We have now completed the discussion of marriage as it presents itself to the modern man born in what in mediæval days was called Christendom. It is not an easy subject to discuss. It is indeed a very difficult subject, and only after many years is it possible to detect the main drift of its apparently opposing and confused currents when one is oneself in the midst of them. To an Englishman it is, perhaps, peculiarly difficult, for the Englishman is nothing if not insular; in that fact lie whatever virtues he possesses, as well as their reverse sides.[[374]]
Yet it is worth while to attempt to climb to a height from which we can view the stream of social tendency in its true proportions and estimate its direction. It is necessary to do so if we value our mental peace in an age when men's minds are agitated by many petty movements which have nothing to do with their great temporal interests, to say nothing of their eternal interests. When we have attained a wide vision of the solid biological facts of life, when we have grasped the great historical streams of tradition,—which together make up the map of human affairs,—we can face serenely the little social transitions which take place in our own age, as they have taken place in every age.
Rosenthal, of Breslau, from the legal side, goes so far as to argue ("Grundfragen des Eheproblems," Die Neue Generation, Dec., 1908), that the intention of procreation is essential to the conception of legal marriage.
J. A. Godfrey, Science of Sex, p. 119.