ARCANUM DIVINAE SAPIENTIAE CONSILIUM. - Opening words of the encyclical in which Leone XIII (18 Feb. 1880: Acta Leonis XIII, II, Roma 1880, pp. 10-40) addresses the question of marriage and defends Catholic doctrine concerning it against the vigorous and persistent attacks of the naturalists and regalists.
After recalling the nature of marriage, its unity and indissolubility, altered over the centuries by the deviations of polygamy, polyandry, and divorce, which have degraded the dignity of woman, the Pontiff recalls the work of Gesù Cristo, who raised the natural bond, already sacred in itself, to the dignity of a sacrament, rehabilitating woman and transforming the family into a society of dignified and harmonious hierarchy. Against this divine institution rise the fallacies of its adversaries: whether by separating the matrimonial contract (which they say belongs to the State) from the sacrament (which would belong to the Church), or by suggesting the usefulness and necessity of a law permitting divorce. Leone XIII warns Catholics against these erroneous conceptions and demonstrates the harm that would result from them,
wherever they were applied. Indeed, the moral condition of the various nations in which they are in force is the most convincing proof of this. V. DIVORZIO; MATRIMONIO.