In leaving the moorland of general principles for the fields of particular problems it will be convenient to group sex natures under three heads: (1) the normal or hetero-sexual, (2) the invert or homo-sexual, and (3) the neuter or sexless. It is necessary only to add that it will not be possible to deal in more than the merest outline with any of these important questions.

The most prominent of the problems concerned with the normal group is that of divorce. The problem arises because on the one hand there is a sense that marriage ought to be a permanent state, while on the other, there are many human exigences which go to break up particular marriages. Separation, without permission to re-marry, is of course an admitted remedy. But the question then arises whether parties so separated will continue to live as celibates; and as it appears certain that the vast majority will not, we have to ask whether it is better to legalise the fresh unions which are formed, or to permit adultery.

Every modern State has wrestled with this problem, and for the most part ineffectually. Where there is no divorce, as in England before 1857,[10] or among the poorer classes who cannot afford divorce, irregular unions and prostitution undoubtedly flourish. Where a compromise is introduced, the permanence of marriage, and therefore of the home, becomes correspondingly impaired, while there are left a number of unhappy cases for which divorce is not allowed.[11] The English civil law is particularly unhappy in its compromise. It is based on the Protestant interpretation of the passage in St. Matthew already mentioned, namely that divorce is permissible where adultery has occurred, and it goes on to make it easier for the husband to sue for divorce when the wife has committed adultery than for the wife to do so in the reverse circumstances. Hence it places a premium on adultery, and exaggerates its importance as regards other sins. It deliberately incites an unhappy wife to commit adultery in order to obtain relief—she can usually evade the vigilance of the King’s Proctor—and it singles out adultery as a worse sin than, let us say, cruelty or habitual drunkenness, for which divorce is not at present obtainable. In fact it is difficult to find any logical or moral defence for the English law as it stands.

Let us first see how far the popular critics of the Catholic doctrine of indissoluble marriage are wrong. They regard marriage as simply a contract, from which it follows that divorce should be obtained by mutual consent, or even on the application of one of the parties. But this ignores, among other things, one vital natural law. Marriage begets parenthood, and between the parents of the same child there is a definite and permanent relationship. No Act of Parliament can make men and women cease to be the parents of their own children. Nor, even in childless marriages, is the sense of permanence an artificial convention which can be abolished by the decree of a court. The deeper the love, the more permanent must its nature tend to be. Love is not a contract; it is a spiritual bond.

It is impossible, I contend, to think of a normally healthy marriage without realizing that both the man and woman naturally enter into it with the assumption that it will be a permanent relationship. The possibility of a family, the break-up of the maiden life—even the furnishing of a home, is evidence of a strong probability in the minds of the parties that the step which is being taken is something more than a temporary contract. Indeed, the marriage is only temporary if unhappiness arises. Men and women marry because they want to enter into as permanent a relationship as possible; they enter into it because, as they say, they wish to “settle down.” The natural desire of man is that marriage should be permanent.

A reversion to free love would be more than the undoing of the evolution from animal to man. It would completely change the basis of human society. And in proportion as any divorce law encourages the conception of a temporary contract this dangerous instability of home-life is threatened. Americans sometimes describe their own laws as approaching the “ideal.” “The question will soon be,” wrote a journalist describing the American “smart set,” “who is to be your husband next year?”—or, “Has your last season’s wife re-married yet?” This is of course an exaggeration; but it is a warning as to logical developments.

In fact, divorce tends to create itself. Divorce is only applied for where the marriage is unhappy. A fair proportion of unhappy marriages arise because they have been hastily entered into; with due inquiry many of them could have been prevented. But the easier divorce is to obtain, the more incentive will be given to enter into these hasty marriages—the type of union which so often gives rise to divorce.

On the other hand, whatever their cause, there are marriages in which all trace of love has disappeared, and it may fairly be argued that the union is dead. Thus a husband may, in later years, become incurably insane or habitually drunk. There are many unions in which the one party has married in blind infatuation only to discover that the partner is so contemptible a creature as to destroy all vestige of love. Such unions remain marriages in formality only; their pretended existence is a sacrilege, particularly if there are no children and the husband and wife are not therefore co-related as parents.

For all such cases the Catholic Church permits divorce (a mensa et thoro)—or separation, as it is known in civil law, without permission to re-marry. The issue, therefore, becomes simply a question as to whether it is right to expect the parties so separated to remain celibate.

In an outline such as this, I suppose that one can only attempt a summary reply to these questions. If, for a moment, we are to exclude the complications of a subsequent love-affair there appears to me to be no reason whatever why any man or woman should not remain celibate during the lifetime of the divorced partner. The journalese theory that it is unnatural and unhealthy for people so to remain is simply untrue, so long as the celibacy takes the form of sublimation or transmutation and not repression. The complication of an intense love-romance however, is a serious proposition. Ought two people in love to remain sexually apart simply because one of them is still married to, let us say, an incurable lunatic? In principle there seems to be every reason why they should; no actual physical or mental harm is done to them, provided they have a sufficiently developed will-power to transfer their sex-desire into other channels of activity. The sacrifice will be immense, but it is no more than any man has to make who refrains from marrying his beloved because he is too poor or is suffering from some disease which may affect his children. In this case the sacrifice is offered for the supremely important principle that only God, by the act of death, can undo the vinculum of the original marriage.

But I am equally sure that most people under these or less intense circumstances will not remain celibate.

Therefore, to descend from theory to practice, I see no alternative but to draw a rigid line between civil and religious marriages. The State must make its own arrangements and go its own way. But there should always be a higher type of marriage where the Catholic Church has been invoked for her blessing. And for those who choose to ask for this sacrament, the union should be irrevocable, save by death. The parties will receive that sacrament knowing what a heavy responsibility they are assuming. And it is only right that the Church should be far more particular in refusing to prostitute her sacramental grace on unions which ought not to be consummated. She ought, I conceive, rigidly to inquire into the desirability of the union, and not to give her blessing unless she is satisfied that both parties are giving their consent with as full a knowledge of the facts as is humanly possible. Equally she should refuse her ministrations where she is unconvinced that love is the motive of the marriage. I see no reason why some form of sponsorship should not be demanded.

And I think it may be argued that a consent without a knowledge of the facts is not a valid consent, and that such a union is null. I should welcome a careful extension of the decree of nullity, for that reason.