It should be indissoluble, because conscience is immutable, and the spouses could not procure an exchange without being guilty of sacrilege. If they are obliged to separate, "the deserving one needs only to heal the wounds made in his heart and conscience, the other has no longer the right to aspire to marriage, but must be content with concubinage."—Id.
What do you think of this theory?
AUTHOR. Hitherto I have refused to believe in the god Proteus; but on contemplating you, Master, I abjure my incredulity.
You appear to us first under the garb and form of Manou, and we discuss his physiology;
You appear to us next, successively, in the shape and vestments of Moses, St. Thomas Aquinas, and St. Bonaventure; you are incarnated for a moment in Paracelsus;
Lastly, you put on the Roman toga, over which you wrap the ungraceful robe of Auguste Comte.
All this is too old, too unsightly for our age.... Have you really nothing better to give us than the resurrection of the Roman law at the glorious time when Cincinnatus ate his dish of lentils stark naked?
PROUDHON. What! do you dispute that marriage by confarreation is not the masterpiece of the human conscience?
AUTHOR. Do I dispute it? Yes, indeed, and many other things beside. But tell me, what meaning do you give to the words sacrament and mystery, that sound so hollow and false from your lips?
PROUDHON. Despite all my explanations concerning marriage, there nevertheless remains a mystery with respect to it. This is all I can tell you in elucidation. You must comprehend that "marriage is an institution sui generis, formed at the same time at the tribunal of human justice by contract, and at the spiritual tribunal by sacrament, and which perishes as soon as the one or the other of these two elements disappears."—Id.