276. V. THAT NEVERTHELESS, IN THE WORLD, MATRIMONIES ARE TO CONTINUE TO THE END OF LIFE. This is adduced in order more clearly to present before the reason the necessity, utility, and truth of the statement that where the conjugial love is not genuine, it should yet be affected, that is, should seem as if it were genuine. It would be otherwise if the marriages entered into were not contracts enduring to the end of life but were dissolvable at will, as was the case with the Israelitish nation which arrogated to itself the liberty of putting away their wives for any cause whatsoever. This is seen from the following words in Matthew: The Pharisees came unto Jesus saying, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And when Jesus answered that it was not lawful to put away a wife and marry another except for whoredom, they retorted, Yet Moses commanded to give her a bill of divorcement and put her away; while the Disciples said, If the case of a man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry. 19:3-10. [2] Since, therefore, the covenant of marriage is a covenant for life, it follows that appearances of love and friendship between the partners are necessities. That matrimonies once contracted must continue to the end of life in the world, is from Divine law; and being from this, it is also from rational law, and hence from civil law--from Divine law in that it is not lawful for one to put away his wife and marry another except for whoredom, as above; from rational law because this is founded upon spiritual law, Divine law and rational law being one. From the latter and the former together, or through the latter from the former, can be seen the great number of enormities and social destructions [that would result from] the dissolutions of marriages before death, or the putting away of wives at the good pleasure of their husbands. Since these enormities and social destructions can be seen in some fullness in the Memorable Relations, nos. 103-15, concerning the origin of conjugial love as discussed by men gathered together from nine kingdoms, there is no need to add further reasons. These causes, however, do not stand in the way of separations being permitted for their own causes, as above (nos. 252-54), and also concubinage, of which in the Second Part.