this involves being faithful; for although individuals may think of specious reasons for being themselves exceptions to this general rule, if they suddenly feel the urge to wander, I believe public opinion expects other married couples to be faithful. Viewed in this way, there is nothing absurd in saying that though the promise of marriage is irrevocable, in a modern partnership the promise to have intercourse is not, if public opinion expects this. Nor is there anything absurd in making this the law, provided one clearly understands that it is public opinion that is straining at a knat, and swallowing a camel.
Is everyone therefore, if they marry at all, compelled to enter the kind of marriage that society expects? Not at all. If the expectations of society can change, it is open to individuals to expect more of each other than society does. The niceties of the law will be the same; but the behaviour of each towards the other will be dramatically different. Of course we all lean on public opinion; but it is only if the mind is the slave of public opinion, that an individual is compelled to enter a wholly conventional marriage.
But as I indicated earlier, you only reach perfection, or the chance of perfection, when each spouse can read the mind or heart of the other. It is this that enables their conduct to retain the infinite variety which is essential for love to last. Maybe men and women can achieve this without the assistance of God; if so, good luck to them! But let them not start to complain if things go wrong, and they find themselves powerless to overcome the evil that has entered their lives uninvited and unexpected. Better by far overcome the evil first, if it is possible; and no-one has ever done this without God.
How was it then that the writers of the Report “Putting Asunder” were able to reach their conclusion that though a marriage was dead in law, dead in fact, and dead so far as anyone could see, the immortal marriage bond lived on somewhere in heaven? Its conclusion was that the Court only dissolved legal…