"Marriage," says the Apostle in our text, "is honorable in all." There is nothing concerning it that is unworthy, unholy, hindersome to piety and salvation. The Son of God would not have graced with His presence and miracle those Galilean nuptials if it had not been holy throughout. Concerning the honorableness of that estate would I speak at this time a few words of plainness and truth. May He who is called the God of families bless them to our instruction!
Among the views concerning matrimony, there is also this one, taught by men sitting in professors' chairs and senselessly repeated by the ungodly multitude, that, as man has evolved from a lower to a higher form of existence, so morality and also matrimony have only gradually, in the course of many centuries, yes, thousands of years, evolved to what it now is. Originally man knew as little of matrimony as the beasts of the field. Little by little, pride and self-interest induced especially strong men to take unto themselves, and keep with themselves, one or a few of the other sex, and so it eventually grew into a custom and rule that one man and one woman should form a union for life, and in evidence of that they will even point to the Bible, the instance of Abraham, who beside his wife, Sarah, had her maid, Hagar, and Jacob had two, really four wives, and David, Solomon, in fact, all the Jews among the Old Testament kings practiced polygamy,--it was only with the introduction of Christianity that monogamy, the union of one man and one woman, and the indissolubleness of the marriage-tie, became general rule. What folly of folly, contrary to all sacred and secular story!
Without entering too explicitly upon this subject, do we not read in the chapters of Genesis that when Pharaoh of Egypt had cast his eyes upon Sarah, thinking she was Abraham's sister, that after he had been rightly informed, he at once desisted from his advances and made explanation? And did not Abimelech, when about to fall into a like error, offer apology and make restitution? Is it not plain from these cases that they well knew that the marriage relation was not to be broken, that one man was not to take another man's wife? Moreover, it never occurred to Abraham, or any of the patriarchs, to put away from themselves their wives, for any reasons, and these men lived nearly two thousand years before Christ. How absurd the contention that men originally lived without a knowledge of the sanctity of marriage! Turning to secular history, we have record of the same. Rome, for instance, was founded in the eighth century before Christ. Its first citizens were robbers, and such as had been banished for gross offenses from other cities of Italy. But concerning the marriage relation--they did not live as brutes. Every physically able inhabitant was legally required to wed, and for several centuries not a solitary case of divorce occurred. Such a thing was regarded simply impossible. It was not until late centuries, when effeminacy had taken hold upon the city, that we hear of those social abominations. The same may be said of our heathen forefathers, the German and Teutonic tribes; marriage, with them, was held in highest respect.