Religion: Christian Marriage

If they cannot contain, let them marry:

for it is better to marry than to burn.

—I Corinthians 7:9

This month U.S. churches were crowded—for weddings. But some June brides might drop their bouquets with shock to hear that the early Christian Fathers regarded marriage as the lesser of two evils.

According to Professor Roland H. Bainton of Yale University Divinity School, Christianity has taken three principal views of marriage—the sacramental, the romantic and the companionable. In the current issue of the quarterly Religion in Life, Dr. Bainton, a Congregationalist, sets all three attitudes in...