.

Spiritual union with the perfect complement of our interior nature is in itself the crown of regal power, of which earthly rulers are symbolical. The spiritual body through this union becomes radiant; luminous; and shines with such splendor that it dazzles the eyes of the beholder. What constitutes the beauty and the value of gems--diamonds; rubies; sapphires; emeralds; topaz; pearls?

It is the radiations of light which they throw off; it is their luminosity--their transparency. It is, indeed, true, that the power which we see exemplified in the rulers of the earth has a corresponding meaning in a spiritual sense; as, in fact, have all things which we cognize with our physical eyes. The Hindus tell us that all things are either the "nita" or the "ita" message. Either they tell us "this is the way to the heights;" or "this is not the way."

The crown of orange blossoms which has supplanted the ancient crown of gold and silver and tinsel, worn with such unconsciousness of its esoteric message, symbolizes one of the most beautiful truths relating to the spiritual marriage--counterpartal union.

Even as this union confers a beautiful radiance upon the spiritual body, the body also becomes sweet-scented like a flower. Weeds, we remember, have no scent or they may be obnoxious in their odor. Weeds are unregenerate flowers.

Certain chemical combinations produce nauseous gases. The human body is a laboratory in which chemical changes are constantly going on. The changes produced by sex-functioning are greater than anything which the experimental chemist has ever discovered in nature.

It is a fact well known to the pathologist that an unwilling wife, however faithful she may be, if forced into the sexual act, may present her husband with a well-defined case of genital disease; nor is this at all strange when we consider the now well-recognized fact that anger, fear, revenge, avarice, and all the destructive thought-forces produce poisons in the secretions of the body.

In Rosicrucian literature, we have the story of "the Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosy Cross," which is, when read with the key to its esoteric meaning, a story of the chemistry of marriage between the sexes. Indeed, the whole story of the secret doctrines of the Rosicrucians, is the story of the sexes, and the "secret of secrets," which was so zealously guarded by the Hermetics and the Rosicrucians and other secret societies, is the secret of the spiritual union of the male and the female principles throughout nature and culminating in man and woman, conferring upon them immortal life through the perfect balance of sex.

It has been said that women were not admitted to the Brotherhood of the Rosicrucians, but this is not true, as there is plenty of evidence to prove.

Owing to the enmity of the established Church toward any exaltation of the sex-relation, and particularly toward the veneration of woman, it became necessary for those who sought to keep alive the fires of Esoteric Wisdom to surround themselves with the most rigid secrecy; in consequence of this, the story of the sexes, constituting the very heart and center of Hermetic philosophy, has been told in allegory, unintelligible unless one has the inner sight or has been initiated into the secret code.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Church had so far succeeded in undermining the work of the Hermetics, that women were excluded from the Brotherhood, and the apparent sole purpose of the secret order was the search for metallic transmutation. Side by side with this convincing evidence that the esoteric meaning of the symbols has been perverted, we find their allegorical phraseology intermixed with frequent allusions to passages from the Scripture and to the Virgin Mary, proving conclusively that the Church, then in the zenith of its power, had confiscated the archives of the secret order, and, either through fear of the influence of their work, or possibly through lack of any adequate comprehension of their wisdom, had employed their symbolism to the further glory of the temporal power of the Church.

This subject will again be dealt with in a chapter devoted to "The Hidden Wisdom," and so we will leave it for the present.

One other great spiritual truth relating to marriage is found in the intimate and constantly recurring association of the turtle-dove with the ceremony of marriage.

The dove is, par excellence, an example of conjugal love. The turtle-dove, more than any other of the dove family, is noted for the fervor of its sexual desires; fidelity to its mate; and for the devotion and diffusion of its love nature. It is well known that if either of a pair of turtle-doves dies, the mate will grieve itself to death. "Like a pair of turtle-doves" is said of a couple who are happily married, and the domestic life of the dove has made the dove a symbol of peace.

Doves have been held sacred in many parts of the world, and figure prominently in religious symbolic architecture and utensils, from ancient times down to the present day. The symbol of the doves flying over the ark of the covenant typifies the spiritual origin of birth, the ark being the primordial egg, from which issued all the forms of life. Let us also remember that they issued _in pairs_.