Chapter VI - Marriage
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forms the body, if you understood the science of being.
forms the body, if you understood the science of being.
Man is the offspring of Spirit; the beautiful, good and
pure are his ancestors; his origin is not brute instinct,
nor does he pass through material conditions up to man.
Spirit is his primitive and ultimate being, and God his
Father.
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The rights of woman are discussed on grounds that
The rights of woman are discussed on grounds that
seem to us not the most important. Law establishes
a very unnatural difference between the rights of the
two sexes; but science furnishes no precedent for such
injustice, and civilization brings, in some measure, its
mitigation, therefore it is a marvel that society should
accord her less than either. Our laws are not impartial,
to say the least, relative to the person, property, and
parental claims of the two sexes; and if the elective
enfranchisement of woman would remedy this evil with-
out incurring difficulties of greater magnitude, we hope
it will be effected. A very tenable means at present,
is to improve society in general, and achieve a nobler
manhood to frame our laws. If a dissolute husband
deserts his wife, it should not follow that the wronged
and perchance impoverished woman cannot collect her
own wages, or enter into agreements, hold real estate,
deposit funds, or surely claim her own offspring free
from his right of interference. A want of reciprocity
in society is a great want that the selfishness of the
world has occasioned. Our forefathers exercised their
faith in the direction St. James taught, "To visit the
fatherless and widows, and keep yourself unspotted
from the world "; but ostentation, the master of cere-
monies, and stereotyped belief have ruled out primitive
Christianity, so that when a man would lend a helping
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hand to some noble woman, struggling alone with adver-
hand to some noble woman, struggling alone with adver-
sity, his more prudent wife saith "'Tis never best to
interfere with thy neighbor's business."
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Again, a wife is withheld from the ready aid her
Again, a wife is withheld from the ready aid her
sympathy and charity would afford, by some domestic
tyrant. The time cometh when marriage will be a union
of hearts; and again, the time cometh when there will
be no marrying or giving in marriage, but we shall be
as the angels; the Soul rejoicing in its own mate wherein
the masculine Wisdom and feminine Love are embraced
in the understanding. Because progeny needs to be
improved, let marriage continue, and permit no break-
ing down of law whereby a worse state of society is
produced, than at present.
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Puritanical honesty and virtue should be the stabil-
Puritanical honesty and virtue should be the stabil-
ity of this covenant; Soul will ultimately claim its own,
and the voices of personal sense be hushed. Marriage
should be the school of virtue, and offspring the germ
of man's highest nature. Christ, Truth, should be
present at the altar, to turn the water into wine, giving
inspiration to understanding, whereby man's spiritual
origin and existence are discerned. If the foundations
of affection are consistent with progress, its vows will
be strong and enduring. Divorces inform the age that
some fundamental error in this union is the source of
its discord. To gain the science, hence the harmony of
this relation, we should regard it more metaphysically
and less physically.
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The broad-cast power of evil so conspicuous to-day,
The broad-cast power of evil so conspicuous to-day,
is the materialism of the age struggling against the spir-
itual era, that advances; beholding the world's lack
of Christianity, and the powerlessness of promises, to