is in its essence a fact and not a contract, though it may give rise to contracts, so long as such contracts do not touch that essential fact.  And in one respect it will go beyond either the ecclesiastical conception or the civil conception.  Man has in recent times gained control of his own procreative powers, and that control involves a shifting of the centre of gravity of marriage, in so far as marriage is an affair of the State, from the vagina to the child which is the fruit of the womb.  Marriage as a state institution will centre, not around the sexual relationship, but around the child which is the outcome of that relationship.  In so far as marriage is an inviolable public contract it will be of such a nature that it will be capable of automatically covering with its protection every child that is born into the world, so that every child may possess a legal mother and a legal father.  On the one side, therefore, marriage is tending to become less stringent; on the other side it is tending to become more stringent.  On the personal side it is a sacred and intimate relationship with which the State has no concern; on the social side it is the assumption of the responsible public sponsorship of a new member of the State.  Some among us are working to further one of these aspects of marriage, some to further the other aspect.  Both are indispensable to establish a perfect harmony.  It is necessary to hold the two aspects of marriage apart, in order to do equal justice to the individual and to society, but in so far as marriage approaches its ideal state those two aspects become one.

We have now completed the discussion of marriage as it presents itself to the modern man born in what in mediaeval days was called Christendom.  It is not an easy subject to discuss.  It is indeed a very difficult subject, and only after many years is it possible to detect the main drift of its apparently opposing and confused currents when one is oneself in the midst of them.  To an Englishman it is, perhaps, peculiarly difficult, for the Englishman is nothing if not insular; in that fact lie whatever virtues he possesses, as well as their reverse sides.[374]

Yet it is worth while to attempt to climb to a height from which we can view the stream of social tendency in its true proportions and estimate its direction.  It is necessary to do so if we value our mental peace in an age when men’s minds are agitated by many petty movements which have nothing to do with their great temporal interests, to say nothing of their eternal interests.  When we have attained a wide vision of the solid biological facts of life, when we have grasped the great historical streams of tradition,—­which together make up the map of human affairs,—­we can face serenely the little social transitions which take place in our own age, as they have taken place in every age.

FOOTNOTES: 

[312] Rosenthal, of Breslau, from the legal side, goes so far as to argue ("Grundfragen des Eheproblems,” Die Neue Generation, Dec., 1908), that the intention of procreation is essential to the conception of legal marriage.