M. Comte takes
this opportunity of declaring his opinions on the proper constitution of
the family, and in particular of the marriage institution. They are of
the most orthodox and conservative sort. M. Comte adheres not only to
the popular Christian, but to the Catholic view of marriage in its
utmost strictness, and rebukes Protestant nations for having tampered
with the indissolubility of the engagement, by permitting divorce. He
admits that the marriage institution has been, in various respects,
beneficially modified with the advance of society, and that we may not
yet have reached the last of these modifications; but strenuously
maintains that such changes cannot possibly affect what he regards as
the essential principles of the institution--the irrevocability of the
engagement, and the complete subordination of the wife to the husband,
and of women generally to men; which are precisely the great vulnerable
points of the existing constitution of society on this important
subject. It is unpleasant to have to say it of a philosopher, but the
incidents of his life which have been made public by his biographers
afford an explanation of one of these two opinions: he had quarrelled
with his wife.
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