a civil and religious contract, by which a man is joined and
united to a woman, for the ends of procreation. The essence of marriage
consists in the mutual consent of the parties. Marriage is a part of the
law of nations, and is in use among all people. The public use of
marriage institutions consists, according to Archdeacon Paley, in their
promoting the following beneficial effects: 1. The private comfort of
individuals. 2. The production of the greatest number of healthy
children, their better education, and the making of due provision for
their settlement in life. 3. The peace of human society, in cutting off
a principal source of contention, by assigning one or more women to one
man, and protecting his exclusive right by sanctions of morality and
law. 4. The better government of society, by distributing the community
into separate families, and appointing over each the authority of a
master of a family, which has more actual influence than all civil
authority put together. 5. The additional security which the state
receives for the good behaviour of its citizens, from the solicitude
they feel for the welfare of their children, and from their being
confined to permanent habitations. 6. The encouragement of industry.
Whether marriage be a civil or a religious contract, has been a subject
of dispute. The truth seems to be that it is both. It has its
engagements to men, and its vows to God. A Christian state recognizes
marriage as a branch of public morality, and a source of civil peace and
strength. It is connected with the peace of society by assigning one
woman to one man, and the state protects him, therefore, in her
exclusive possession. Christianity, by allowing divorce in the event of
adultery, supposes, also, that the crime must be proved by proper
evidence before the civil magistrate; and lest divorce should be the
result of unfounded suspicion, or be made a cover for license, the
decision of the case could safely be lodged no where else. Marriage,
too, as placing one human being more completely under the power of
another than any other relation, requires laws for the protection of
those who are thus so exposed to injury. The distribution of society
into families, also, can only be an instrument for promoting the order
of the community, by the cognizance which the law takes of the head of a
family, and by making him responsible, to a certain extent, for the
conduct of those under his influence. Questions of property are also
involved in marriage and its issue. The law must, therefore, for these
and many other weighty reasons, be cognizant of marriage; must prescribe
various regulations respecting it; require publicity of the contract;
and guard some of the great injunctions of religion in the matter by
penalties. In every well ordered society marriage must be placed under
the cognizance and control of the state. But then those who would have
the whole matter to lie between the parties themselves, and the civil
magistrate, appear wholly to forget that marriage is also a solemn
religious act, in which vows are made to God by both persons, who, when
the rite is properly understood, engage to abide by all those laws with
which he has guarded the institution; to love and cherish each other;
and to remain faithful to each other until death. For if, at least, they
profess belief in Christianity, whatever duties are laid upon husbands
and wives in Holy Scripture, they engage to obey, by the very act of
their contracting marriage. The question, then, is whether such vows to
God as are necessarily involved in marriage, are to be left between the
parties and God privately, or whether they ought to be publicly made
before his ministers and the church. On this the Scriptures are silent;
but though Michaëlis has shown that the priests under the law were not
appointed to celebrate marriage; yet in the practice of the modern Jews
it is a religious ceremony, the chief rabbi of the synagogue being
present, and prayers being appointed for the occasion. This renders it
probable that the character of the ceremony under the law, from the most
ancient times, was a religious one. The more direct connection of
marriage with religion in Christian states, by assigning its celebration
to the ministers of religion, appears to be a very beneficial custom,
and one which the state has a right to enjoin. For since the welfare and
morals of society are so much interested in the performance of the
mutual duties of the married state; and since those duties have a
religious as well as a civil character, it is most proper that some
provision should be made for explaining those duties; and for this a
standing form of marriage is best adapted. By acts of religion, also,
they are more solemnly impressed upon the parties. When this is
prescribed in any state, it becomes a Christian cheerfully, and even
thankfully, to comply with a custom of so important a tendency, as
matter of conscientious subjection to lawful authority, although no
Scriptural precept can be pleaded for it. That the ceremony should be
confined to the clergy of an established church, is a different
consideration. We think that the religious effect would be greater, were
the ministers of each religious body to be authorized by the state to
celebrate marriages among their own people, due provision being
previously made by the civil magistrate for the regular and secure
registry of them, and to prevent the laws respecting marriage from being
evaded; which is indeed his business. The offices of religion would then
come in by way of sanction and moral enforcement.
When this important contract is once made, then certain rights are
acquired by the parties mutually, who are also bound by reciprocal
duties, in the fulfilment of which the practical virtue of each
consists. And here the superior character of the morals of the New
Testament, as well as their higher authority, is illustrated. It may,
indeed, be within the scope of mere moralists to show that fidelity,and
affection, and all the courtesies necessary to maintain affection, are
rationally obligatory upon those who are connected by the nuptial bond;
but in Christianity nuptial fidelity is guarded by the express law, Thou
shalt not commit adultery;” and by our Lord’s exposition of the spirit
of that law which forbids the indulgence of loose thoughts and desires,
and places the purity of the heart under the guardianship of that
hallowed fear which his authority tends to inspire. Affection, too, is
made a matter of diligent cultivation upon considerations, and by a
standard, peculiar to our religion. Husbands are placed in a relation to
their wives, similar to that which Christ bears to his church, and his
example is thus made their rule. As Christ loved the church, so husbands
are to love their wives; as Christ gave himself,” his life, for the
church,” Eph. v, 25, so are they to hazard life for their wives; as
Christ saves his church, so is it the bounden duty of husbands to
endeavour, by every possible means, to promote the religious edification
and salvation of their wives. The connection is thus exalted into a
religious one; and when love which knows no abatement, protection at the
hazard of life, and a tender and constant solicitude for the salvation
of a wife, are thus enjoined, the greatest possible security is
established for the exercise of kindness and fidelity. The oneness of
this union is also more forcibly stated in Scripture than any where
beside. They twain shall be one flesh.” So ought men to love their wives
as their own bodies; he that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man
ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as
the Lord the church.” Precept and illustration can go no higher than
this; and nothing evidently is wanting either of direction or authority
to raise the state of marriage into the highest, most endearing, and
sanctified relation in which two human beings can stand to each other.
2. We find but few laws in the books of Moses concerning the institution
of marriage. Though the Mosaic law no where obliges men to marry, the
Jews have always looked upon it as an indispensable duty implied in the
words, Increase and multiply,” Gen. i, 28; so that a man who did not
marry his daughter before she was twenty years of age, was looked upon
as accessary to any irregularities the young woman might be guilty of
for want of being timely married. Moses restrained the Israelites from
marrying within certain degrees of consanguinity; which had till then
been permitted, to prevent their taking wives from among the idolatrous
nations among whom they lived. Abraham gave this as a reason for
choosing a wife for Isaac from among his own kindred, Gen. xxxiv, 3, &c.
But when his descendants became so exceedingly multiplied, this reason
ceased; and the great lawgiver prohibited, under pain of death, certain
degrees of kindred as incestuous. Polygamy, though not expressly
allowed, is however tacitly implied in the laws of Moses, Gen. xxxi;
Exod. xxi, 10. This practice likewise was authorized by the example of
the patriarchs. Thus Jacob married both the daughters of Laban. In
respect to which custom, Moses enjoins that, upon the marriage of a
second wife, a man shall be bound to continue to the first her food,
raiment, and the duty of marriage. The Jews did not always content
themselves with the allowance of two wives, as may be seen in the
examples of David, Solomon, and many others. However, they made a
distinction between the wives of the first rank, and those of the
second. The first they called _nashim_, and the other _pilgashim_; which
last, though most versions render it by the words concubines,” harlots,”
and prostitutes,” yet it has no where in Scripture any such bad sense.
There is a particular law called the Levirate, which obliged a man,
whose brother died without issue, to marry his widow, and raise up seed
to his brother, Deut. xxv, 5, &c. But Moses in some measure left it to a
man’s choice, whether he would comply with this law or not; for in case
of a refusal, the widow could only summon him before the judges of the
place, when, if he persisted, she untied his shoe, and spit in his face,
and said, “Thus shall it be done unto the man who refuses to build up
his brother’s house.” A man was at liberty to marry not only in the
twelve tribes, but even out of them, provided it was among such nations
as used circumcision; such were the Midianites, Ishmaelites, Edomites,
Moabites, and Egyptians. Accordingly, we find Moses himself married to a
Midianite, and Boaz to a Moabite. Amasa was the son of Jether, an
Ishmaelite, by Abigail, David’s sister; and Solomon, in the beginning of
his reign, married Pharaoh’s daughter. Whenever we find him and other
kings blamed for marrying strange women, we must understand it of those
nations which were idolatrous and uncircumcised.
It appears almost impossible to Europeans, says Mr. Hartley, that a
deception like that of Laban’s could be practised. But the following
extract, from a journal which I kept at Smyrna, presents a parallel
case: “The Armenian brides are veiled during the marriage ceremony; and
hence deceptions have occurred, in regard to the person chosen for wife.
I am informed that, on one occasion, a young Armenian at Smyrna
solicited in marriage a younger daughter, whom he admired. The parents
of the girl consented to the request, and every previous arrangement was
made. When the time for solemnizing the marriage arrived, the elder
daughter, who was not so beautiful, was conducted by the parents to the
altar, and the young man was unconsciously married to her. And ‘it came
to pass, that in the morning, behold, it was the elder daughter.’ The
deceit was not discovered, till it could not be rectified; and the
manner in which the parents justified themselves was precisely that of
Laban: ‘It must not be so done in our country, to give the younger
before the first-born.’ It is really the rule among the Armenians, that
neither a younger son nor daughter be married, till their elder brother
or sister have preceded them.” I was once present at the solemnization
of matrimony among the Armenians; and some recollections of it may tend
to throw light on this and other passages of Scripture. The various
festivities attendant on these occasions continue for three days; and
during the last night the marriage is celebrated. I was conducted to the
house of the bride, where I found a very large assemblage of persons.
The company was dispersed through various rooms; reminding me of the
directions of our Saviour, in regard to the choice of the lowermost
rooms at feasts. On the ground floor I actually observed that the
persons convened were of an inferior order of the community, while in
the upper rooms were assembled those of higher rank. The large number of
young females who were present, naturally reminded me of the wise and
foolish virgins in our Saviour’s parable. These being friends of the
bride, the virgins, her companions, had come to meet the bridegroom,
Psalm xlv, 14. It is usual for the bridegroom to come at midnight; so
that, literally, at midnight the cry is made, Behold, the bridegroom
cometh! go ye out to meet him,” Matt. xxv, 6. But, on this occasion the
bridegroom tarried: it was two o’clock before he arrived. The whole
party then proceeded to the Armenian church, where the bishop was
waiting to receive them; and there the ceremony was completed. See
DIVORCE and BRIDE.
MARTHA was sister of Lazarus and Mary, and mistress of the house where
our Saviour was entertained, in the village of Bethany. Martha is always
named before Mary, probably because she was the elder sister.
united to a woman, for the ends of procreation. The essence of marriage
consists in the mutual consent of the parties. Marriage is a part of the
law of nations, and is in use among all people. The public use of
marriage institutions consists, according to Archdeacon Paley, in their
promoting the following beneficial effects: 1. The private comfort of
individuals. 2. The production of the greatest number of healthy
children, their better education, and the making of due provision for
their settlement in life. 3. The peace of human society, in cutting off
a principal source of contention, by assigning one or more women to one
man, and protecting his exclusive right by sanctions of morality and
law. 4. The better government of society, by distributing the community
into separate families, and appointing over each the authority of a
master of a family, which has more actual influence than all civil
authority put together. 5. The additional security which the state
receives for the good behaviour of its citizens, from the solicitude
they feel for the welfare of their children, and from their being
confined to permanent habitations. 6. The encouragement of industry.
Whether marriage be a civil or a religious contract, has been a subject
of dispute. The truth seems to be that it is both. It has its
engagements to men, and its vows to God. A Christian state recognizes
marriage as a branch of public morality, and a source of civil peace and
strength. It is connected with the peace of society by assigning one
woman to one man, and the state protects him, therefore, in her
exclusive possession. Christianity, by allowing divorce in the event of
adultery, supposes, also, that the crime must be proved by proper
evidence before the civil magistrate; and lest divorce should be the
result of unfounded suspicion, or be made a cover for license, the
decision of the case could safely be lodged no where else. Marriage,
too, as placing one human being more completely under the power of
another than any other relation, requires laws for the protection of
those who are thus so exposed to injury. The distribution of society
into families, also, can only be an instrument for promoting the order
of the community, by the cognizance which the law takes of the head of a
family, and by making him responsible, to a certain extent, for the
conduct of those under his influence. Questions of property are also
involved in marriage and its issue. The law must, therefore, for these
and many other weighty reasons, be cognizant of marriage; must prescribe
various regulations respecting it; require publicity of the contract;
and guard some of the great injunctions of religion in the matter by
penalties. In every well ordered society marriage must be placed under
the cognizance and control of the state. But then those who would have
the whole matter to lie between the parties themselves, and the civil
magistrate, appear wholly to forget that marriage is also a solemn
religious act, in which vows are made to God by both persons, who, when
the rite is properly understood, engage to abide by all those laws with
which he has guarded the institution; to love and cherish each other;
and to remain faithful to each other until death. For if, at least, they
profess belief in Christianity, whatever duties are laid upon husbands
and wives in Holy Scripture, they engage to obey, by the very act of
their contracting marriage. The question, then, is whether such vows to
God as are necessarily involved in marriage, are to be left between the
parties and God privately, or whether they ought to be publicly made
before his ministers and the church. On this the Scriptures are silent;
but though Michaëlis has shown that the priests under the law were not
appointed to celebrate marriage; yet in the practice of the modern Jews
it is a religious ceremony, the chief rabbi of the synagogue being
present, and prayers being appointed for the occasion. This renders it
probable that the character of the ceremony under the law, from the most
ancient times, was a religious one. The more direct connection of
marriage with religion in Christian states, by assigning its celebration
to the ministers of religion, appears to be a very beneficial custom,
and one which the state has a right to enjoin. For since the welfare and
morals of society are so much interested in the performance of the
mutual duties of the married state; and since those duties have a
religious as well as a civil character, it is most proper that some
provision should be made for explaining those duties; and for this a
standing form of marriage is best adapted. By acts of religion, also,
they are more solemnly impressed upon the parties. When this is
prescribed in any state, it becomes a Christian cheerfully, and even
thankfully, to comply with a custom of so important a tendency, as
matter of conscientious subjection to lawful authority, although no
Scriptural precept can be pleaded for it. That the ceremony should be
confined to the clergy of an established church, is a different
consideration. We think that the religious effect would be greater, were
the ministers of each religious body to be authorized by the state to
celebrate marriages among their own people, due provision being
previously made by the civil magistrate for the regular and secure
registry of them, and to prevent the laws respecting marriage from being
evaded; which is indeed his business. The offices of religion would then
come in by way of sanction and moral enforcement.
When this important contract is once made, then certain rights are
acquired by the parties mutually, who are also bound by reciprocal
duties, in the fulfilment of which the practical virtue of each
consists. And here the superior character of the morals of the New
Testament, as well as their higher authority, is illustrated. It may,
indeed, be within the scope of mere moralists to show that fidelity,and
affection, and all the courtesies necessary to maintain affection, are
rationally obligatory upon those who are connected by the nuptial bond;
but in Christianity nuptial fidelity is guarded by the express law, Thou
shalt not commit adultery;” and by our Lord’s exposition of the spirit
of that law which forbids the indulgence of loose thoughts and desires,
and places the purity of the heart under the guardianship of that
hallowed fear which his authority tends to inspire. Affection, too, is
made a matter of diligent cultivation upon considerations, and by a
standard, peculiar to our religion. Husbands are placed in a relation to
their wives, similar to that which Christ bears to his church, and his
example is thus made their rule. As Christ loved the church, so husbands
are to love their wives; as Christ gave himself,” his life, for the
church,” Eph. v, 25, so are they to hazard life for their wives; as
Christ saves his church, so is it the bounden duty of husbands to
endeavour, by every possible means, to promote the religious edification
and salvation of their wives. The connection is thus exalted into a
religious one; and when love which knows no abatement, protection at the
hazard of life, and a tender and constant solicitude for the salvation
of a wife, are thus enjoined, the greatest possible security is
established for the exercise of kindness and fidelity. The oneness of
this union is also more forcibly stated in Scripture than any where
beside. They twain shall be one flesh.” So ought men to love their wives
as their own bodies; he that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man
ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as
the Lord the church.” Precept and illustration can go no higher than
this; and nothing evidently is wanting either of direction or authority
to raise the state of marriage into the highest, most endearing, and
sanctified relation in which two human beings can stand to each other.
2. We find but few laws in the books of Moses concerning the institution
of marriage. Though the Mosaic law no where obliges men to marry, the
Jews have always looked upon it as an indispensable duty implied in the
words, Increase and multiply,” Gen. i, 28; so that a man who did not
marry his daughter before she was twenty years of age, was looked upon
as accessary to any irregularities the young woman might be guilty of
for want of being timely married. Moses restrained the Israelites from
marrying within certain degrees of consanguinity; which had till then
been permitted, to prevent their taking wives from among the idolatrous
nations among whom they lived. Abraham gave this as a reason for
choosing a wife for Isaac from among his own kindred, Gen. xxxiv, 3, &c.
But when his descendants became so exceedingly multiplied, this reason
ceased; and the great lawgiver prohibited, under pain of death, certain
degrees of kindred as incestuous. Polygamy, though not expressly
allowed, is however tacitly implied in the laws of Moses, Gen. xxxi;
Exod. xxi, 10. This practice likewise was authorized by the example of
the patriarchs. Thus Jacob married both the daughters of Laban. In
respect to which custom, Moses enjoins that, upon the marriage of a
second wife, a man shall be bound to continue to the first her food,
raiment, and the duty of marriage. The Jews did not always content
themselves with the allowance of two wives, as may be seen in the
examples of David, Solomon, and many others. However, they made a
distinction between the wives of the first rank, and those of the
second. The first they called _nashim_, and the other _pilgashim_; which
last, though most versions render it by the words concubines,” harlots,”
and prostitutes,” yet it has no where in Scripture any such bad sense.
There is a particular law called the Levirate, which obliged a man,
whose brother died without issue, to marry his widow, and raise up seed
to his brother, Deut. xxv, 5, &c. But Moses in some measure left it to a
man’s choice, whether he would comply with this law or not; for in case
of a refusal, the widow could only summon him before the judges of the
place, when, if he persisted, she untied his shoe, and spit in his face,
and said, “Thus shall it be done unto the man who refuses to build up
his brother’s house.” A man was at liberty to marry not only in the
twelve tribes, but even out of them, provided it was among such nations
as used circumcision; such were the Midianites, Ishmaelites, Edomites,
Moabites, and Egyptians. Accordingly, we find Moses himself married to a
Midianite, and Boaz to a Moabite. Amasa was the son of Jether, an
Ishmaelite, by Abigail, David’s sister; and Solomon, in the beginning of
his reign, married Pharaoh’s daughter. Whenever we find him and other
kings blamed for marrying strange women, we must understand it of those
nations which were idolatrous and uncircumcised.
It appears almost impossible to Europeans, says Mr. Hartley, that a
deception like that of Laban’s could be practised. But the following
extract, from a journal which I kept at Smyrna, presents a parallel
case: “The Armenian brides are veiled during the marriage ceremony; and
hence deceptions have occurred, in regard to the person chosen for wife.
I am informed that, on one occasion, a young Armenian at Smyrna
solicited in marriage a younger daughter, whom he admired. The parents
of the girl consented to the request, and every previous arrangement was
made. When the time for solemnizing the marriage arrived, the elder
daughter, who was not so beautiful, was conducted by the parents to the
altar, and the young man was unconsciously married to her. And ‘it came
to pass, that in the morning, behold, it was the elder daughter.’ The
deceit was not discovered, till it could not be rectified; and the
manner in which the parents justified themselves was precisely that of
Laban: ‘It must not be so done in our country, to give the younger
before the first-born.’ It is really the rule among the Armenians, that
neither a younger son nor daughter be married, till their elder brother
or sister have preceded them.” I was once present at the solemnization
of matrimony among the Armenians; and some recollections of it may tend
to throw light on this and other passages of Scripture. The various
festivities attendant on these occasions continue for three days; and
during the last night the marriage is celebrated. I was conducted to the
house of the bride, where I found a very large assemblage of persons.
The company was dispersed through various rooms; reminding me of the
directions of our Saviour, in regard to the choice of the lowermost
rooms at feasts. On the ground floor I actually observed that the
persons convened were of an inferior order of the community, while in
the upper rooms were assembled those of higher rank. The large number of
young females who were present, naturally reminded me of the wise and
foolish virgins in our Saviour’s parable. These being friends of the
bride, the virgins, her companions, had come to meet the bridegroom,
Psalm xlv, 14. It is usual for the bridegroom to come at midnight; so
that, literally, at midnight the cry is made, Behold, the bridegroom
cometh! go ye out to meet him,” Matt. xxv, 6. But, on this occasion the
bridegroom tarried: it was two o’clock before he arrived. The whole
party then proceeded to the Armenian church, where the bishop was
waiting to receive them; and there the ceremony was completed. See
DIVORCE and BRIDE.
MARTHA was sister of Lazarus and Mary, and mistress of the house where
our Saviour was entertained, in the village of Bethany. Martha is always
named before Mary, probably because she was the elder sister.