An authority on modern literature, writing in
the Aesthete Magazine, declares that ‘‘a generous
mixture of sex, color differentiation, sprinkled with
sufficient blasphemous utterances to add piquancy
and racy zest,— a sort of sophistication as it were,—
together with a garnishing of satire, insulting humor,
and a generally cynic philosophy — all these are
the ingredients of three fourths of the popular high-
class fiction of today.” Likewise, under the excuse
of publishing the news, our metropolitan dailies
play up the sordid, sentimental details of crime until
the worst criminal morons are made to appear like
veritable heroes.
“Our theaters, too,” writes an astute observer,
‘““are pandering to the lowest cravings of human
nature. They seem to delight in outraging modesty
and decency, and make sport of all the sanctities
of life, while Christians look on imperturbed. Even
our little children are allowed full freedom in attend-
ing picture shows made up of the vulgarities and
falsehoods about life and love.”
REAL LiFE BECOMES UNREAL
HE youth who live in so unreal, fantastic, and
tainted an atmosphere, naturally thrill to work
out a romance or drama in real life. Hence the
elopement and the “stunt” wedding become popular
forms of diversion. There are weddings at fairs,
weddings in bathing costume, weddings in airplanes,
weddings for notoriety, publicity, and money-mak-
ing,—all of which are shameful and debasing.
We used to hear of ‘marrying in haste to repent at
leisure’’; but today there appears to be haste in
both tying and untying the knot. According to the
most recent statistical survey, approximately one
out of every five marriages now consummated in
the United States ends in a legal separation; while in
Denver, Colorado, citadel of Judge Ben B. Lindsey,
well-known sponsor of ‘‘companionate marriage,”
half of the new homes established are wrecked by
the demon of divorce. Bear in mind, too, that the
actual number of weddings is decreasing, which
indicates that we face an even worse condition of
increase in irregular unions and casual alliances.
Viewing with alarm this rising flood of home
wrecking, the Federal Council of Churches of Christ
in America created in 1927 a national Committee
on Marriage and Home. This group of men and
women, representing some of the ablest American
talent in religious, missionary, temperance, hygienic,
and social activities, has rendered its first statement
on the ‘‘Ideals of Love and Marriage.” From this
excellent report, as published in Current History
for February, we glean the following:
“Countless young people in this land have seen in
marriage not only a monogamous relationship but an
inspiring vision of devoted loyalty and life-long
companionship between one man and one woman.
Most of our young people love like that at one
time or another, and all of them desire to do so.”
The true spiritual ideal is a union which “is to be
PAGE FOUR
not only life-long but life-wide in its extensions.”
“This is also the Christian concept of marriage as
stated by our Lord himself in words of extraordinary
depth and power.” The ‘Mosaic law which per-
mitted a man to divorce his wife with no recourse
for her is abrogated. . . . He [Christ] speaks in
strikingly beautiful and sensitive words of how
‘He which made them at the beginning made them
male and female,” and that ‘for this cause shall a
man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to
his wife.” The devoted and enduring love of one
man and one woman for each other is like the love
of God; and the realization of such a love is akin to
religious experience.”
True marriage is defined as “a state of fine spirit-
ual tension between two intelligent beings who
must maintain themselves in a relationship which
makes great demands upon character. . . . Surely
young people should not only be encouraged to
continue as lovers, as they may, but also should be
instructed more carefully in the higher reaches and
social demands of marriage, and the transmutations
that must take place if it is to succeed. A resolute
will to succeed no matter what comes, a refusal to
yield to difficulties that are inevitable, are of great
importance to strong home ties.”
“Religion at its best burns like an altar fire in the
home, and God is the unseen Guest day and night.
. . . The home is doubly secure when the husband
and wife keep their ideals with God's strength; when
children learn to pray at their mother’s knee, but
also hear their father say with them their evening
prayers; when the family go to church together as a
family custom. . . . The child needs the divinest
home earth can offer.”
The committee regrets ‘‘the growth of a cynical
attitude toward love, such as that which now appears
in much current literature,” and that strikes at
the best and most vital elements in our civilization.
“The delusive fascination of sex experience outside
of marriage is more dangerous to the home than
lust. . . . The Christian ideal of marriage can
therefore make no compromise with lax sex relations.
No matter how great its compassion for youth, or
how swift its redemptive action, the church must
speak as did Christ to the woman whom He refused
to condemn to a shocking death, but to whom He
said, ‘Go and sin no more.’"”’
THE COUNTERFEIT
OMPANIONATE marriage has been urged as a
remedy for the loose moral condition of the
present, and embraces the idea of trial marriage.
Against this arrangement, the Committee enters
its solemn protest for the following reasons:
It recognizes physical desire above the spiritual
experience of love and devotion.
It places marriage on a distinctly low level by
holding self-regarding motives first.
It raises doubts concerning the future.
It lures the young and the physically immature.
THE WATCHMAN MAGAZINE