"Do not commit adultery."
As Moses minutely regulated the patriarchal household, making the nomad Jew's wife the queen of his tent, so Paul the Apostle carefully instructed the model priest, admonishing him to be content with one wife, and to be watchful over the conduct of his family, "having his children in subjection with all chastity."
(I may add that St. Paul lays down the law in a manner that condemns the Christian bishops who sell out their humble fellows who are unable to pay rent and tithes.)
The priests of Assyria and of Egypt were married men. The priests of the Jews were married men: the priests of the Romans were married men. The Bishops, or Popes, of Rome were married men, during the first four hundred years after Christ.
(See Dr. Angelo S. Rappoport's "Love Affairs of the Vatican," 3rd Edition, 1912, p. 9.)
Let no one misunderstand me: I freely admit that there are exceptional men and women who voluntarily choose the unmarried life. There have always been such exceptions to the rule, and there probably always will be: the reasons need not be discussed.
Those reasons do not necessarily imply a lack of virility: some men simply prefer not to take a wife; some women just naturally fear the loss of independence, or they never meet the King who will take no denial, or they nobly burden their lives with duties which demand self-sacrifice.
The six Vestals of old Rome were voluntary celibates: such men as Paul, Ben Zoma, Montaigne, Spinoza, were voluntary bachelors. It might have been far happier for John Wesley, Thomas Carlyle, and John Ruskin, had they persisted in the single state.
But enforced spinsterhood and bachelorhood, is a frightfully different thing. To say to men and women who have taken certain "vows," that they shall never seek happiness in marriage, never escape mental and physical longing and anguish, because of such "vows," is to put the selfish will of an earthly priesthood above the will of God.
It is impossible to conceive of a crucifixion of humanity more unnatural, more indefensible, and more necessarily horrible in its consequences.