The Purpose of Marriage

Mr. & Mrs. Frederick Charles Baxter of London, England were married in 1934. For ten years they lived together in a connubial state that Mr. Baxter decided was unsatisfactory: Mrs. Baxter consistently refused to have sexual intercourse with him unless he used a contraceptive.

Mr. Baxter, who wanted children, finally told his troubles to the British courts. He asked for an annulment of his marriage on grounds of non-consummation.

He fought. his case to the last and highest court of all--the House of Lords. The Lords, represented by five peers of the realm, turned Mr. Baxter down. Parliament, they said, understood the word "consummate" as it was "understood in common parlance and in the light of social conditions known to exist," which, the Lord Chancellor added, included the establishment of birth control clinics.

"There is danger, too," warned the full-wigged Lord Chancellor, lantern-jawed Viscount Jowitt, "in too strict reliance on the words of the Prayer Book. . . . It seems to me that the essence of the view of Christian marriage is that any children born into a family should be brought up and nurtured in the Christian faith. That is 'not the same thing as saying that a marriage is not consummated unless children are procreated, or that procreation is the principal end of marriage."

Forthwith, Britain's newspapers began to bulge with letters-to-the-editor. Many quoted the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer: "First, it [marriage] was ordained for the procreation of children, to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord and to the praise of His holy name." Cardinal Griffin, Archbishop of Westminster, defined the Roman Catholic position: "The primary purpose of marriage is the procreation and education of children; the secondary end, mutual support and the relief of concupiscence. . . . Contraceptive intercourse, whether with the aid of instruments or not, is not consummation of marriage [and is] against nature . . . shameful and intrinsically immoral." Humorist A. P. Herbert, M.P., put in his ha penny's worth: if marriage-with-contraceptive isn't marriage; then adultery-with-contraceptive isn't adultery.

But England's churchmen were in no joking mood. Last fortnight the Anglican diocesan bishops met privately with the Archbishop of Canterbury to consider whether Viscount Jowitt and the noble Lords had in truth rendered an un-Christian decision, and if so, what to do about it.

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