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Excerpt from Marriage: Being a Thesis for the Degree of Doctor of Laws <p>Whatever lessens human misery is good. It matters little whether the summum bonum - the supreme good - consists in the enjoyment of pleasure and the deprivation of pain; or in the possession of moral excellence based upon the will to be perfect. In either case the test by which any act is judged is its tendency to increase or decrease human happiness. The act is good if it increases human happiness, and bad if it decreases it. Applying this principle to marriage, several very important moral conclusions are easily deduced. <p>It has been stated that the end of marriage is the production of offspring. This applies more particularly to man's animal nature. Spiritually considered, marriage has, as an ultimate end, the union of two souls so as to produce a perfect moral being. The Ego. Of the husband unites with the Ego of the wife, thus creating an Ego containing the spiritual part of each.' Some marriages, it is said, are made in heaven; such are the ideal marriages. They are happy marriages. But all marriages are not happy and it seems to follow as an inevit able conclusion, that the theoretical union of souls by the act of marriage is, to say the least, exceedingly doubtful. It may be argued that if baptism mystically washes away sin, may not the marriage ceremony mystically unite the souls of the contracting parties? The argument is certainly powerful, but it is by no means conclusive. Baptism is clearly based upon the Bible, and it is one of the fundamental rites of all Christian Churches. Marriage has existed among all people, and at all times, so far as history gives us' any information. Hence, baptism is exclusively a Christian observance whereas, marriage is the universal practice of savage as well as civilized communities. From such considerations it seems that the marriage ceremony is inferior, as a religious rite, to the other fundamental ceremonies of the Christian Church - such as b