ABSTRACT
The Protestants differ from the Catholics on the question of marriage, in that the Protestants believe its indissolubility to be natural, and do not believe it to be religious. Whereas the Catholics believe indissolubility to be religious, because it is perfect or natural, and was so in the beginning. Beware: divorce can only be a religious toleration for those who see a religious bond in marriage, and who, like the Jews, allow its dissolution by the same authority which has established it. Future legislators will possess, to justify the community of the sexes, the grounds which past and present legislators have possessed to advocate such a broad faculty of divorce. The "legislators" Louis de Bonald is addressing would have been the members of the Council of State, which began discussion of the proposed Civil Code on 4 Thermidor, Year IX.
