The Newtown bee., 1903-03-20
The NcwtOwn Bee
LOCAL AFFAIRS.

IDEAL MARRIAGE-BY o. o. WRIGHT.
 Adam and Eve stand as the divine ideal of marriage. Adam is humanity minus Eve; and Eve is humanity mi nus Adam. The one is the compile ment of the other; and together they represent the perfect unity, the sum of the two parts into which human na- ture is divided-the masculine ard the feminine.
 The rib which was taken out of man while he slept, belonged to Adam, was an essential part of his created nature, and very necessary to his success and happiness. And so it was given back. to him in a very attractive form in the beautiful person of Eve-a woman. The story of the creation of the sexes is an allegory. Human nature is unit, made in the divine image, cap- able of partaking of the eternal nature and divided into hemlspheres. These severed elements of divine humanity being reunited in love, the sphere of life is completed in wedlock. As what was left of man after the woman was made of right belonged to Eve, just as much as Eve belonged to Adam, they were both necessary to each oth- CT, and happy to he together because love is the bond of perfectness, and marriage the completion of human hap piness. The whole is equal to the sum of the two parts which are as one.
 Now the ideal love match puts an Adam and an Eve into garden Of Eden every time. What is lacking in the man is made up in the woman; and what is wanting in the woman is made good in the man. The ideal marriage is the comple tions and perfection of both, the man and his wife. And in such case both are satisfied. "And the man said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, be- cause she was taken out of man. Therefore shall man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one f1esh." "
 The divine ideal of marriage, accord ing to Tolstoi, is not only for this present life but forever and ever. It does not admit of divorce. The union of one man and one woman, and no more. is the eternal plan in the crea- tion. Remarriage is not according to nature, and not approved by the pur- est and highest instincts of our race. As the Lord said concerning divorce, so convenient among the Jews; "For your hardness of heart Moses wrote you this commandment. But from the of creation, male and female made he them, and the twain shall become one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another committeth adultery against her; and if she herself shall put away her hus- band, and marry another, she commit teth adultery"
 The great Russian reformer referred to above says: "Monogamy is the natural law of humanity, which cannot with impunity be violated. l am obliged to consider as sacred and absolute the sole and unique union by which man is once for all indissolubly bound to the first woman with whom he has ;been united." This is the interpretation of the extreme idealist, accepted only
 by the poetic, spiritual, and transcen- dental few who are superiorIto all the
 rest. But if this ideal could once be evolved in the hearts and minds of the
 rising generation, the vexed and per
 picking questions of social science
 would be easily solved, and the future
 welfare and happiness of the world | would be assured.