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==GOD'S LAW OF MARRIAGE.==
<center>''"Therefore shall a man [husband] leave his father''
''and his mother, and cleave unto his wife."''</center>
45. Obedience to this fundamental marriage law of Genesis 2:24 would have saved women from ever becoming mere chattels, and thus have kept the entire race on a higher level. Imagine, please, what could be accomplished even now, for the elevation of pagan races, if missionaries would require their converts to observe the Scriptural law of marriage. The factors that would operate to relieve the oppression of Oriental women would be as follows: (1) The husband, as a bread-winner, would have a pecuniary value in the home of his wife; whereas, as it now is, the wife, as a producer of more children to be fed, is subject to abuse, more particularly when she brings forth a female child. (2) Man, not handicapped by unborn children, nurslings, or a helpless little brood, could not be reduced to slavery in an alien home, because he would forsake it, and leave his helpless wife and children for those who abused him to support. But the hampering effects of motherhood, and the strength of mother-love, leave the mother a victim of those who would enslave her. (3) Man is not so constituted that he can be robbed, by force, of his virtue, or his person be made a matter of trade and gain for an alien household; but these calamities are so frequently the lot of a widow left in the alien home of her deceased husband, that in some Oriental countries, notably India, the very word "widow" is disreputable. (4) Before gestation and parturition a mother would generally be tenderly cared for, if with her own mother, under her father's roof, or near by. But in an alien home she is often shamefully neglected at such times; and this weakens the entire race, in course of time. (5) The practice of keeping the daughter at home, after marriage, and sending the son out of the home, after marriage, would put a tremendous check upon child-marriage, since parents would be in no great haste to part with wealth-producing members of the family.
46. All women should know that the Word of God started the world right, in this regard, and put such a tremendous bar to her degradation as this marriage law, in the very forefront of human history,-it being, in fact, the first social moral law enunciated for human guidance. Moreover, the testimony is increasing daily, that in the earliest ages of human history this law was not a dead letter, as it is at the present time, with few exceptions. It was customary for the husband either to go and live under the roof of his wife's parents, or to make frequent visits to her there—she never leaving the protection of her parents. The parents were the "natural protectors" of their married daughters,—not the husband who not infrequently has proved unworthy of his trust. The early custom was, to eye him with a certain amount of wholesome suspicion, as an alien, until he had actually demonstrated his ability to care for a wife in a proper manner.
47. Above all things, the greatest advantage of a woman remaining with, or near, her own kin, after marriage, (her family being her "natural protectors"), is, that it would conserve social morality. Some years ago, a physician in one of our largest cities was given police aid to make a very thorough investigation into the "social evil" of the city; and he published the sifted testimony of hundreds of women and girls in the disreputable ranks of life. I have not his book at hand to quote from, but his conclusion was, as I remember, that marriage to wicked men was a prolific cause of prostitution. Young girls married those who made love to them, without much thought or knowledge of the character of the men; and after that, marriage placed them in such a disadvantageous position, in relation to their husbands, that they could be driven, or worried, into the street, to earn money by their vice. Perhaps, in the first place, the husband may not have married with the object of compelling his wife to earn her living after such a manner; but having no proper sense of decency himself, when hard times came on, he could appreciate no reason why his wife should not help to earn the living by vice. Now it is precisely against such emergencies, that a woman's own kindred ought to have the right to interfere, if any such danger threatens. The marriage law should allow them to keep in close touch with their daughter or sister. But as it now is, such a husband can carry his wife off to the ends of the earth, if he wish, and no one can hinder his doing so.
48. With what results, one only has to visit a large Oriental city to learn. We shall not soon forget, to instance one such investigation only, a visit, after dark, to a notorious street in one of these great Oriental cities. Among the many unfortunate girls that we saw, we were told that a large number were young wives who had thought themselves married to gentlemen of large affairs in Oriental business houses. Slave-hunters had found these girls in the villages of Europe, England and America, they had made love to them, and gone through a regular marriage ceremony with them, and then brought them to the Oriental slave-market. Regularly, every evening, their "husbands" would go the rounds of the houses they owned, and see that everything was in order for the night. Then they would go to their near-by Club House (which we went and saw, in their absence), feast themselves on the food and drink their slaves had earned, and return, at two or three o'clock in the morning, after an abundant carousing, and take away from their slave-wives every penny that they had earned in the meantime. Often they flogged them if the amount of money fell below the usual amount expected. The White Slave Trade will never receive its death-blow until we have marriage laws which will allow of an adequate protection of women as against wicked husbands; and such protection will not be adequate until a wife's own kindred, if respectable, are recognized by law as her "natural protectors," laws which will not permit a husband to take his wife away to a strange country, even if the over trustful wife is willing to go, if the removal is against the judgment of her family,—that is, unless he can show adequate reason for doing so, before the courts.
49. Precisely this same abuse of the marriage relation can be seen among the Japanese (and to a painful extent), on the Pacific Coast of the United States. There is in Japan a secret marriage agency, constantly on the lookout for Japanese girls who will go to America to be married. Also, men of this agency return to Japan, over and over, to marry girls and bring them to America. Often these Japanese men belong to good families, but they themselves have become corrupted by residence in foreign parts. Knowing they are of good families, the parents of girls trust them to bring their daughters away, after they have married them. So these girls are entrapped; and every night, in America, they are driven out upon the street, and to Japanese lodging houses, to earn money for these "husbands," to whom they were honorably married. This is no imaginary picture. We have it on the testimony of Christian Japanese gentlemen, Christian mission workers, Japanese consuls, and such persons.
What lessons God's marriage law teaches us, as to God's fatherly care and protection for His daughters! Away back at the beginning, His first uttered commandment shows that He had their rights and dignity on His heart.
==See Also==
[[God's Word to Women]] |
[[Table of Contents]] |
[[Foreword to the 1943 edition published by Ray Munson]] |
[[Foreword to the 2005 edition published by God's Word to Women]] |
[[Author's Note]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 1 | Lesson 1]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 2 | Lesson 2]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 3 | Lesson 3]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 4 | Lesson 4]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 5 | Lesson 5]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 6 | Lesson 6]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 7 | Lesson 7]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 8 | Lesson 8]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 9 | Lesson 9]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 10 | Lesson 10]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 11 | Lesson 11]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 12 | Lesson 12]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 13 | Lesson 13]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 14 | Lesson 14]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 15 | Lesson 15]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 16 | Lesson 16]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 17 | Lesson 17]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 18 | Lesson 18]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 19 | Lesson 19]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 20 | Lesson 20]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 21 | Lesson 21]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 22 | Lesson 22]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 23 | Lesson 23]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 24 | Lesson 24]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 25 | Lesson 25]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 26 | Lesson 26]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 27 | Lesson 27]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 28 | Lesson 28]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 29 | Lesson 29]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 30 | Lesson 30]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 31 | Lesson 31]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 32 | Lesson 32]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 33 | Lesson 33]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 34 | Lesson 34]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 35 | Lesson 35]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 36 | Lesson 36]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 37 | Lesson 37]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 38 | Lesson 38]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 39 | Lesson 39]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 40 | Lesson 40]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 41 | Lesson 41]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 42 | Lesson 42]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 43 | Lesson 43]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 44 | Lesson 44]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 45 | Lesson 45]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 46 | Lesson 46]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 47 | Lesson 47]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 48 | Lesson 48]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 49 | Lesson 49]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 50 | Lesson 50]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 51 | Lesson 51]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 52 | Lesson 52]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 53 | Lesson 53]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 54 | Lesson 54]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 55 | Lesson 55]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 56 | Lesson 56]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 57 | Lesson 57]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 58 | Lesson 58]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 59 | Lesson 59]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 60 | Lesson 60]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 61 | Lesson 61]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 62 | Lesson 62]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 63 | Lesson 63]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 64 | Lesson 64]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 65 | Lesson 65]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 66 | Lesson 66]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 67 | Lesson 67]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 68 | Lesson 68]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 69 | Lesson 69]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 70 | Lesson 70]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 71 | Lesson 71]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 72 | Lesson 72]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 73 | Lesson 73]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 74 | Lesson 74]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 75 | Lesson 75]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 76 | Lesson 76]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 77 | Lesson 77]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 78 | Lesson 78]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 79 | Lesson 79]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 80 | Lesson 80]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 81 | Lesson 81]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 82 | Lesson 82]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 83 | Lesson 83]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 84 | Lesson 84]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 85 | Lesson 85]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 86 | Lesson 86]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 87 | Lesson 87]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 88 | Lesson 88]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 89 | Lesson 89]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 90 | Lesson 90]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 91 | Lesson 91]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 92 | Lesson 92]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 93 | Lesson 93]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 94 | Lesson 94]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 95 | Lesson 95]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 96 | Lesson 96]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 97 | Lesson 97]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 98 | Lesson 98]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 99 | Lesson 99]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 100 | Lesson 100]] |
[[Index of Scripture Texts]] |
[[Dictionary]]
<center>''"Therefore shall a man [husband] leave his father''
''and his mother, and cleave unto his wife."''</center>
45. Obedience to this fundamental marriage law of Genesis 2:24 would have saved women from ever becoming mere chattels, and thus have kept the entire race on a higher level. Imagine, please, what could be accomplished even now, for the elevation of pagan races, if missionaries would require their converts to observe the Scriptural law of marriage. The factors that would operate to relieve the oppression of Oriental women would be as follows: (1) The husband, as a bread-winner, would have a pecuniary value in the home of his wife; whereas, as it now is, the wife, as a producer of more children to be fed, is subject to abuse, more particularly when she brings forth a female child. (2) Man, not handicapped by unborn children, nurslings, or a helpless little brood, could not be reduced to slavery in an alien home, because he would forsake it, and leave his helpless wife and children for those who abused him to support. But the hampering effects of motherhood, and the strength of mother-love, leave the mother a victim of those who would enslave her. (3) Man is not so constituted that he can be robbed, by force, of his virtue, or his person be made a matter of trade and gain for an alien household; but these calamities are so frequently the lot of a widow left in the alien home of her deceased husband, that in some Oriental countries, notably India, the very word "widow" is disreputable. (4) Before gestation and parturition a mother would generally be tenderly cared for, if with her own mother, under her father's roof, or near by. But in an alien home she is often shamefully neglected at such times; and this weakens the entire race, in course of time. (5) The practice of keeping the daughter at home, after marriage, and sending the son out of the home, after marriage, would put a tremendous check upon child-marriage, since parents would be in no great haste to part with wealth-producing members of the family.
46. All women should know that the Word of God started the world right, in this regard, and put such a tremendous bar to her degradation as this marriage law, in the very forefront of human history,-it being, in fact, the first social moral law enunciated for human guidance. Moreover, the testimony is increasing daily, that in the earliest ages of human history this law was not a dead letter, as it is at the present time, with few exceptions. It was customary for the husband either to go and live under the roof of his wife's parents, or to make frequent visits to her there—she never leaving the protection of her parents. The parents were the "natural protectors" of their married daughters,—not the husband who not infrequently has proved unworthy of his trust. The early custom was, to eye him with a certain amount of wholesome suspicion, as an alien, until he had actually demonstrated his ability to care for a wife in a proper manner.
47. Above all things, the greatest advantage of a woman remaining with, or near, her own kin, after marriage, (her family being her "natural protectors"), is, that it would conserve social morality. Some years ago, a physician in one of our largest cities was given police aid to make a very thorough investigation into the "social evil" of the city; and he published the sifted testimony of hundreds of women and girls in the disreputable ranks of life. I have not his book at hand to quote from, but his conclusion was, as I remember, that marriage to wicked men was a prolific cause of prostitution. Young girls married those who made love to them, without much thought or knowledge of the character of the men; and after that, marriage placed them in such a disadvantageous position, in relation to their husbands, that they could be driven, or worried, into the street, to earn money by their vice. Perhaps, in the first place, the husband may not have married with the object of compelling his wife to earn her living after such a manner; but having no proper sense of decency himself, when hard times came on, he could appreciate no reason why his wife should not help to earn the living by vice. Now it is precisely against such emergencies, that a woman's own kindred ought to have the right to interfere, if any such danger threatens. The marriage law should allow them to keep in close touch with their daughter or sister. But as it now is, such a husband can carry his wife off to the ends of the earth, if he wish, and no one can hinder his doing so.
48. With what results, one only has to visit a large Oriental city to learn. We shall not soon forget, to instance one such investigation only, a visit, after dark, to a notorious street in one of these great Oriental cities. Among the many unfortunate girls that we saw, we were told that a large number were young wives who had thought themselves married to gentlemen of large affairs in Oriental business houses. Slave-hunters had found these girls in the villages of Europe, England and America, they had made love to them, and gone through a regular marriage ceremony with them, and then brought them to the Oriental slave-market. Regularly, every evening, their "husbands" would go the rounds of the houses they owned, and see that everything was in order for the night. Then they would go to their near-by Club House (which we went and saw, in their absence), feast themselves on the food and drink their slaves had earned, and return, at two or three o'clock in the morning, after an abundant carousing, and take away from their slave-wives every penny that they had earned in the meantime. Often they flogged them if the amount of money fell below the usual amount expected. The White Slave Trade will never receive its death-blow until we have marriage laws which will allow of an adequate protection of women as against wicked husbands; and such protection will not be adequate until a wife's own kindred, if respectable, are recognized by law as her "natural protectors," laws which will not permit a husband to take his wife away to a strange country, even if the over trustful wife is willing to go, if the removal is against the judgment of her family,—that is, unless he can show adequate reason for doing so, before the courts.
49. Precisely this same abuse of the marriage relation can be seen among the Japanese (and to a painful extent), on the Pacific Coast of the United States. There is in Japan a secret marriage agency, constantly on the lookout for Japanese girls who will go to America to be married. Also, men of this agency return to Japan, over and over, to marry girls and bring them to America. Often these Japanese men belong to good families, but they themselves have become corrupted by residence in foreign parts. Knowing they are of good families, the parents of girls trust them to bring their daughters away, after they have married them. So these girls are entrapped; and every night, in America, they are driven out upon the street, and to Japanese lodging houses, to earn money for these "husbands," to whom they were honorably married. This is no imaginary picture. We have it on the testimony of Christian Japanese gentlemen, Christian mission workers, Japanese consuls, and such persons.
What lessons God's marriage law teaches us, as to God's fatherly care and protection for His daughters! Away back at the beginning, His first uttered commandment shows that He had their rights and dignity on His heart.
==See Also==
[[God's Word to Women]] |
[[Table of Contents]] |
[[Foreword to the 1943 edition published by Ray Munson]] |
[[Foreword to the 2005 edition published by God's Word to Women]] |
[[Author's Note]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 1 | Lesson 1]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 2 | Lesson 2]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 3 | Lesson 3]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 4 | Lesson 4]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 5 | Lesson 5]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 6 | Lesson 6]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 7 | Lesson 7]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 8 | Lesson 8]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 9 | Lesson 9]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 10 | Lesson 10]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 11 | Lesson 11]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 12 | Lesson 12]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 13 | Lesson 13]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 14 | Lesson 14]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 15 | Lesson 15]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 16 | Lesson 16]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 17 | Lesson 17]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 18 | Lesson 18]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 19 | Lesson 19]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 20 | Lesson 20]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 21 | Lesson 21]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 22 | Lesson 22]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 23 | Lesson 23]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 24 | Lesson 24]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 25 | Lesson 25]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 26 | Lesson 26]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 27 | Lesson 27]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 28 | Lesson 28]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 29 | Lesson 29]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 30 | Lesson 30]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 31 | Lesson 31]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 32 | Lesson 32]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 33 | Lesson 33]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 34 | Lesson 34]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 35 | Lesson 35]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 36 | Lesson 36]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 37 | Lesson 37]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 38 | Lesson 38]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 39 | Lesson 39]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 40 | Lesson 40]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 41 | Lesson 41]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 42 | Lesson 42]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 43 | Lesson 43]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 44 | Lesson 44]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 45 | Lesson 45]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 46 | Lesson 46]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 47 | Lesson 47]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 48 | Lesson 48]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 49 | Lesson 49]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 50 | Lesson 50]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 51 | Lesson 51]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 52 | Lesson 52]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 53 | Lesson 53]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 54 | Lesson 54]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 55 | Lesson 55]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 56 | Lesson 56]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 57 | Lesson 57]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 58 | Lesson 58]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 59 | Lesson 59]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 60 | Lesson 60]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 61 | Lesson 61]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 62 | Lesson 62]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 63 | Lesson 63]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 64 | Lesson 64]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 65 | Lesson 65]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 66 | Lesson 66]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 67 | Lesson 67]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 68 | Lesson 68]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 69 | Lesson 69]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 70 | Lesson 70]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 71 | Lesson 71]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 72 | Lesson 72]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 73 | Lesson 73]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 74 | Lesson 74]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 75 | Lesson 75]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 76 | Lesson 76]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 77 | Lesson 77]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 78 | Lesson 78]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 79 | Lesson 79]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 80 | Lesson 80]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 81 | Lesson 81]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 82 | Lesson 82]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 83 | Lesson 83]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 84 | Lesson 84]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 85 | Lesson 85]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 86 | Lesson 86]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 87 | Lesson 87]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 88 | Lesson 88]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 89 | Lesson 89]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 90 | Lesson 90]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 91 | Lesson 91]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 92 | Lesson 92]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 93 | Lesson 93]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 94 | Lesson 94]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 95 | Lesson 95]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 96 | Lesson 96]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 97 | Lesson 97]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 98 | Lesson 98]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 99 | Lesson 99]] |
[[God's Word to Women Lesson 100 | Lesson 100]] |
[[Index of Scripture Texts]] |
[[Dictionary]]