universal Church always taught that
it is to be numbered among the sacraments of the new law."(537)

The Gospel forbids a man to have more than one wife, and a wife to have
more than one husband. "Have you not read," says our Savior, "that He who
made man in the beginning made them male and female? And He said, for this
cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave unto _his
wife, and they two shall be in one flesh_. Wherefore they are no more two,
but one flesh."(538) Our Lord recalls marriage to its primitive
institution as it was ordained by Almighty God. (Gen. ii.) Now, marriage
in its primitive ordinance was the union of one man with one woman, for
Jehovah created but one helpmate to Adam. He would have created more, if
His design had been to establish polygamy. The Scripture says that "man
shall adhere to his _wife_,"--not _his wives_. It does not declare that
they shall be three or more, but that "they shall be two in one flesh."

Hence Mormonism, unhappily so prevalent in the United States, is at
variance with the plain teachings of the Gospel, and is consequently
condemned by the Catholic Church. Polygamy, wherever it exists, cannot
fail to be a perpetual source of family discord and feuds. It fosters
deadly jealousy and hate among the wives of the same household; it
deranges the laws of succession and primogeniture and breeds rivalry among
the children, each endeavoring to supplant the other in the affections and
the inheritance of their common father.

Marriage is the most inviolable and irrevocable of all contracts that were
ever formed. Every human compact may be lawfully dissolved but this.
Nations may be justified in abrogating treaties with each other; merchants
may dissolve partnerships; brothers will eventually leave the paternal
roof, and, like Jacob and Esau, separate from one another. Friends, like
Abraham and Lot, may be obliged to part company. But by the law of God the
bond uniting husband and wife can be dissolved only by death. No earthly
sword can sever the nuptial knot which the Lord has tied; for, "what God
hath joined together, let no man put asunder."

It is worthy of remark that three of the Evangelists, as well as the
Apostle of the Gentiles, proclaim the indissolubility of marriage and
forbid a wedded person to engage in second wedlock during the life of his
spouse. There is, indeed, scarcely a moral precept more strongly enforced
in the Gospel than the indissoluble cha