This explains why, for a long time, the Christian Church refused
to have anything to do with marriage. The result was, not the
abolition of sex, but its excommunication. And, of course, the
consequences of persuading people that matrimony was an unholy
state were so grossly carnal, that the Church had to execute a
complete right-about-face, and try to make people understand that
it was a holy state: so holy indeed that it could not be validly
inaugurated without the blessing of the Church. And by this
teaching it did something to atone for its earlier blasphemy. But
the mischief of chopping and changing your doctrine to meet this
or that practical emergency instead of keeping it adjusted to the
whole scheme of life, is that you end by having half-a-dozen
contradictory doctrines to suit half-a-dozen different
emergencies. The Church solemnized and sanctified marriage without
ever giving up its original Pauline doctrine on the subject. And
it soon fell into another confusion. At the point at which it took
up marriage and endeavored to make it holy, marriage was, as it
still is, largely a survival of the custom of selling women to
men. Now in all trades a marked difference is made in price
between a new article and a second-hand one.
Pages:
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104