t to be dissolved by anything but Death." So say a very
large group of our people. "It is a contract, governed by law, entered
into under certain conditions and to be dissolved only by law." This is
the attitude of practically all the governments of the world and rapidly
is becoming the dominant point of view. Though the religious combat
this conception of marriage, no marriage is legal on religious sanction
alone, and the increase of divorce among those claiming to be Catholics
is an undisputed fact.

It is only in the last century that the contract side of marriage has
been emphasized and become dominant. There has resulted a conflict
between the sacramental, sacred point of view and the secular. This
conflict, like all other social conflicts, is a part of the inner life
of most of the men and women of this generation, influencing their
attitude toward marriage, the home, the mate.

For when we say a thing is part of the "spirit of the times" we mean
merely that arising as a development of, or a change from, old ideas in
the minds of leaders, it has become propagated among the mass. It has
become part of their thought, incentive to their action, source of their
energies.

Thus sentiment and religion proclaim the sacredness of marriage, its
eternal nature, its indissolubility. The law asserts it to be a civil
relationship, to be made or unmade by law itself; experience teaches
that if it is sacred, then sacredness includes folly, indiscretion,
brutality, and crime. Therefore the marriage relationship has become a
source of conflict for our times, with opposing champions shouting out
their point of view, with books, the movies, the press, the stage, with
daily experience adducing cases. The scene of conflict is in the moods
and emotions of all of us.

This divided view is particularly the attitude of women and becomes part
of the neurosis of the housewife.

After all a woman does not marry an institution; she marries a man with
whom she lives, sharing his life. In the natural course of events she
becomes the mother of the children to whom he is father. We may dismiss
as nonimportant the occasional freak marriage where a man and woman live
apart, have no children and meet occasionally,--for obvious purposes.
Such a marriage is not only sterile biologically, not only empty of the
virtues of marriage, but encounters none of its difficulties.

This intimate individual relationship makes marriage when complete and
suc