ON CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE
ARCANUM
Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII
promulgated on February 10, 1880.
1. To the Patriarchs, Primates,
Archbishops, and Bishops of the Catholic World
in Grace and Communion with the Apostolic See.
The hidden design of the divine wisdom, which
Jesus Christ the Savior of men came to carry
out on earth, had this end in view, that, by
Himself and in Himself, He should divinely renew
the world, which was sinking, as it were, with
length of years into decline. The Apostle Paul
summed this up in words of dignity and majesty
when he wrote to the Ephesians, thus: "That
He might make known unto us the mystery of His
will . . . to re-establish all things in Christ
that are in heaven and on earth."[1]
2. In truth, Christ our Lord,
setting Himself to fulfill the commandment which
His Father had given Him, straightway imparted
a new form and fresh beauty to all things, taking
away the effects of their time-worn age. For
He healed the wounds which the sin of our first
father had inflicted on the human race; He brought
all men, by nature children of wrath, into favor
with God; He led to the light of truth men wearied
out by longstanding errors; He renewed to every
virtue those who were weakened by lawlessness
of every kind; and, giving them again an inheritance
of never-ending bliss, He added a sure hope
that their mortal and perishable bodies should
one day be partakers of immortality and of the
glory of heaven. In order that these unparalleled
benefits might last as long as men should be
found on earth, He entrusted to His Church the
continuance of His work; and, looking to future
times, He commanded her to set in order whatever
might have become deranged in human society,
and to restore whatever might have fallen into
ruin.
3. Although the divine renewal
we have spoken of chiefly and directly affected
men as constituted in the supernatural order
of grace, nevertheless some of its precious
and salutary fruits were also bestowed abundantly
in the order of nature. Hence, not only individual
men, but also the whole mass of the human race,
have in every respect received no small degree
of worthiness. For, so soon as Christian order
was once established in the world, it became
possible for all men, one by one, to learn what
God's fatherly providence is, and to dwell in
it habitually, thereby fostering that hope of
heavenly help which never confoundeth. From
all this outflowed fortitude, self-control,
constancy, and the evenness of a peaceful mind,
together with many high virtues and noble deeds.
4. Wondrous, indeed, was the
extent of dignity, steadfastness, and goodness
which thus accrued to the State as well as to
the family. The authority of rulers became more
just and revered; the obedience of the people
more ready and unforced; the union of citizens
closer; the rights of dominion more secure.
In very truth, the Christian religion thought
of and provided for all things which are held
to be advantageous in a State; so much so, indeed,
that, according to St. Augustine, one cannot
see how it could have offered greater help in
the matter of living well and happily, had it
been instituted for the single object of procuring
or increasing those things which contributed
to the conveniences or advantages of this mortal
life.
5. Still, the purpose We have
set before Us is not to recount, in detail,
benefits of this kind; Our wish is rather to
speak about that family union of which marriage
is the beginning and the foundation. The true
origin of marriage, venerable brothers, is well
known to all. Though revilers of the Christian
faith refuse to acknowledge the never-interrupted
doctrine of the Church on this subject, and
have long striven to destroy the testimony of
all nations and of all times, they have nevertheless
failed not only to quench the powerful light
of truth, but even to lessen it. We record what
is to all known, and cannot be doubted by any,
that God, on the sixth day of creation, having
made man from the slime of the earth, and having
breathed into his face the breath of life, gave
him a companion, whom He miraculously took from
the side of Adam when he was locked in sleep.
God thus, in His most far-reaching foresight,
decreed that this husband and wife should be
the natural beginning of the human race, from
whom it might be propagated and preserved by
an unfailing fruitfulness throughout all futurity
of time. And this union of man and woman, that
it might answer more fittingly to the infinite
wise counsels of God, even from the beginning
manifested chiefly two most excellent properties--deeply
sealed, as it were, and signed upon it--namely,
unity and perpetuity. From the Gospel we see
clearly that this doctrine was declared and
openly confirmed by the divine authority of
Jesus Christ. He bore witness to the Jews and
to His Apostles that marriage, from its institution,
should exist between two only, that is, between
one man and one woman; that of two they are
made, so to say, one flesh; and that the marriage
bond is by the will of God so closely and strongly
made fast that no man may dissolve it or render
it asunder. "For this cause shall a man
leave father and mother, and shall cleave to
his wife, and they two shall be in one flesh.
Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh.
What, therefore, God hath joined together, let
no man put asunder."[2]
6. This form of marriage,
however, so excellent and so pre-eminent, began
to be corrupted by degrees, and to disappear
among the heathen; and became even among the
Jewish race clouded in a measure and obscured.
For in their midst a common custom was gradually
introduced, by which it was accounted as lawful
for a man to have more than one wife; and eventually
when "by reason of the hardness of their
heart,"[3] Moses indulgently permitted
them to put away their wives, the way was open
to divorce.
7. But the corruption and change
which fell on marriage among the Gentiles seem
almost incredible, inasmuch as it was exposed
in every land to floods of error and of the
most shameful lusts. All nations seem, more
or less, to have forgotten the true notion and
origin of marriage; and thus everywhere laws
were enacted with reference to marriage, prompted
to all appearance by State reasons, but not
such as nature required. Solemn rites, invented
at will of the law-givers, brought about that
women should, as might be, bear either the honorable
name of wife or the disgraceful name of concubine;
and things came to such a pitch that permission
to marry, or the refusal of the permission,
depended on the will of the heads of the State,
whose laws were greatly against equity or even
to the highest degree unjust. Moreover, plurality
of wives and husbands, as well as divorce, caused
the nuptial bond to be relaxed exceedingly.
Hence, too, sprang up the greatest confusion
as to the mutual rights and duties of husbands
and wives, inasmuch as a man assumed right of
dominion over his wife, ordering her to go about
her business, often without any just cause;
while he was himself at liberty "to run
headlong with impunity into lust, unbridled
and unrestrained, in houses of ill-fame and
amongst his female slaves, as if the dignity
of the persons sinned with, and not the will
of the sinner, made the guilt."[4] When
the licentiousness of a husband thus showed
itself, nothing could be more piteous than the
wife, sunk so low as to be all but reckoned
as a means for the gratification of passion,
or for the production of offspring. Without
any feeling of shame, marriageable girls were
bought and sold, like so much merchandise,[5]
and power was sometimes given to the father
and to the husband to inflict capital punishment
on the wife. Of necessity, the offspring of
such marriages as these were either reckoned
among the stock in trade of the common-wealth
or held to be the property of the father of
the family;[6] and the law permitted him to
make and unmake the marriages of his children
at his mere will, and even to exercise against
them the monstrous power of life and death.
8. So manifold being the vices
and so great the ignominies with which marriage
was defiled, an alleviation and a remedy were
at length bestowed from on high. Jesus Christ,
who restored our human dignity and who perfected
the Mosaic law, applied early in His ministry
no little solicitude to the question of marriage.
He ennobled the marriage in Cana of Galilee
by His presence, and made it memorable by the
first of the miracles which he wrought;[7] and
for this reason, even from that day forth, it
seemed as if the beginning of new holiness had
been conferred on human marriages. Later on
He brought back matrimony to the nobility of
its primeval origin by condemning the customs
of the Jews in their abuse of the plurality
of wives and of the power of giving bills of
divorce; and still more by commanding most strictly
that no one should dare to dissolve that union
which God Himself had sanctioned by a bond perpetual.
Hence, having set aside the difficulties which
were adduced from the law of Moses, He, in character
of supreme Lawgiver, decreed as follows concerning
husbands and wives, "I say to you, that
whosoever shall put away his wife, except it
be for fornication, and shall marry another,
committeth adultery; and he that shall marry
her that is put away committeth adultery."[8]
9. But what was decreed and
constituted in respect to marriage by the authority
of God has been more fully and more clearly
handed down to us, by tradition and the written
Word, through the Apostles, those heralds of
the laws of God. To the Apostles, indeed, as
our masters, are to be referred the doctrines
which "our holy Fathers, the Councils,
and the Tradition of the Universal Church have
always taught,"[9] namely, that Christ
our Lord raised marriage to the dignity of a
sacrament; that to husband and wife, guarded
and strengthened by the heavenly grace which
His merits Rained for them, He gave power to
attain holiness in the married state; and that,
in a wondrous way, making marriage an example
of the mystical union between Himself and His
Church, He not only perfected that love which
is according to nature,[10] but also made the
naturally indivisible union of one man with
one woman far more perfect through the bond
of heavenly love. Paul says to the Ephesians:
"Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also
loved the Church, and delivered Himself up for
it, that He might sanctify it. . . So also ought
men to love their wives as their own bodies.
. . For no man ever hated his own flesh, but
nourisheth and cherisheth it, as also Christ
doth the Church; because we are members of His
body, of His flesh, and of His bones. For this
cause shall a man leave his father and mother,
and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall
be two in one flesh. This is a great sacrament;
but I speak in Christ and in the Church."[11]
In like manner from the teaching of the Apostles
we learn that the unity of marriage and its
perpetual indissolubility, the indispensable
conditions of its very origin, must, according
to the command of Christ, be holy and inviolable
without exception. Paul says again: "To
them that are married, not I, but the Lord commandeth
that the wife depart not from her husband; and
if she depart, that she remain unmarried or
be reconciled to her husband."[12] And
again: "A woman is bound by the law as
long as her husband liveth; but if her husband
die, she is at liberty."[13] It is for
these reasons that marriage is "a great
sacrament";[14] "honorable in all,"[15]
holy, pure, and to be reverenced as a type and
symbol of most high mysteries.
10. Furthermore, the Christian
perfection and completeness of marriage are
not comprised in those points only which have
been mentioned. For, first, there has been vouchsafed
to the marriage union a higher and nobler purpose
than was ever previously given to it. By the
command of Christ, it not only looks to the
propagation of the human race, but to the bringing
forth of children for the Church, "fellow
citizens with the saints, and the domestics
of God";[16] so that "a people might
be born and brought up for the worship and religion
of the true God and our Savior Jesus Christ."[17]
11. Secondly, the mutual duties
of husband and wife have been defined, and their
several rights accurately established. They
are bound, namely, to have such feelings for
one another as to cherish always very great
mutual love, to be ever faithful to their marriage
vow, and to give one another an unfailing and
unselfish help. The husband is the chief of
the family and the head of the wife. The woman,
because she is flesh of his flesh, and bone
of his bone, must be subject to her husband
and obey him; not, indeed, as a servant, but
as a companion, so that her obedience shall
be wanting in neither honor nor dignity. Since
the husband represents Christ, and since the
wife represents the Church, let there always
be, both in him who commands and in her who
obeys, a heaven-born love guiding both in their
respective duties. For "the husband is
the head of the wife; as Christ is the head
of the Church. . . Therefore, as the Church
is subject to Christ, so also let wives be to
their husbands in all things."[18]
12. As regards children, they
ought to submit to the parents and obey them,
and give them honor for conscience' sake; while,
on the other hand, parents are bound to give
all care and watchful thought to the education
of their offspring and their virtuous bringing
up: "Fathers, . . . bring them up"
(that is, your children) "in the discipline
and correction of the Lord."[19] From this
we see clearly that the duties of husbands and
wives are neither few nor light; although to
married people who are good these burdens become
not only bearable but agreeable, owing to the
strength which they gain through the sacrament.
13. Christ, therefore, having
renewed marriage to such and so great excellence,
commended and entrusted all the discipline bearing
upon these matters to His Church. The Church,
always and everywhere, has so used her power
with reference to the marriages of Christians
that men have seen clearly how it belongs to
her as of native right; not being made hers
by any human grant, but given divinely to her
by the will of her Founder. Her constant and
watchful care in guarding marriage, by the preservation
of its sanctity, is so well understood as to
not need proof. That the judgment of the Council
of Jerusalem reprobated licentious and free
love,[20] we all know; as also that the incestuous
Corinthian was condemned by the authority of
blessed Paul.[21] Again, in the very beginning
of the Christian Church were repulsed and defeated,
with the like unremitting determination, the
efforts of many who aimed at the destruction
of Christian marriage, such as the Gnostics,
Manicheans, and Montanists; and in our own time
Mormons, St. Simonians, phalansterians, and
communists.[22]
14. In like manner, moreover,
a law of marriage just to all, and the same
for all, was enacted by the abolition of the
old distinction between slaves and free-born
men and women;[23] and thus the rights of husbands
and wives were made equal: for, as St. Jerome
says, "with us that which is unlawful for
women is unlawful for men also, and the same
restraint is imposed on equal conditions."[24]
The self-same rights also were firmly established
for reciprocal affection and for the interchange
of duties; the dignity of the woman was asserted
and assured; and it was forbidden to the man
to inflict capital punishment for adultery,[25]
or lustfully and shamelessly to violate his
plighted faith.
15. It is also a great blessing
that the Church has limited, so far as is needful,
the power of fathers of families, so that sons
and daughters, wishing to marry, are not in
any way deprived of their rightful freedom;[26]
that, for the purpose of spreading more widely
the supernatural love of husbands and wives,
she has decreed marriages within certain degrees
of consanguinity or affinity to be null and
void;[27] that she has taken the greatest pains
to safeguard marriage, as much as is possible,
from error and violence and deceit;[28] that
she has always wished to preserve the holy chasteness
of the marriage bed, the security of persons,[29]
the honor of husband and wife,[30] and the sanctity
of religion.[31] Lastly, with such foresight
of legislation has the Church guarded its divine
institution that no one who thinks rightfully
of these matters can fail to see how, with regard
to marriage, she is the best guardian and defender
of the human race; and how, withal, her wisdom
has come forth victorious from the lapse of
years, from the assaults of men, and from the
countless changes of public events.
16. Yet, owing to the efforts
of the archenemy of mankind, there are persons
who, thanklessly casting away so many other
blessings of redemption, despise also or utterly
ignore the restoration of marriage to its original
perfection. It is a reproach to some of the
ancients that they showed themselves the enemies
of marriage in many ways; but in our own age,
much more pernicious is the sin of those who
would fain pervert utterly the nature of marriage,
perfect though it is, and complete in all its
details and parts. The chief reason why they
act in this way is because very many, imbued
with the maxims of a false philosophy and corrupted
in morals, judge nothing so unbearable as submission
and obedience; and strive with all their might
to bring about that not only individual men,
but families, also--indeed, human society itself--may
in haughty pride despise the sovereignty of
God.
17. Now, since the family
and human society at large spring from marriage,
these men will on no account allow matrimony
to be the subject of the jurisdiction of the
Church. Nay, they endeavor to deprive it of
all holiness, and so bring it within the contracted
sphere of those rights which, having been instituted
by man, are ruled and administered by the civil
jurisprudence of the community. Wherefore it
necessarily follows that they attribute all
power over marriage to civil rulers, and allow
none whatever to the Church; and, when the Church
exercises any such power, they think that she
acts either by favor of the civil authority
or to its injury. Now is the time, they say,
for the heads of the State to vindicate their
rights unflinchingly, and to do their best to
settle all that relates to marriage according
as to them seems good.
18. Hence are owing civil
marriages, commonly so called; hence laws are
framed which impose impediments to marriage;
hence arise judicial sentences affecting the
marriage contract, as to whether or not it have
been rightly made. Lastly, all power of prescribing
and passing judgment in this class of cases
is, as we see, of set purpose denied to the
Catholic Church, so that no regard is paid either
to her divine power or to her prudent laws.
Yet, under these, for so many centuries, have
the nations lived on whom the light of civilization
shone bright with the wisdom of Christ Jesus.
19. Nevertheless, the naturalists,[32]
as well as all who profess that they worship
above all things the divinity of the State,
and strive to disturb whole communities with
such wicked doctrines, cannot escape the charge
of delusion. Marriage has God for its Author,
and was from the very beginning a kind of foreshadowing
of the Incarnation of His Son; and therefore
there abides in it a something holy and religious;
not extraneous, but innate; not derived from
men, but implanted by nature. Innocent III.
therefore. and Honorius III, our predecessors,
affirmed not falsely nor rashly that a sacrament
of marriage existed ever amongst the faithful
and unbelievers.[33] We call to witness the
monuments of antiquity, as also the manners
and customs of those people who, being the most
civilized, had the greatest knowledge of law
and equity. In the minds of all of them it was
a fixed and foregone conclusion that, when marriage
was thought of, it was thought of as conjoined
with religion and holiness. Hence, among those,
marriages were commonly celebrated with religious
ceremonies, under the authority of pontiffs,
and with the ministry of priests. So mighty,
even in the souls ignorant of heavenly doctrine,
was the force of nature, of the remembrance
of their origin, and of the conscience of the
human race. As, then, marriage is holy by its
own power, in its own nature, and of itself,
it ought not to be regulated and administered
by the will of civil rulers, but by the divine
authority of the Church, which alone in sacred
matters professes the office of teaching.
20. Next, the dignity of the
sacrament must be considered, for through addition
of the sacrament the marriages of Christians
have become far the noblest of all matrimonial
unions. But to decree and ordain concerning
the sacrament is, by the will of Christ Himself,
so much a part of the power and duty of the
Church that it is plainly absurd to maintain
that even the very smallest fraction of such
power has been transferred to the civil ruler.
21. Lastly should be borne
in mind the great weight and crucial test of
history, by which it is plainly proved that
the legislative and judicial authority of which
We are speaking has been freely and constantly
used by the Church, even in times when some
foolishly suppose the head of the State either
to have consented to it or connived at it. It
would, for instance, be incredible and altogether
absurd to assume that Christ our Lord condemned
the long-standing practice of polygamy and divorce
by authority delegated to Him by the procurator
of the province, or the principal ruler of the
Jews. And it would be equally extravagant to
think that, when the Apostle Paul taught that
divorces and incestuous marriages were not lawful,
it was because Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero
agreed with him or secretly commanded him so
to teach. No man in his senses could ever be
persuaded that the Church made so many laws
about the holiness and indissolubility of marriage,[34]
and the marriages of slaves with the free-born,[35]
by power received from Roman emperors, most
hostile to the Christian name, whose strongest
desire was to destroy by violence and murder
the rising Church of Christ. Still less could
anyone believe this to be the case, when the
law of the Church was sometimes so divergent
from the civil law that Ignatius the Martyr,[36]
Justin,[37] Athenagoras,[38] and Tertullian[39]
publicly denounced as unjust and adulterous
certain marriages which had been sanctioned
by imperial law.
22. Furthermore, after all
power had devolved upon the Christian emperors,
the supreme pontiffs and bishops assembled in
council persisted with the same independence
and consciousness of their right in commanding
or forbidding in regard to marriage whatever
they judged to be profitable or expedient for
the time being, however much it might seem to
be at variance with the laws of the State. It
is well known that, with respect to the impediments
arising from the marriage bond, through vow,
disparity of worship, blood relationship, certain
forms of crime, and from previously plighted
troth, many decrees were issued by the rulers
of the Church at the Councils of Granada,[40]
Arles,[41] Chalcedon,[42] the second of Milevum,[43]
and others, which were often widely different
from the decrees sanctioned by the laws of the
empire. Furthermore, so far were Christian princes
from arrogating any power in the matter of Christian
marriage that they on the contrary acknowledged
and declared that it belonged exclusively in
all its fullness to the Church. In fact, Honorius,
the younger Theodosius, and Justinian,[44] also,
hesitated not to confess that the only power
belonging to them in relation to marriage was
that of acting as guardians and defenders of
the holy canons. If at any time they enacted
anything by their edicts concerning impediments
of marriage, they voluntarily explained the
reason, affirming that they took it upon themselves
so to act, by leave and authority of the Church,[45]
whose judgment they were wont to appeal to and
reverently to accept in all questions that concerned
legitimacy[46] and divorce;[47] as also in all
those points which in any way have a necessary
connection with the marriage bond.[48] The Council
of Trent, therefore, had the clearest right
to define that it is in the Church's power "to
establish diriment impediments of matrimony,"[49]
and that "matrimonial causes pertain to
ecclesiastical judges."[50]
23. Let no one, then, be deceived
by the distinction which some civil jurists
have so strongly insisted upon--the distinction,
namely, by virtue of which they sever the matrimonial
contract from the sacrament, with intent to
hand over the contract to the power and will
of the rulers of the State, while reserving
questions concerning the sacrament of the Church.
A distinction, or rather severance, of this
kind cannot be approved; for certain it is that
in Christian marriage the contract is inseparable
from the sacrament, and that, for this reason,
the contract cannot be true and legitimate without
being a sacrament as well. For Christ our Lord
added to marriage the dignity of a sacrament;
but marriage is the contract itself, whenever
that contract is lawfully concluded.
24. Marriage, moreover, is
a sacrament, because it is a holy sign which
gives grace, showing forth an image of the mystical
nuptials of Christ with the Church. But the
form and image of these nuptials is shown precisely
by the very bond of that most close union in
which man and woman are bound together in one;
which bond is nothing else but the marriage
itself. Hence it is clear that among Christians
every true marriage is, in itself and by itself,
a sacrament; and that nothing can be further
from the truth than to say that the sacrament
is a certain added ornament, or outward endowment,
which can be separated and torn away from the
contract at the caprice of man. Neither, therefore,
by reasoning can it be shown, nor by any testimony
of history be proved, that power over the marriages
of Christians has ever lawfully been handed
over to the rulers of the State. If, in this
matter, the right of anyone else has ever been
violated, no one can truly say that it has been
violated by the Church. Would that the teaching
of the naturalists, besides being full of falsehood
and injustice, were not also the fertile source
of much detriment and calamity! But it is easy
to see at a glance the greatness of the evil
which unhallowed marriages have brought, and
ever will bring, on the whole of human society.
25. From the beginning of
the world, indeed, it was divinely ordained
that things instituted by God and by nature
should be proved by us to be the more profitable
and salutary the more they remain unchanged
in their full integrity. For God, the Maker
of all things, well knowing what was good for
the institution and preservation of each of
His creatures, so ordered them by His will and
mind that each might adequately attain the end
for which it was made. If the rashness or the
wickedness of human agency venture to change
or disturb that order of things which has been
constituted with fullest foresight, then the
designs of infinite wisdom and usefulness begin
either to be hurtful or cease to be profitable,
partly because through the change undergone
they have lost their power of benefiting, and
partly because God chooses to inflict punishment
on the pride and audacity of man. Now, those
who deny that marriage is holy, and who relegate
it, stripped of all holiness, among the class
of common secular things, uproot thereby the
foundations of nature, not only resisting the
designs of Providence, but, so far as they can,
destroying the order that God has ordained.
No one, therefore, should wonder if from such
insane and impious attempts there spring up
a crop of evils pernicious in the highest degree
both to the salvation of souls and to the safety
of the commonwealth.
26. If, then, we consider
the end of the divine institution of marriage,
we shall see very clearly that God intended
it to be a most fruitful source of individual
benefit and of public welfare. Not only, in
strict truth, was marriage instituted for the
propagation of the human race, but also that
the lives of husbands and wives might be made
better and happier. This comes about in many
ways: by their lightening each other's burdens
through mutual help; by constant and faithful
love; by having all their possessions in common;
and by the heavenly grace which flows from the
sacrament. Marriage also can do much for the
good of families, for, so long as it is conformable
to nature and in accordance with the counsels
of God, it has power to strengthen union of
heart in the parents; to secure the holy education
of children; to temper the authority of the
father by the example of the divine authority;
to render children obedient to their parents
and servants obedient to their masters. From
such marriages as these the State may rightly
expect a race of citizens animated by a good
spirit and filled with reverence and love for
God, recognizing it their duty to obey those
who rule justly and lawfully, to love all, and
to injure no one.
27. These many and glorious
fruits were ever the product of marriage, so
long as it retained those gifts of holiness,
unity, and indissolubility from which proceeded
all its fertile and saving power; nor can anyone
doubt but that it would always have brought
forth such fruits, at all times and in all places,
had it been under the power and guardianship
of the Church, the trustworthy preserver and
protector of these gifts. But, now, there is
a spreading wish to supplant natural and divine
law by human law; and hence has begun a gradual
extinction of that most excellent ideal of marriage
which nature herself had impressed on the soul
of man, and sealed, as it were, with her own
seal; nay, more, even in Christian marriages
this power, productive of so great good, has
been weakened by the sinfulness of man. Of what
advantage is it if a state can institute nuptials
estranged from the Christian religion, which
is the mother of all good, cherishing all sublime
virtues, quickening and urging us to everything
that is the glory of a lofty and generous soul?
When the Christian religion is rejected and
repudiated, marriage sinks of necessity into
the slavery of man's vicious nature and vile
passions, and finds but little protection in
the help of natural goodness. A very torrent
of evil has flowed from this source, not only
into private families, but also into States.
For, the salutary fear of God being removed,
and there being no longer that refreshment in
toil which is nowhere more abounding than in
the Christian religion, it very often happens,
as indeed is natural, that the mutual services
and duties of marriage seem almost unbearable;
and thus very many yearn for the loosening of
the tie which they believe to be woven by human
law and of their own will, whenever incompatibility
of temper, or quarrels, or the violation of
the marriage vow, or mutual consent, or other
reasons induce them to think that it would be
well to be set free. Then, if they are hindered
by law from carrying out this shameless desire,
they contend that the laws are iniquitous, inhuman,
and at variance with the rights of free citizens;
adding that every effort should be made to repeal
such enactments, and to introduce a more humane
code sanctioning divorce.
28. Now, however much the
legislators of these our days may wish to guard
themselves against the impiety of men such as
we have been speaking of, they are unable to
do so, seeing that they profess to hold and
defend the very same principles of jurisprudence;
and hence they have to go with times, and render
divorce easily obtainable. History itself shows
this; for, to pass over other instances, we
find that, at the close of the last century,
divorces were sanctioned by law in that upheaval
or, rather, as it might be called, conflagration
in France, when society was wholly degraded
by the abandoning of God. Many at the present
time would fain have those laws reenacted, because
they wish God and His Church to be altogether
exiled and excluded from the midst of human
society, madly thinking that in such laws a
final remedy must be sought for that moral corruption
which is advancing with rapid strides.
29. Truly, it is hardly possible
to describe how great are the evils that flow
from divorce. Matrimonial contracts are by it
made variable; mutual kindness is weakened;
deplorable inducements to unfaithfulness are
supplied; harm is done to the education and
training of children; occasion is afforded for
the breaking up of homes; the seeds of dissension
are sown among families; the dignity of womanhood
is lessened and brought low, and women run the
risk of being deserted after having ministered
to the pleasures of men. Since, then, nothing
has such power to lay waste families and destroy
the mainstay of kingdoms as the corruption of
morals, it is easily seen that divorces are
in the highest degree hostile to the prosperity
of families and States, springing as they do
from the depraved morals of the people, and,
as experience shows us, opening out a way to
every kind of evil-doing in public and in private
life.
30. Further still, if the
matter be duly pondered, we shall clearly see
these evils to be the more especially dangerous,
because, divorce once being tolerated, there
will be no restraint powerful enough to keep
it within the bounds marked out or presurmised.
Great indeed is the force of example, and even
greater still the might of passion. With such
incitements it must needs follow that the eagerness
for divorce, daily spreading by devious ways,
will seize upon the minds of many like a virulent
contagious disease, or like a flood of water
bursting through every barrier. These are truths
that doubtlessly are all clear in themselves,
but they will become clearer yet if we call
to mind the teachings of experience. So soon
as the road to divorce began to be made smooth
by law, at once quarrels, jealousies, and judicial
separations largely increased: and such shamelessness
of life followed that men who had been in favor
of these divorces repented of what they had
done, and feared that, if they did not carefully
seek a remedy by repealing the law, the State
itself might come to ruin. The Romans of old
are said to have shrunk with horror from the
first example of divorce, but ere long all sense
of decency was blunted in their soul; the meager
restraint of passion died out, and the marriage
vow was so often broken that what some writers
have affirmed would seem to be true--namely,
women used to reckon years not by the change
of consuls, but of their husbands. In like manner,
at the beginning, Protestants allowed legalized
divorces in certain although but few cases,
and yet from the affinity of circumstances of
like kind, the number of divorces increased
to such extent in Germany, America, and elsewhere
that all wise thinkers deplored the boundless
corruption of morals, and judged the recklessness
of the laws to be simply intolerable.
31. Even in Catholic States
the evil existed. For whenever at any time divorce
was introduced, the abundance of misery that
followed far exceeded all that the framers of
the law could have foreseen. In fact, many lent
their minds to contrive all kinds of fraud and
device, and by accusations of cruelty, violence,
and adultery to feign grounds for the dissolution
of the matrimonial bond of which they had grown
weary; and all this with so great havoc to morals
that an amendment of the laws was deemed to
be urgently needed.
32. Can anyone, therefore,
doubt that laws in favor of divorce would have
a result equally baneful and calamitous were
they to be passed in these our days? There exists
not, indeed, in the projects and enactments
of men any power to change the character and
tendency with things have received from nature.
Those men, therefore, show but little wisdom
in the idea they have formed of the well-being
of the commonwealth who think that the inherent
character of marriage can be perverted with
impunity; and who, disregarding the sanctity
of religion and of the sacrament, seem to wish
to degrade and dishonor marriage more basely
than was done even by heathen laws. Indeed,
if they do not change their views, not only
private families, but all public society, will
have unceasing cause to fear lest they should
be miserably driven into that general confusion
and overthrow of order which is even now the
wicked aim of socialists and communists. Thus
we see most clearly how foolish and senseless
it is to expect any public good from divorce,
when, on the contrary, it tends to the certain
destruction of society.
33. It must consequently be
acknowledged that the Church has deserved exceedingly
well of all nations by her ever watchful care
in guarding the sanctity and the indissolubility
of marriage. Again, no small amount of gratitude
is owing to her for having, during the last
hundred years, openly denounced the wicked laws
which have grievously offended on this particular
subject;[51] as well as for her having branded
with anathema the baneful heresy obtaining among
Protestants touching divorce and separation;[52]
also, for having in many ways condemned the
habitual dissolution of marriage among the Greeks;[53]
for having declared invalid all marriages contracted
upon the understanding that they may be at some
future time dissolved;[54] and, lastly, for
having, from the earliest times, repudiated
the imperial laws which disastrously favored
divorce.[55]
34. As often, indeed, as the
supreme pontiffs have resisted the most powerful
among rulers, in their threatening demands that
divorces carried out by them should be confirmed
by the Church, so often must we account them
to have been contending for the safety, not
only of religion, but also of the human race.
For this reason all generations of men will
admire the proofs of unbending courage which
are to be found in the decrees of Nicholas I
against Lothair; of Urban II and Paschal II
against Philip I of France; of Celestine III
and Innocent III against Alphonsus of Leon and
Philip II of France; of Clement VII and Paul
III against Henry VIII; and, lastly, of Pius
VII, that holy and courageous pontiff, against
Napoleon I, when at the height of his prosperity
and in the fullness of his power. This being
so, all rulers and administrators of the State
who are desirous of following the dictates of
reason and wisdom, and anxious for the good
of their people, ought to make up their minds
to keep the holy laws of marriage intact, and
to make use of the proffered aid of the Church
for securing the safety of morals and the happiness
of families, rather than suspect her of hostile
intention and falsely and wickedly accuse her
of violating the civil law.
35. They should do this the
more readily because the Catholic Church, though
powerless in any way to abandon the duties of
her office or the defense of her authority,
still very greatly inclines to kindness and
indulgence whenever they are consistent with
the safety of her rights and the sanctity of
her duties. Wherefore she makes no decrees in
relation to marriage without having regard to
the state of the body politic and the condition
of the general public; and has besides more
than once mitigated, as far as possible, the
enactments of her own laws when there were just
and weighty reasons. Moreover, she is not unaware,
and never calls in doubt, that the sacrament
of marriage, being instituted for the preservation
and increase of the human race, has a necessary
relation to circumstances of life which, though
connected with marriage, belong to the civil
order, and about which the State rightly makes
strict inquiry and justly promulgates decrees.
36. Yet, no one doubts that
Jesus Christ, the Founder of the Church, willed
her sacred power to be distinct from the civil
power, and each power to be free and unshackled
in its own sphere: with this condition, however--a
condition good for both, and of advantage to
all men--that union and concord should be maintained
between them; and that on those questions which
are, though in different ways, of common right
and authority, the power to which secular matters
have been entrusted should happily and becomingly
depend on the other power which has in its charge
the interests of heaven. In such arrangement
and harmony is found not only the best line
of action for each power, but also the most
opportune and efficacious method of helping
men in all that pertains to their life here,
and to their hope of salvation hereafter. For,
as We have shown in former encyclical letters,[56]
the intellect of man is greatly ennobled by
the Christian faith, and made better able to
shun and banish all error, while faith borrows
in turn no little help from the intellect; and
in like manner, when the civil power is on friendly
terms with the sacred authority of the Church,
there accrues to both a great increase of usefulness.
The dignity of the one is exalted, and so long
as religion is its guide it will never rule
unjustly; while the other receives help of protection
and defense for the public good of the faithful.
37. Being moved, therefore,
by these considerations, as We have exhorted
rulers at other times, so still more earnestly
We exhort them now, to concord and friendly
feeling; and we are the first to stretch out
Our hand to them with fatherly benevolence,
and to offer to them the help of Our supreme
authority, a help which is the more necessary
at this time when, in public opinion, the authority
of rulers is wounded and enfeebled. Now that
the minds of so many are inflamed with a reckless
spirit of liberty, and men are wickedly endeavoring
to get rid of every restraint of authority,
however legitimate it may be, the public safety
demands that both powers should unite their
strength to avert the evils which are hanging,
not only over the Church, but also over civil
society.
38. But, while earnestly exhorting
all to a friendly union of will, and beseeching
God, the Prince of peace, to infuse a love of
concord into all hearts, We cannot, venerable
brothers, refrain from urging you more and more
to fresh earnestness, and zeal, and watchfulness,
though we know that these are already very great.
With every effort and with all authority, strive,
as much as you are able, to preserve whole and
undefiled among the people committed to your
charge the doctrine which Christ our Lord taught
us; which the Apostles, the interpreters of
the will of God, have handed down; and which
the Catholic Church has herself scrupulously
guarded, and commanded to be believed in all
ages by the faithful of Christ.
39. Let special care be taken
that the people be well instructed in the precepts
of Christian wisdom, so that they may always
remember that marriage was not instituted by
the will of man, but, from the very beginning,
by the authority and command of God; that it
does not admit of plurality of wives or husbands;
that Christ, the Author of the New Covenant,
raised it from a rite of nature to be a sacrament,
and gave to His Church legislative and judicial
power with regard to the bond of union. On this
point the very greatest care must be taken to
instruct them, lest their minds should be led
into error by the unsound conclusions of adversaries
who desire that the Church should be deprived
of that power.
40. In like manner, all ought
to understand clearly that, if there be any
union of a man and a woman among the faithful
of Christ which is not a sacrament, such union
has not the force and nature of a proper marriage;
that, although contracted in accordance with
the laws of the State, it cannot be more than
a rite or custom introduced by the civil law.
Further, the civil law can deal with and decide
those matters alone which in the civil order
spring from marriage, and which cannot possibly
exist, as is evident, unless there be a true
and lawful cause of them, that is to say, the
nuptial bond. It is of the greatest consequence
to husband and wife that all these things should
be known and well understood by them, in order
that they may conform to the laws of the State,
if there be no objection on the part of the
Church; for the Church wishes the effects of
marriage to be guarded in all possible ways,
and that no harm may come to the children.
41. In the great confusion
of opinions, however, which day by day is spreading
more and more widely, it should further be known
that no power can dissolve the bond of Christian
marriage whenever this has been ratified and
consummated; and that, of a consequence, those
husbands and wives are guilty of a manifest
crime who plan, for whatever reason, to be united
in a second marriage before the first one has
been ended by death. When, indeed, matters have
come to such a pitch that it seems impossible
for them to live together any longer, then the
Church allows them to live apart, and strives
at the same time to soften the evils of this
separation by such remedies and helps as are
suited to their condition; yet she never ceases
to endeavor to bring about a reconciliation,
and never despairs of doing so. But these are
extreme cases; and they would seldom exist if
men and women entered into the married state
with proper dispositions, not influenced by
passion, but entertaining right ideas of the
duties of marriage and of its noble purpose;
neither would they anticipate their marriage
by a series of sins drawing down upon them the
wrath of God.
42. To sum up all in a few
words, there would be a calm and quiet constancy
in marriage if married people would gather strength
and life from the virtue of religion alone,
which imparts to us resolution and fortitude;
for religion would enable them to bear tranquilly
and even gladly the trials of their state, such
as, for instance, the faults that they discover
in one another, the difference of temper and
character, the weight of a mother's cares, the
wearing anxiety about the education of children,
reverses of fortune, and the sorrows of life.
43. Care also must be taken
that they do not easily enter into marriage
with those who are not Catholics; for, when
minds do not agree as to the observances of
religion, it is scarcely possible to hope for
agreement in other things. Other reasons also
proving that persons should turn with dread
from such marriages are chiefly these: that
they give occasion to forbidden association
and communion in religious matters; endanger
the faith of the Catholic partner; are a hindrance
to the proper education of the children; and
often lead to a mixing up of truth and falsehood,
and to the belief that all religions are equally
good.
44. Lastly, since We well
know that none should be excluded from Our charity,
We commend, venerable brothers, to your fidelity
and piety those unhappy persons who, carried
away by the heat of passion, and being utterly
indifferent to their salvation, live wickedly
together without the bond of lawful marriage.
Let your utmost care be exercised in bringing
such persons back to their duty; and, both by
your own efforts and by those of good men who
will consent to help you, strive by every means
that they may see how wrongly they have acted;
that they may do penance; and that they may
be induced to enter into a lawful marriage according
to the Catholic rite.
45. You will at once see,
venerable brothers, that the doctrine and precepts
in relation to Christian marriage, which We
have thought good to communicate to you in this
letter, tend no less to the preservation of
civil society than to the everlasting salvation
of souls. May God grant that, by reason of their
gravity and importance, minds may everywhere
be found docile and ready to obey them! For
this end let us all suppliantly, with humble
prayer, implore the help of the Blessed and
Immaculate Virgin Mary, that, our hearts being
quickened to the obedience of faith, she may
show herself our mother and our helper. With
equal earnestness let us ask the princes of
the Apostles, Peter and Paul, the destroyers
of heresies, the sowers of the seed of truth,
to save the human race by their powerful patronage
from the deluge of errors that is surging afresh.
In the meantime, as an earnest of heavenly gifts,
and a testimony of Our special benevolence,
We grant to you all, venerable brothers, and
to the people confided to your charge, from
the depths of Our heart, the apostolic benediction.
Given at St. Peter's in Rome, the tenth day
of February, 1880, the third year of Our pontificate.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ENDNOTES
1. Eph. 1:9-10.
2. Matt. 19:5-6.
3. Matt. 19:8.
4. Jerome "Epist."
77, 3 (PL 22, 691).
5. Arnobius, "Adversus
Gentes," 4 (sic, perhaps 1, 64).
6. Dionysius Halicarnassus,
lib. II, chs. 26-27 (see "Roman Antiquities,"
tr. E. Cary, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard
University Press, 1948, Vol. 1, pp. 386.393).
7. John 2.
8. Matt. 19:9.
9. Trid., sess. xxiv, "in
principio" (that is, Council of Trent,
"Canones et decreta;" the text is
divided into sessions, chapters, and canons,
i.e., decrees).
10. Trid., sess. xxiv, cap.
1, "De reformatione matrimonii."
11. Eph. 5:25-32.
12. I Cor. 7:10-11.
13. I Cor. 7:39.
14. Eph. 5:32.
15. Heb. 13:4.
16. Eph. 2:19.
17. "Catech. Rom.,"
ch. 8.
18. Eph. 5:23-24.
19. Eph. 6:4.
20. Acts 15:29.
21. I Cor. 5:5.
22. Gnostics: common name for
several early sects claiming a Christian knowledge
(gnosis) higher than faith. Manicheans: disciples
of the Persian Mani (or Manes, c. 216-276) who
taught that everything goes back to two first
principles, light and darkness, or good and
evil. Montanists: disciples of Montanus (in
Phrygia, last third of the second century),
condemned marriage as a sinful institution.
Mormons: sect founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith,
which favored polygamy. Saint-Simonians: disciples
of the French philosopher Saint Simon (1760-1825)
founder of a "new Christianity" based
upon science instead of faith. Phalansterians:
members of a phalanstery, that is, of a socialist
community after the principles of Charles Fourier
(1772-1837). Communists: supporters of a regime
in which property belongs to the body politic,
each member being supposed to work according
to his capacity and to receive according to
his wants; communism is usually associated with
the name of Karl Marx (1818-1893).
23. Cap. 1, "De conjug.
serv. Corpus juris canonici," ed. Friedberg
(Leipzig, 1884), Part 2, cols. 691-692.
24. Jerome, Epist. 77 (PL 22,
691).
25. Can. "Interfectores"
and Canon "Admonere," quaest. 2 "Corpus
juris canonici" (Leipzig, 1879), Part 1,
cols. 1152-1154.
26. Saus. 30, quaest. 3, cap.
3, "De cognat. spirit." (op. cit.,
Part 1, col. 1101).
27. Cap. 8, "De consang.
et affin." (op. cit., Part 2, col. 703);
cap 1, "De cognat. legali" (col. 696).
28. Cap. 26, "De sponsal."
(op. cit., Part 2, col. 670); cap. 13 (col.
665); cap. 15 (col. 666); cap. 29 (col. 671);
"De sponsalibus et matrimonio et alibi."
29. Cap. 1, "De convers.
infid." (op. cit., Part 2, col. 587); cap.
5, 6, "De eo qui duxit in matrim."
(cols. 688-689).
30. Cap. 3, 5, 8, "De
sponsal. et matr." (op. cit., Part 2, cols.
661, 663). Trid., sess. xxiv, cap. "De
reformatione matrimonii."
31. Cap. 7, "De divort."
(op. cit., Part 2, col. 722).
32. Maintain the self-sufficiency
of the natural order.
33. Concerning Innocent III,
see "Corpus juris canonici," cap.
8, "De divort.," ed. cit., Part 2,
col. 723. Innocent III refers to I Cor. 7:13.
Concerning Honorius III, see cap. ii, "De
transact.," (op. cit., Part 2, col. 210).
34. "Canones Apostolorum,"
16, 17, 18, ed. Fr. Lauchert, J. C. B. Mohr
(Leipzig, 1896) p. 3.
35. "Philosophumena"
(Oxford, 1851), i.e., Hippolytus, "Refutation
of All Heresies," 9, 12 (PG 16, 3386D-3387A).
36. "Epistola ad Polycarpum,"
cap. 5 (PG 5, 723-724).
37. "Apolog. Maj.,"
15 (PG 6. 349A. B).
38. "Legat. pro Christian.,"
32, 33 (PG 6, 963-968).
39. "De coron. milit.,"
13 (PL 2, 116).
40. "De Aguirre, Conc.
Hispan.," Vol. 1, can. 11.
41. Harduin, "Act. Concil.,"
Vol. 1, can. 11.
42. Ibid., can. 16.
43. Ibid., can. 17.
44. "Novel.," 137
(Justinianus, "Novellae," ed. C. E.
Z. Lingenthal, Leipzig, 1881, Vol. 2, p. 206).
45. Fejer, "Matrim. ex
instit." Chris. (Pest, 1835).
46. Cap. 3, "De ord. cogn."
(Corpus juris canonici, ed. Cit., Part 2, col.
276).
47. Cap. 3, "De divort."
(ed. cit., Part 2, col. 720).
48. Cap. 13, "Qui filii
sint legit." (ed. cit., Part 2, col. 716).
49. Trid., sess. xxiv, can.
4.
50. Ibid., can. 12.
51. Pius VI, "Epist. ad
episc. Lucion.," May 20, 1793; Pius VII,
encycl. letter, Feb. 17, 1809, and constitution
given July 19, 1817; Pius VIII, encycl. letter,
May 29, 1829; Gregory XVI, constitution given
August 15, 1832; Pius IX. address. Sept. 22,
1852.
52. Trid., sess. xxiv, can.
5, 7.
53. Council of Florence and
instructions of Eugene IV to the Armenians;
Benedict XIV, constitution "Etsi Pastoralis,"
May 6, 1742.
54. Cap. 7, "De condit.
appos". ("Corpus juris canonici,"
ed. cit., Part 2, col. 684).
55. Jerome, "Epist. 69,
ad Oceanum" (PL 22, 657); Ambrose, Lib.
8 in cap. 16 Lucae, n. 5 (PL 15, 1857); Augustine,
"De nuptiis," 1, 10, 11 (PL 44, 420).
Fifty years after the publication of "Arcanum,"
Pope Pius XI published his own encyclical "Casti
Connubii" (December 31, 1930), which may
be found translated, with notes and bibliography,
in J. Husslein, S. J., "Social Wellsprings,"
Vol. II, pp. 122-173; also in pamphlet form,
translated by Canon G. D. Smith, Catholic Truth
Society of London; Paulist Press, New York;
with a discussion club outline by Gerald C.
Treacey, S. J.; National Catholic Welfare Conference,
Washington, 1939. These pontifical acts should
be completed by two addresses given by Pope
Pius XII (October 29, 1951, and November 26,
1951), English translation published in pamphlet
form by the National Catholic Welfare Conference
under the title, "Moral Questions Affecting
Married Life," with a discussion outline
by Edgar Schmiedeler, O. S. B.
56. "Aetemi Patris,"
Leo XIII, August 4, 1879.
