y birds and animals, especially the
carnivorous, have only one mate, and the love and care of offspring
which seems to be natural is inconsistent with the primitive theory of
marriage. If we go back to an imaginary state in which men were almost
animals and the companions of them, we have as much right to argue from
what is animal to what is human as from the barbarous to the civilized
man. The record of animal life on the globe is fragmentary,--the
connecting links are wanting and cannot be supplied; the record of
social life is still more fragmentary and precarious. Even if we admit
that our first ancestors had no such institution as marriage, still
the stages by which men passed from outer barbarism to the comparative
civilization of China, Assyria, and Greece, or even of the ancient
Germans, are wholly unknown to us.

Such speculations are apt to be unsettling, because they seem to show
that an institution which was thought to be a revelation from heaven, is
only the growth of history and experience. We ask what is the origin of
marriage, and we are told that like the right of property, after many
wars and contests, it has gradually arisen out of the selfishness of
barbarians. We stand face to face with human nature in its primitive
nakedness. We are compelled to accept, not the highest, but the lowest
account of the origin of human society. But on the other hand we
may truly say that every step in human progress has been in the same
direction, and that in the course of ages the idea of marriage and of
the family has been more and more defined and consecrated. The civilized
East is immeasurably in advance of any savage tribes; the Greeks and
Romans have improved upon the East; the Christian nations have been
stricter in their views of the marriage relation than any of the
ancients. In this as in so many other things, instead of looking back
with regret to the past, we should look forward with hope to the future.
We must consecrate that which we believe to be the most holy, and that
'which is the most holy will be the most useful.' There is more reason
for maintaining the sacredness of the marriage tie, when we see the
benefit of it, than when we only felt a vague religious horror about
the violation of it. But in all times of transition, when established
beliefs are being undermined, there is a danger that in the passage from
the old to the new we may insensibly let go the moral principle, finding
an excuse for list