Exodus 20:14

Exodus 20:14

As there is a Divine idea to be fulfilled in the relations between parents and children which makes that relationship sacred, so there is a Divine idea to be fulfilled in marriage, in all the offices of mutual love and service which it creates, and in all the happiness which it renders possible; and therefore marriage is sacred too. In its form the commandment only forbids acts which violate the idea on which it rests, but it requires for its true and perfect fulfilment the realization of the idea itself. The institution rests on the possibility of the absolute mutual surrender to each other of man and woman, a surrender in which nothing is reserved but loyalty to God and to those supreme moral duties which no human relationship can modify or disturb. By such a life will the true idea of marriage which underlies this commandment be fulfilled, and all peril of violating this particular precept be kept far away.

R. W. Dale, The Ten Commandments,p. 170.

References: Exodus 20:14. J. Oswald Dykes, The Law of the Ten Words,p. 139; S. Leathes, The Foundations of Morality,p. 167; Preacher's Monthly,vol. ii., p. 216; F. D. Maurice, The Commandments,p. 100.