Just as food is a necessary condition for the life of an individual, so is marriage a necessary condition for the life of humankind; and just as the abuse of food causes harm to an individual, so does the abuse of marriage cause the greatest harm to both the individual and to humankind.
Cohabitation, which can result in childbearing, is the true, real marriage; all ceremonies, declarations and conditions do not constitute marriage and are used for the most part in order to not recognize all past cohabitations as marriage.
You can neglect your duty before your husband or wife, you can rid yourself of the unhappiness that those duties cause you, you can leave. But what will you find?
The same unhappiness, but without the consciousness of having fulfilled your duty.
— George Eliot
Marriage, as a condition, is the duty of two people of different sexes to have children only from each other. The violation of this condition is a deception, an infidelity and a crime.
It is a great thing when two souls feel that they are united forever to support each other in every difficulty, in every sorrow, to help each other in every suffering and to be united with each other in those silent, inexpressible minutes of the final farewell.
— George Eliot
Imagine the great good that can be attained by two loving spouses if they set self-perfection as their aim and help each other progress towards it with reminders, advice and examples.
Pharisees came to him, testing him and saying, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason?”
He answered, “Haven’t you read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall be joined to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh?’ So that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, do not let man tear apart.”
— Matthew 19:3–6
Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery. He who marries one who is divorced from a husband commits adultery.
— Luke 16:18
The union of man and woman for the continuation of the human race is so great and important a task, both for every individual and for humankind as a whole, that it must not be done haphazardly by whoever feels like doing it by whichever way he prefers. It must be done the way it was thought through and decided by the wise and holy people who lived before us.
