together there. "The ceremony had no ecclesiastical character....
The blessings only gave publicity to the ceremony. They were not
priestly blessings and were not essential to the validity of the
marriage."[1328] So we see that, even amongst a people so attached to
tradition as the Jews, when one of the folkways did not satisfy an
interest, or outraged taste, the mores modified it into a form which
could give satisfaction.

+418. Marriage in the New Testament.+ According to the New Testament
marriage is a compromise between indulgence and renunciation of sex
passion. A compromise is always irrational when it bears upon concepts
of right and truth, and not on mere expediency of action. The concept of
right and truth on either hand may be correct; it is certain that the
compromise between them is not correct. The compromise can be maintained
only by disregarding its antagonism to the concepts on each side of it.
For fifteen hundred years the Christian church fluttered, as in a moral
net, in the inconsistencies of the current view of marriage. The
procreation of children was recognized as the holiest function and the
greatest responsibility of human beings, but it was considered to
involve descent into sensuality and degradation. It was the highest
right and the deepest wrong to satisfy the sex passion, and the two
aspects were reconciled partially in marriage, by a network of intricate
moral dogmas which must be inculcated by long and painful education. In
the sixteenth century the problem was solved by repudiating the doctrine
of celibacy as a meritorious and superior state, and making marriage a
rational and institutional regulation of the sex relation, in which the
aim is to repress what is harmful, and develop what is beneficial, to
human welfare. This change was produced by and out of the mores. The
Protestants denounced the falsehood and vice under the pretended respect
for celibacy. The new view of marriage could not be at once fully
invented and introduced. Therefore the Romanists pointed with scorn to
the careless marriage and loose divorce amongst the Protestants (sec.
380).

+419. Merit of celibacy.+ No reasons are ascertainable why Paul should
maintain that celibacy is to be preferred to wedlock as a more worthy
mode of life. In 1 Cor. vii. 32-34 he argues that the unmarried, being
free from domestic cares, can care for the things of God. He speaks
often of the degree of certainty he feels that he has with hi