Men, Women, and God / A Discussion of Sex Questions from the Christian Point of View

by A. Herbert Gray

I assume that I am addressing honest minds that wish to handle the issues of life sincerely and wisely, and to them I am sure it must be worth pointing out that it can never be right for individuals to order their lives on principles which could not be given a universal application. I can well understand a passionate couple being quite sure that they will hold to one another throughout life, though they be in no way legally tied. I can imagine that many such couples would resent as a profanity the mere suggestion that they could ever want to part. But imagine what society would become if legal ties were abolished. You and your man or woman may be quite sure that you would never part, but you know that thousands would. Couples would set out on the joint life with little thought, and allow the first painful misunderstanding to part them. Many men would shake off their obligations almost as soon as they found they were becoming heavy. Both men and women would pass from one temporary union to another, mutilating their better natures in the process. Thousands of women would be left in helpless loneliness. Tens of thousands of children would go uncared for and neglected. The picture becomes more horrible the more carefully you look into its details. And as you look you begin to see the real value of our moral standard. It is not an instance of the fussiness of Mrs. Grundy. It is not an instance of slave morality imposed upon free people. It is not one of the arbitrary dicta of a tyrannical Church. It is rather the embodiment of the wisdom learnt through ages of varied and often tragic experience. It is an attempt to conserve for each rising generation the possibility of the best in the field of sexual experience. It does point out the way of happy, healthy, and complete life.

I have left to the end a thought about the marriage ceremony which will only appeal to some, but which I feel ought to have a place in this chapter. Many fine and sensitive lovers shrink from the publicity of ordinary weddings. Their love is to them so sacred and so personal a thing that they do not want to make any parade of themselves before a great gathering of relations and friends. Well! I know of no binding reason why such sensitive couples should call in the relations and friends. Those relations and friends like to rejoice with those who rejoice, because of a very human and kindly interest. And many couples, and especially many brides, greatly enjoy their friends on their marriage day. If, however, a couple prefer a private wedding that is their affair. But about the place and value of a religious ceremony I do want to add a word. If a man and a woman realize that their love is a sacred thing, I believe they will find they actually want to make the great step into final intimacy in the presence of God, and to stop for a moment ere they go up into that mysterious country to ask His blessing and guidance. I have said that at a certain point love itself demands intimacy, and that it is an entirely natural thing for us to desire it. But none the less it is a momentous hour in the life of any couple when they pass behind the last barriers and enter on a sacramental oneness of body. It is a wonderful hour—the hour of all others when the romance of life is most splendid. But just because it is that, and because the issues of that hour are so far-reaching, what could be more seemly than that they should pause for a moment on the threshold and ask the Giver of all love to bless and guide them! To kneel first together before Him, and then to pass on—to acknowledge His goodness as the author of love, and then to go up on to love's high places, what could be more just to the real facts! I know not with what solemnities those who do not believe in God are going to dignify that hour in life, but to all young men and women who do believe in God, I would like to say with all possible urgency: Be sure you do not take that great step until you can ask God's blessing on the taking of it. Be sure you pause a while to be quiet before Him ere you allow your love to have its final sway over you.

NOTE.—It will be said at once at this point by some, "That means the law is wrong in allowing the remarriage of divorced persons, because in that case there is a definite contradiction between the legal and the Christian standards."

I have deliberately excluded a discussion of the problem of divorce from this book because I am concerned with the unalterable truths about sex rather than with the social question of how best unhappy situations arising from sin can be remedied.

But at this point I must say a word. I conceive the Christian position to be "Marriage cannot be broken without sin." And that position the law endorses. It requires proof that in fact a marriage has been broken by sin, before it will sever the legal bonds.

I cannot, however, believe it to be a Christian interest to maintain the mock appearance of a marriage when (if ever) all moral content has disappeared from it. Christianity calls for an unlimited forgiveness. But when forgiveness and patience have failed and either husband or wife has found another connection or has even ceased to have any vital relation to his or her partner in marriage, then I feel that that marriage is morally dead. And dead things should be buried if possible.

There remains the question of remarriage.

If the law allows this and if Christianity says "There is a higher way to which God calls you," I do not think there is here an indefensible contradiction. It is a case of a higher and a lower way.

The law says "I will not compel you to remain unmarried." Christianity says "I will not compel you at all, but I call you in love's name."

That is exactly the situation we must accept in connection with many of Christ's precepts. Giving alms. Loving enemies. Refusing to judge. Refusing to swear, etc., etc. These are all clear Christian duties. But law cannot deal with them. All this seems to me quite plain. In common honesty, however, I must confess that it is not clear to me that the spirit of Christ does forbid the remarriage of a divorced person in all cases. Christian marriage always has love in it. It is not always there in actual marriage. We must think the whole matter out afresh in terms of love before we can understand the Christian way. Some things the world calls marriages are not really marriages at all to the Christian mind.