to last; whereas concubinage is a temporary arrangement, which can be terminated at any time at either party's convenience. But can anyone give an irrevocable consent? Can anyone promise to marry till death? Never mind the question whether a spouse can give an irrevocable consent to have intercourse with another, can anyone give an irrevocable promise to marry? Can a spouse today promise that the marriage will continue tomorrow, and the day after? Or do the spouses have to take each day as it comes? If it is not possible to make the relatively small promise to have intercourse irrevocably, why is it possible to make the much bigger promise to get married at all?
One avoids the confusion to which these questions tend, if one remembers that, if marriage exists at all, then marriage promises are irrevocable, in the sense that the parties are not free to go back on them; if the promises are destroyed, it should be by circumstances and not by the decision of the parties themselves. Whereas concubinage is temporary, and the parties can end it whenever they like. One decides whether promises can be irrevocable, by remembering that marriage does not just consist of promises; that is how it begins, but then the parties have to live out their promises day by day, year by year. Marriage then becomes a shared belief in the minds of the parties, created by that conduct over a period of time. If the parties have made irrevocable promises, then they are married in popular imagination, because they have lived out those promises, and cannot jettison the belief that they are married in a moment's temper. It is elementary that you cannot pick up beliefs, nor lose them, at the drop of a hat. If the parties did not make irrevocable promises, then whatever superficial appearances may suggest the wife is a concubine; in popular imagination she is liable to disappear at a moment's notice. Marriage, then, consists of that bundle of beliefs, inculcated into the mind by habitually behaving as public opinion expects married couples to behave. In my opinion…