Civil and Religious Marriages Again.
By B.
“It is well-known,” says the Lutheran Witness, commenting upon the question of civil marriage in Cuba, “that the Roman Catholic does not recognize the validity of any marriage ceremony which has been solemnized by any one not a priest of his church. Accordingly, in countries where the Roman Catholic is the state religion, no civil marriages are permitted. This was the case, e. g., in Cuba and Porto Rico under Spanish rule. The exorbitant fees charged by the priests for performing the marriage ceremony brought about a great looseness in morals and a prevalence of concubinage. When our authorities took charge of the islands they, of course, sought for means and ways of abolishing this state of affairs. In his endeavors in this direction the governor-general of Cuba jumped to the opposite extreme by forbidding all except civil marriages.” It is denied, however, by the Catholic Standard and Times of Philadelphia, that civil marriages were not permitted in Cuba under Spanish rule. Be that as it may, however, the American governor-general certainly made a serious mistake in decreeing that all marriages should be civil. Those who for any reason prefer the religious ceremony are certainly entitled to it. From the standpoint of the state marriage is merely a civil contract. But Roman Catholics are taught from childhood that it is “one of the seven sacraments of the church.” In the eyes of a Catholic a civil magistrate might just as well assume to administer baptism as to celebrate marriage. However erroneous this view may be, there is no reason why the state should interfere with it. It is all right to require the clergyman to report all marriages to the proper civil officer and to safeguard the rights of the contracting parties by requiring them to procure a license, etc., but to require that the vows be exchanged before the magistrate, and that he alone shall have authority to declare the parties husband and wife, is an unwarranted interference in religious belief and practice. The Lutheran Witness very properly says that “the State cannot relinquish its right to superintend and guard the institution of matrimony.” Nor should the State by any means recognize only religious marriages. But we cannot agree that “if the government of our country should see fit at any time, to take away from our pastors the right to solemnize marriage and restrict it to the civil authorities, we Christians with a good conscience might content ourselves with holding a divine service in which the divine blessing is implored upon the already married couple, in accordance with the word of Paul that ‘everything is sanctified by the Word of God and by prayer.’” While we do not hold that the religious ceremony is essential, we do hold that to forbid it or even to make it secondary to a civil ceremony before a civil officer is an unwarranted abuse of civil power, an infringement of religious liberty. The American authorities in Cuba should hasten to correct the wrong they have done not only to Roman Catholics but to pious, self-respecting Protestants as well. B.