This brings me directly to the institution of Marriage, respecting which so much has been said of late. Like all other institutions, it belongs to the external and Mosaic, and looks to the external relations of the parties. Its necessity is based upon the same selfish and lustful principle in man, as is the necessity of all other external institutions.
Its office is protection, not purification. Hence all its laws look to legal security, but do not attempt to elevate and purify the affections. Those who have written and spoken against the external marriage institution have acted very unphilosophically in supposing that the fault of which they complain was in the institution and not in themselves. I will endeavor to make this apparent.
In the first place, I will do them the justice to say, that the external institution is in character but little, if any, better than they affirm of it; that it is made the means of rendering respectable the grossest lusts; that there is no Christian difference between lust within and lust without the forms of wedlock; that the individual who looks upon another with a lustful desire, when tried by the standard of Jesus, is an adulterer, whether sustaining the external marital relation or not.
In speaking of the abuses of this institution, I would not have them abate their zeal by ceasing to proclaim its infidelity to that inward purity of soul so essential to the true Christian union; but I would have them make a very different use of the fact.
The use which many, and perhaps most of those who oppose the external institution of marriage make of its lustful abuses, is rather to palliate the conduct of those who are lustful outside of its license, by showing that, at heart, they do not differ from those who indulge in the same lustful desires and exercises under its licentious permission; thus very naturally taking license, and, when censured by others, pleading the respectable guilt of others as their excuse.
In speaking of the abuses of the marriage institution, I would not plead them in mitigation of lust; nor would I make them the occasion of license. I would refer to them for the purpose of condemning more strongly the foul practice of seeking gratification in that direction.
It is not to be objected to the external institution of marriage that under its sanction the grossest of lusts are practiced in the name of virtue, and that the weightiest evils are the result. Such is not the fault of the institution, but of those who use it for that purpose; and were it not for the institution, under the present lustful condition of society, the same practice would become universal, and would be as respectable as it now is under the sanctions of wedlock. If the external institution does not restrain the exercise of lust between the parties thereof, it does render disreputable its exercise beyond, and thus exerts an influence for good to that extent. It does not make the comer thereunto perfect in his character; but it tends to restrain him in the exercise of his lust toward others, and thus confines its evils to a narrower sphere. One of the greatest moral benefits of the legal institution of marriage is that it tends to restrict the lustful practices of the parties to themselves; and, in reality, this is the bondage of which the objector complains.
The advocate of that which is called "free love" complains that under the legal institution of marriage the parties are prohibited from following their attractions or passional affinities; that although they might have been suited to each other at the time of the union, that circumstances and tastes have changed; that love requires variety, and that in matters of love each ought to be at liberty to follow its leadings. The first great error into which the advocate of free love falls is in mistaking lust for love. The doctrine that love changes is a fundamental error, and of itself demonstrates that the objector has mistaken lust for love. The true impulse known as love has an immutable basis, and will be as constant as the relation and need through which and for which it became manifest.
The nature of hunger and thirst, as expressive of the needs of the body for food and drink, never changes; and the gratification incident to the proper supply of those needs never changes until abuse and disease have wrought their work. Man’s desire for particular kinds of food may change; but that has respect to lustful gratification rather than the supply of a real need.
Remembering our definition of lust to be a desire for self-gratification, we shall find that this change and variety in food and drink looks more to the gratification of desires than to the fulfilling of needs, and therefore belongs to the class of lusts.