Jasper County Democrat, Volume 18, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 May 1915 — Ancient Marriage Laws Do Not Fit Conditions of the Present Time [ARTICLE]

Ancient Marriage Laws Do Not Fit Conditions of the Present Time

By Rev. PERCY STICKNEY GRANT,

Pastor of the Episcopal

Church of the Ascension, New York City

THE old marriage laws considered women merely the chattels of their husbands. We arc told in the Ten Commandments not to covet our neighbor’s wife and are forbidden in the same sentence to covet his ox or his ass or anything that is his, THERE IS NO IDEA OF SPIRITUAL WRONG TO THE NEIGHBOR INVOLVED IN THIS PROHIBITION—MERELY THAT OF PROPERTY WRONG. THE. HEBREW POINT OF VIEW AT THIS TIME WAS A SURVIVAL OF THE PERIOD WHEN WIVES WERE BOUGHT AND SOLD. This conception of the wife as the property of the husband continued in a more or less modified form until a comparatively recent date. We find that most of the poetry and romance of the middle ages dealt with interests and attachments outside family life, and many of them were inimical to its comfort. The vast majority of marriages were arranged by the parents or relatives of the contracting parties, and the question of mutual love was regarded as negligible or at best secondary. . In the last hundred years, however, the property idea has gone, and America at least does not stand for the marriage of convenience. WOMAN IS NO LONGER A CHATTEL. SHE HAS ATTAINED AN ECONOMIC INDEPENDENCE WHICH GIVES HER THE PRIVILEGE OF REMAINING UNMARRIED IF SHE SO CHOOSES WITHOUT SACRIFICE OF DIGNITY, AND SHE IS NO LONGER FORCED TO REMAIN MARRIED TO A MAN WHO IS ABHORRENT TO HER IN ORDER TO BE SUPPORTED.