OF MARRIAGE.
SECTION I.--_Of the Institution of Marriage_.
1. Marriage is defined by the Canonists: _the union of male and
female, involving their living together in undivided intercourse_. In
the present order of Providence, the marriage contract between
baptized persons is a sacrament, under the superintendence of the
Church, the fertile theme of canonists and theologians. As
philosophers, we deal with marriage as it would be, were there no
sacraments, no Church, and no Incarnation, present or to come. This is
marriage in the order of pure nature.
2. It is natural to all animals to propagate their kind, natural
therefore also to man; and being natural, it is so far forth also a
good thing, unless we are to say with the Manicheans, that the whole
of corporeal nature is an evil creation. Nay, so urgent is the natural
appetite here, that we must argue the existence, not of a mere
permission, but of an exigency of nature, and consequent command of
God (_Ethics_, c. vi., s. ii., nn. 11, 12, p. 122), for the
propagation of the human species. Besides, there is in the individual
the duty of self-preservation, therefore likewise in the race.
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