Chapter 3 — Marriage

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 What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put
 asunder. In the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given
 in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.
Jesus.

1 WHEN our great Teacher came to him for baptism,
 John was astounded. Reading his thoughts, Jesus
3 added: “Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us
 to fulfil all righteousness.” Jesus’ concessions (in certain
 cases) to material methods were for the advancement of
6 spiritual good.

Marriage temporal

 Marriage is the legal and moral provision for genera-
 tion among human kind. Until the spiritual creation
9 is discerned intact, is apprehended and under-
 stood, and His kingdom is come as in the vision
 of the Apocalypse, — where the corporeal sense of crea-
12 tion was cast out, and its spiritual sense was revealed from
 heaven, — marriage will continue, subject to such moral
 regulations as will secure increasing virtue.

Fidelity required

15 Infidelity to the marriage covenant is the social scourge
 of all races, “the pestilence that walketh in darkness,
 . . . the destruction that wasteth at noonday.”
18 The commandment, “Thou shalt not com-
 mit adultery,” is no less imperative than the one, “Thou
 shalt not kill.”


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1 Chastity is the cement of civilization and progress.
 Without it there is no stability in society, and without it
3 one cannot attain the Science of Life.

Mental elements

 Union of the masculine and feminine qualities consti-
 tutes completeness. The masculine mind reaches a
6 higher tone through certain elements of the
 feminine, while the feminine mind gains cour-
 age and strength through masculine qualities. These
9 different elements conjoin naturally with each other, and
 their true harmony is in spiritual oneness. Both sexes
 should be loving, pure, tender, and strong. The attrac-
12 tion between native qualities will be perpetual only as it
 is pure and true, bringing sweet seasons of renewal like
 the returning spring.

Affection’s demands

15 Beauty, wealth, or fame is incompetent to meet the
 demands of the affections, and should never weigh
 against the better claims of intellect, good-
18 ness, and virtue. Happiness is spiritual,
 born of Truth and Love. It is unselfish; therefore
 it cannot exist alone, but requires all mankind to
21 share it.

Help and discipline

 Human affection is not poured forth vainly, even
 though it meet no return. Love enriches the nature, en-
24 larging, purifying, and elevating it. The wintry
 blasts of earth may uproot the flowers of affec-
 tion, and scatter them to the winds; but this severance
27 of fleshly ties serves to unite thought more closely to
 God, for Love supports the struggling heart until it ceases
 to sigh over the world and begins to unfold its wings for
30 heaven.

 Marriage is unblest or blest, according to the disap-
 pointments it involves or the hopes it fulfils. To happify


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1 existence by constant intercourse with those adapted to
 elevate it, should be the motive of society. Unity of
3 spirit gives new pinions to joy, or else joy’s drooping
 wings trail in dust.

Chord and discord

 Ill-arranged notes produce discord. Tones of the
6 human mind may be different, but they should be con-
 cordant in order to blend properly. Unselfish
 ambition, noble life-motives, and purity, —
9 these constituents of thought, mingling, constitute in-
 dividually and collectively true happiness, strength, and
 permanence.

Mutual freedom

12 There is moral freedom in Soul. Never contract the
 horizon of a worthy outlook by the selfish exaction of
 all another’s time and thoughts. With ad-
15 ditional joys, benevolence should grow more
 diffusive. The narrowness and jealousy, which would
 confine a wife or a husband forever within four walls, will
18 not promote the sweet interchange of confidence and love;
 but on the other hand, a wandering desire for incessant
 amusement outside the home circle is a poor augury for
21 the happiness of wedlock. Home is the dearest spot on
 earth, and it should be the centre, though not the bound-
 ary, of the affections.

A useful suggestion

24 Said the peasant bride to her lover: “Two eat no more
 together than they eat separately.” This is a hint that
 a wife ought not to court vulgar extravagance
27 or stupid ease, because another supplies her
 wants. Wealth may obviate the necessity for toil or the
 chance for ill-nature in the marriage relation, but noth-
30 ing can abolish the cares of marriage.

Differing duties

 “She that is married careth . . . how she may please
 her husband,” says the Bible; and this is the pleasantest


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1 thing to do. Matrimony should never be entered into
 without a full recognition of its enduring obligations on
3 both sides. There should be the most tender
 solicitude for each other’s happiness, and mu-
 tual attention and approbation should wait on all the years
6 of married life.

 Mutual compromises will often maintain a compact
 which might otherwise become unbearable. Man should
9 not be required to participate in all the annoyances and
 cares of domestic economy, nor should woman be ex-
 pected to understand political economy. Fulfilling the
12 different demands of their united spheres, their sympa-
 thies should blend in sweet confidence and cheer, each
 partner sustaining the other, — thus hallowing the union
15 of interests and affections, in which the heart finds peace
 and home.

Trysting renewed

 Tender words and unselfish care in what promotes the
18 welfare and happiness of your wife will prove more salutary
 in prolonging her health and smiles than stolid
 indifference or jealousy. Husbands, hear this
21 and remember how slight a word or deed may renew the
 old trysting-times.

 After marriage, it is too late to grumble over incompati-
24 bility of disposition. A mutual understanding should
 exist before this union and continue ever after, for decep-
 tion is fatal to happiness.

Permanent obligation

27 The nuptial vow should never be annulled, so long as
 its moral obligations are kept intact; but the frequency
 of divorce shows that the sacredness of this re-
30 lationship is losing its influence, and that fatal
 mistakes are undermining its foundations. Separation
 never should take place, and it never would, if both


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1 husband and wife were genuine Christian Scientists.
 Science inevitably lifts one’s being higher in the scale of
3 harmony and happiness.

Permanent affection

 Kindred tastes, motives, and aspirations are necessary
 to the formation of a happy and permanent companion-
6 ship. The beautiful in character is also the
 good, welding indissolubly the links of affec-
 tion. A mother’s affection cannot be weaned from her
9 child, because the mother-love includes purity and con-
 stancy, both of which are immortal. Therefore maternal
 affection lives on under whatever difficulties.
12 From the logic of events we learn that selfishness
 and impurity alone are fleeting, and that wisdom will
 ultimately put asunder what she hath not joined
15 together.

Centre for affections

 Marriage should improve the human species, becoming
 a barrier against vice, a protection to woman, strength to
18 man, and a centre for the affections. This,
 however, in a majority of cases, is not its
 present tendency, and why? Because the education of
21 the higher nature is neglected, and other considerations,
 — passion, frivolous amusements, personal adornment,
 display, and pride, — occupy thought.

Spiritual concord

24 An ill-attuned ear calls discord harmony, not appreciat-
 ing concord. So physical sense, not discerning the true
 happiness of being, places it on a false basis.
27 Science will correct the discord, and teach us
 life’s sweeter harmonies.

 Soul has infinite resources with which to bless mankind,
30 and happiness would be more readily attained and would
 be more secure in our keeping, if sought in Soul. Higher
 enjoyments alone can satisfy the cravings of immortal


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1 man. We cannot circumscribe happiness within the
 limits of personal sense. The senses confer no real
3 enjoyment.

Ascendency of good

 The good in human affections must have ascendency
 over the evil and the spiritual over the animal, or happi-
6 ness will never be won. The attainment of
 this celestial condition would improve our
 progeny, diminish crime, and give higher aims to ambi-
9 tion. Every valley of sin must be exalted, and every
 mountain of selfishness be brought low, that the highway
 of our God may be prepared in Science. The offspring
12 of heavenly-minded parents inherit more intellect, better
 balanced minds, and sounder constitutions.

Propensities inherited

 If some fortuitous circumstance places promising chil-
15 dren in the arms of gross parents, often these beautiful
 children early droop and die, like tropical
 flowers born amid Alpine snows. If perchance
18 they live to become parents in their turn, they may re-
 produce in their own helpless little ones the grosser traits
 of their ancestors. What hope of happiness, what noble
21 ambition, can inspire the child who inherits propensities
 that must either be overcome or reduce him to a loath-
 some wreck?

24 Is not the propagation of the human species a greater
 responsibility, a more solemn charge, than the culture of
 your garden or the raising of stock to increase your flocks
27 and herds? Nothing unworthy of perpetuity should be
 transmitted to children.

 The formation of mortals must greatly improve to
30 advance mankind. The scientific morale of marriage is
 spiritual unity. If the propagation of a higher human
 species is requisite to reach this goal, then its material con-


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1 ditions can only be permitted for the purpose of gener-
 ating. The foetus must be kept mentally pure and the
3 period of gestation have the sanctity of virginity.

 The entire education of children should be such as to
 form habits of obedience to the moral and spiritual law,
6 with which the child can meet and master the belief in so-
 called physical laws, a belief which breeds disease.

Inheritance heeded

 If parents create in their babes a desire for incessant
9 amusement, to be always fed, rocked, tossed, or talked
 to, those parents should not, in after years,
 complain of their children’s fretfulness or fri-
12 volity, which the parents themselves have occasioned.
 Taking less “thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or
 what ye shall drink”; less thought “for your body what
15 ye shall put on,” will do much more for the health of the
 rising generation than you dream. Children should be
 allowed to remain children in knowledge, and should
18 become men and women only through growth in the
 understanding of man’s higher nature.

The Mind creative

 We must not attribute more and more intelligence
21 to matter, but less and less, if we would be wise and
 healthy. The divine Mind, which forms the
 bud and blossom, will care for the human
24 body, even as it clothes the lily; but let no mortal inter-
 fere with God’s government by thrusting in the laws of
 erring, human concepts.

Superior law of Soul

27 The higher nature of man is not governed by the lower;
 if it were, the order of wisdom would be reversed.
 Our false views of life hide eternal harmony,
30 and produce the ills of which we complain.
 Because mortals believe in material laws and reject the
 Science of Mind, this does not make materiality first and


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1 the superior law of Soul last. You would never think
 that flannel was better for warding off pulmonary disease
3 than the controlling Mind, if you understood the Science
 of being.

Spiritual origin

 In Science man is the offspring of Spirit. The beauti-
6 ful, good, and pure constitute his ancestry. His origin is
 not, like that of mortals, in brute instinct, nor
 does he pass through material conditions prior
9 to reaching intelligence. Spirit is his primitive and ulti-
 mate source of being; God is his Father, and Life is the
 law of his being.

The rights of woman

12 Civil law establishes very unfair differences between the
 rights of the two sexes. Christian Science furnishes no
 precedent for such injustice, and civilization
15 mitigates it in some measure. Still, it is a
 marvel why usage should accord woman less rights than
 does either Christian Science or civilization.

Unfair discrimination

18 Our laws are not impartial, to say the least, in their
 discrimination as to the person, property, and parental
 claims of the two sexes. If the elective fran-
21 chise for women will remedy the evil with-
 out encouraging difficulties of greater magnitude, let us
 hope it will be granted. A feasible as well as rational
24 means of improvement at present is the elevation of
 society in general and the achievement of a nobler
 race for legislation, — a race having higher aims and
27 motives.

 If a dissolute husband deserts his wife, certainly the
 wronged, and perchance impoverished, woman should be
30 allowed to collect her own wages, enter into business
 agreements, hold real estate, deposit funds, and own her
 children free from interference.


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1 Want of uniform justice is a crying evil caused by the
 selfishness and inhumanity of man. Our forefathers
3 exercised their faith in the direction taught by the Apostle
 James, when he said: “Pure religion and undefiled before
 God and the Father, is this, To visit the fatherless and
6 widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted
 from the world.”

Benevolence hindered

 Pride, envy, or jealousy seems on most occasions to
9 be the master of ceremonies, ruling out primitive Chris-
 tianity. When a man lends a helping hand
 to some noble woman, struggling alone with
12 adversity, his wife should not say, “It is never well to
 interfere with your neighbor’s business.” A wife is
 sometimes debarred by a covetous domestic tyrant from
15 giving the ready aid her sympathy and charity would
 afford.

Progressive development

 Marriage should signify a union of hearts. Further-
18 more, the time cometh of which Jesus spake, when he
 declared that in the resurrection there should
 be no more marrying nor giving in marriage,
21 but man would be as the angels. Then shall Soul re-
 joice in its own, in which passion has no part. Then
 white-robed purity will unite in one person masculine wis-
24 dom and feminine love, spiritual understanding and per-
 petual peace.

 Until it is learned that God is the Father of all, mar-
27 riage will continue. Let not mortals permit a disregard
 of law which might lead to a worse state of society than
 now exists. Honesty and virtue ensure the stability of
30 the marriage covenant. Spirit will ultimately claim its
 own, — all that really is, — and the voices of physical
 sense will be forever hushed.


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Blessing of Christ

1 Experience should be the school of virtue, and human
 happiness should proceed from man’s highest nature.
3 May Christ, Truth, be present at every bridal
 altar to turn the water into wine and to give to
 human life an inspiration by which man’s spiritual and
6 eternal existence may be discerned.

Righteous foundations

 If the foundations of human affection are consistent
 with progress, they will be strong and enduring. Divorces
9 should warn the age of some fundamental error
 in the marriage state. The union of the sexes
 suffers fearful discord. To gain Christian Science and its
12 harmony, life should be more metaphysically regarded.

Powerless promises

 The broadcast powers of evil so conspicuous to-day
 show themselves in the materialism and sensualism of
15 the age, struggling against the advancing
 spiritual era. Beholding the world’s lack of
 Christianity and the powerlessness of vows to make home
18 happy, the human mind will at length demand a higher
 affection.

Transition and reform

 There will ensue a fermentation over this as over many
21 other reforms, until we get at last the clear straining of
 truth, and impurity and error are left among
 the lees. The fermentation even of fluids is
24 not pleasant. An unsettled, transitional stage is never
 desirable on its own account. Matrimony, which was once
 a fixed fact among us, must lose its present slippery foot-
27 ing, and man must find permanence and peace in a more
 spiritual adherence.

 The mental chemicalization, which has brought con-
30 jugal infidelity to the surface, will assuredly throw off
 this evil, and marriage will become purer when the scum
 is gone.



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 Thou art right, immortal Shakespeare, great poet of
 humanity:
3       Sweet are the uses of adversity;
      Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
      Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

Salutary sorrow

6 Trials teach mortals not to lean on a material staff, —
 a broken reed, which pierces the heart. We do not
 half remember this in the sunshine of joy
9 and prosperity. Sorrow is salutary. Through
 great tribulation we enter the kingdom. Trials are
 proofs of God’s care. Spiritual development germi-
12 nates not from seed sown in the soil of material hopes,
 but when these decay, Love propagates anew the higher
 joys of Spirit, which have no taint of earth. Each suc-
15 cessive stage of experience unfolds new views of divine
 goodness and love.

 Amidst gratitude for conjugal felicity, it is well to re-
18 member how fleeting are human joys. Amidst conjugal
 infelicity, it is well to hope, pray, and wait patiently on
 divine wisdom to point out the path.

Patience is wisdom

21 Husbands and wives should never separate if there
 is no Christian demand for it. It is better to await the
 logic of events than for a wife precipitately
24 to leave her husband or for a husband to
 leave his wife. If one is better than the other, as must
 always be the case, the other pre-eminently needs good
27 company. Socrates considered patience salutary under
 such circumstances, making his Xantippe a discipline for
 his philosophy.

The gold and dross

30 Sorrow has its reward. It never leaves us
 where it found us. The furnace separates
 the gold from the dross that the precious metal may


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1 be graven with the image of God. The cup our Father
 hath given, shall we not drink it and learn the lessons
3 He teaches?

Weathering the storm

 When the ocean is stirred by a storm, then the clouds
 lower, the wind shrieks through the tightened shrouds,
6 and the waves lift themselves into mountains.
 We ask the helmsman: “Do you know your
 course? Can you steer safely amid the storm?” He
9 answers bravely, but even the dauntless seaman is not
 sure of his safety; nautical science is not equal to the
 Science of Mind. Yet, acting up to his highest under-
12 standing, firm at the post of duty, the mariner works on
 and awaits the issue. Thus should we deport ourselves
 on the seething ocean of sorrow. Hoping and work-
15 ing, one should stick to the wreck, until an irresistible
 propulsion precipitates his doom or sunshine gladdens
 the troubled sea.

Spiritual power

18 The notion that animal natures can possibly give force
 to character is too absurd for consideration, when we
 remember that through spiritual ascendency
21 our Lord and Master healed the sick, raised
 the dead, and commanded even the winds and waves to
 obey him. Grace and Truth are potent beyond all other
24 means and methods.

 The lack of spiritual power in the limited demonstration
 of popular Christianity does not put to silence the labor
27 of centuries. Spiritual, not corporeal, consciousness is
 needed. Man delivered from sin, disease, and death
 presents the true likeness or spiritual ideal.

Basis of true religion

30 Systems of religion and medicine treat of physical pains
 and pleasures, but Jesus rebuked the suffering from any
 such cause or effect. The epoch approaches when the


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1 understanding of the truth of being will be the basis of
 true religion. At present mortals progress slowly for
3 fear of being thought ridiculous. They are
 slaves to fashion, pride, and sense. Some-
 time we shall learn how Spirit, the great architect, has
6 created men and women in Science. We ought to weary
 of the fleeting and false and to cherish nothing which
 hinders our highest selfhood.

9 Jealousy is the grave of affection. The presence of
 mistrust, where confidence is due, withers the flowers
 of Eden and scatters love’s petals to decay. Be not
12 in haste to take the vow “until death do us part.”
 Consider its obligations, its responsibilities, its rela-
 tions to your growth and to your influence on other
15 lives.

Insanity and agamogenesis

 I never knew more than one individual who believed
 in agamogenesis; she was unmarried, a lovely charac-
18 ter, was suffering from incipient insanity, and
 a Christian Scientist cured her. I have named
 her case to individuals, when casting my bread upon
21 the waters, and it may have caused the good to ponder
 and the evil to hatch their silly innuendoes and lies, since
 salutary causes sometimes incur these effects. The per-
24 petuation of the floral species by bud or cell-division is
 evident, but I discredit the belief that agamogenesis
 applies to the human species.

God’s creation intact

27 Christian Science presents unfoldment, not accretion;
 it manifests no material growth from molecule to mind,
 but an impartation of the divine Mind to man
30 and the universe. Proportionately as human
 generation ceases, the unbroken links of eternal, har-
 monious being will be spiritually discerned; and man,


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1 not of the earth earthly but coexistent with God, will
 appear. The scientific fact that man and the universe
3 are evolved from Spirit, and so are spiritual, is as fixed in
 divine Science as is the proof that mortals gain the sense
 of health only as they lose the sense of sin and disease.
6 Mortals can never understand God’s creation while believ-
 ing that man is a creator. God’s children already created
 will be cognized only as man finds the truth of being.
9 Thus it is that the real, ideal man appears in proportion
 as the false and material disappears. No longer to marry
 or to be “given in marriage” neither closes man’s con-
12 tinuity nor his sense of increasing number in God’s in-
 finite plan. Spiritually to understand that there is but
 one creator, God, unfolds all creation, confirms the Scrip-
15 tures, brings the sweet assurance of no parting, no pain,
 and of man deathless and perfect and eternal.

 If Christian Scientists educate their own offspring
18 spiritually, they can educate others spiritually and not
 conflict with the scientific sense of God’s creation. Some
 day the child will ask his parent: “Do you keep the First
21 Commandment? Do you have one God and creator, or
 is man a creator?” If the father replies, “God creates
 man through man,” the child may ask, “Do you teach
24 that Spirit creates materially, or do you declare that
 Spirit is infinite, therefore matter is out of the ques-
 tion?” Jesus said, “The children of this world marry,
27 and are given in marriage: But they which shall be ac-
 counted worthy to obtain that world, and the resur-
 rection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in
30 marriage.”




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Love is the liberator.