12. The Law of Divorce (Remastered)

The Law of Divorce

R.J. Rushdoony

Our Scripture is Deuteronomy 24:1-4 and Matthew 19:9, and our subject, ‘The Biblical Law of Divorce.’

“When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man’s wife. And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, which took her to behis wife; Her former husband, which sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before the Lord: and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.”

Matthew 19:9

“And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.”

Marriage is the voluntary union of two persons, a man and a woman, in holy wedlock; mutual consent is required or else it is slavery or rape. Calvin and Luther both stressed this fact of the voluntary union which has always been an aspect even of arranged marriages, except in minor isolated cases; with royalty usually the king commanded or passed on every marriage in the royal family.

Union involved mutual consent, dissolution or divorce does not. As we analyze the Biblical Laws of divorce, we find that this is one of the most debated and hotly contested areas in all of Scripture. The extent of variation in the interpretation of the law is incredible. For example, the major school of Rabbis at the time of our Lord interpreted the Deuteronomic passage which we read as meaning that anything in a woman that displeased a man was grounds for divorce. And they interpreted: “If she find no favor in his eyes,” to mean that if she over salted the food, or served it to him so hot that he burned his mouth when he tasted it, or if he saw a better looking woman and decided he wanted her; these were all, according to the Rabbis, grounds for divorce, because she had found no favor in his eyes for those reasons.

So that, you had the rabbis at the time of our Lord and for some time thereafter, interpreting this with the utmost laxity possible, making it really meaningless. So that any reason a man imagined was grounds for divorce.

On the other hand, in spite of this passage and the passage in St. Matthew which was read, there are many churches that permit no divorce whatsoever. Others that limit it only to adultery as the only valid ground, and some that say that it is adultery and desertion. What is the reality? What does the law as a whole have to say to us?

First of all we forget that one of the most common forms of divorce in the Bible and in all of history has been divorce by death, by execution. We are not used to thinking of divorce in such terms, but consider this. In the Old Testament, if a man were guilty of adultery, or a woman, they were executed. And we saw last week as we studied the New Testament teaching that adultery is, in terms of New Testament law still, a crime that calls for death. Now, it does not exist, and therefore special provisions were made for those social orders wherein no such offense incurred the death penalty. As a matter of fact, this is how the penitential system developed.

In the Roman Empire, law and order was at a minimum. It was a society going down the drain. And as a result, the church had a continual problem, here were adulterers, and sometimes murderers whom the law was not punishing, how were they going to deal with them? For other crimes that the Scripture spoke of there was restitution required, and the restitution here was the death penalty, but the church had no power to enforce the death penalty. Therefore, what was the church to do? Just tell them, “As long as you say you are sorry and repent, come back in?” No. that was to make adultery or murder a lesser crime then say, the theft of $10, where restitution was required, the return of the $10 plus another $10.

And so, they set up certain requirements. Penances to do, which would demonstrate the sincerity of the repentant person. Some times for seven years they would be barred from communion. And during that time they would be required to do a number of menial services. These were not works to work out there sin, but measures to require restitution and to demonstrate their repentance, that they were truly sorry and were humbling themselves before God. Unfortunately, when Protestants think of the penitential system, they think of the later Medieval abuses, which were fearful. But in its origin it was the church’s way of dealing with crimes that society no longer paid any attention to, and which they felt somehow had to be penalized.

Now, to return to the matter of divorce by death. The law required it for adultery as we saw last week. So that if a man or a woman committed adultery, the spouse gained a divorce by death.

Let us examine, therefore, in summary fashion, the laws whereby a woman in Israel might obtain a divorce by death and remarry; the laws calling for the death penalty against the man. To list these without taking time to give all the references, the Biblical references, which can be given although we dealt with many of them: 

1.Adultery.

2.Rape.

3.Incest. 

4.Homosexuality or sodomy.

5.Bestiality.

6.Premeditated Murder.

7.Smiting father or mother.

8.Death of a woman from miscarriage due to assault and battery.

9.Sacrificing children to Molech.

10.Cursing father or mother.

11.Kidnapping.

12.Being a wizard.

13.Being a false prophet or dreamer.

14.Apostasy.

15.Sacrificing to other gods.

16.Refusing to follow the decision of judges.

17.Blasphemy.

18.Transgressing the Covenant.

In other words, for all these offenses a woman gained a divorce by death. 

On the other hand, a divorce by death was obtainable by men because of the following death penalties cited for women: 

1.Unchastity before marriage.

2.Adultery after marriage.

3.Prostitution by a priest’s daughter.

4.Bestiality.

5.Being a witch or a sorceress.

6.Transgressing the covenant and,

7.Incest.

Now it is obvious that that the list for men is more than twice as long. And it is obvious that some of the death penalties for men would also apply to women, as for example murder. But many of the crimes that are cited for men such as rape and kidnapping, while it is conceivable that the woman would be guilty of those, it is not very likely. Those are primarily masculine offenses.

Thus, because the man has a greater position of physical strength as well as authority, he also is capable of incurring the death penalty far more readily than women. And this is in terms of the Biblical principle that: 

“For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.”

Luke 12:48.

Thus, the first and major form of divorce in Scripture is divorce by death. The second form of divorce we dealt with some time ago for breach of the marital law whereby a woman could gain a divorce from her husband for his failure to provide for her materially or sexually.

Then a third kind of divorce, in cases of consanguinity, when it appeared that they were within the forbidden degrees of relationship, where the death penalty was not required, the marriage had to be terminated. And also for mixed marriages; mixed marriages were very clearly banned, a divorce was required. If someone married an unbeliever, that was an invalid marriage. And of course we have the dramatic case cited in Nehemiah where very rigorously all such mixed marriages were terminated.

Then we have the fourth type of divorce cited in Deuteronomy 24:1-4; the bill of divorce. This is cited very often in the Old Testament, in fact God declares that He uses this kind of bill of divorce because Israel hath not found favor in His eyes. And therefore He says through the prophet Jeremiah, for example in Jeremiah 3:8, and in Isaiah 50:1, as well as in other passages; God declares that he is divorcing Israel, casting it aside, because of the violation of the law of marriage in terms of Deuteronomy 24:1.

Now when we analyze these passages in Jeremiah and Isaiah, we find what it means in terms of Deuteronomy 24:1. What does it mean when it says: “She hath not found favor [or grace - RJR]” in his eyes? Because he hath found some uncleanness or nakedness of a thing in his eyes? What is the meaning of that expression?

First of all, ‘favor’ or ‘grace.’ This means that there is a faithlessness with respect to the covenant, this is the meaning, the covenant of God. As a result, it does not have a purely personal reference, it does not refer to how he feels, but if in terms of the covenant of God she be found wanting, if, although outwardly a believer, she is in her heart proven to be apostate and rebellious against God. Moreover, the term, “Found uncleanness or nakedness of a thing in her,” refers to a variety of things. As we analyze the word, and as it is used elsewhere in Scripture, it is used for a shameful exposure of the body, that is lascivious, promiscuous conduct falling short of adultery. It is also used for perversion, if she is involved in any kind of perversion. Thus it means that grounds for divorce constitute lasciviousness and also perversion.

Then again we find the word used for rebelliousness against the godly authority of the husband. Not disagreement, not disagreement in the Lord whereby she attempts to correct her husband in the faith, but a radical rebellion against the very principle of his authority, against the idea that God has given any authority to man.

Now, this expression, “Some uncleanness of a thing or nakedness of a thing,” is precisely the word in Greek which we find translated as fornication, ‘porneia.’ Thus, the meaning of fornication, when we trace every instance of the use of porneia in the New Testament means again perversion in a woman of some sort, lasciviousness, rebelliousness, and a variety of related meanings.

Accordingly, when we read Matthew 19:9, it is important for us to note exactly what is said:

“And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery…” 

That is, with his second wife.

In other words, the word used here is ‘fornication.’ And yet the ironic fact is, that when you read many commentaries and the declarations of churches that limit divorce to adultery, they insist on saying: “Well, it says fornication, but it means adultery.” Now, this is a strange statement because Scripture is so very literal. Remember, our Lord placed so much importance on the very literal reading of the tenth of a verse, that he rested the doctrine of immortality, of life beyond the grave on this, so that he told the Pharisees, God says I am: 

“…the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him.”

Luke 20:37–38.

Again, St. Paul rested an entire prophecy and its interpretation on the singular of ‘seed,’ to make it clear that the seed of the woman spoken of in Scripture was Jesus Christ, not Israel. Because he says: “It is not seeds as to many, to an entire people, but to one.” Therefore, if our Lord here meant adultery He would have said adultery. But He meant fornication and therefore He said fornication.

Now, fornication has come to mean premarital sex almost exclusively in modern English, but this is not its meaning in the Greek, nor the meaning of ‘uncleanness’ or ‘nakedness of a thing’ in the Hebrew.

Now, since every act of extramarital sex by a husband or wife with a person of the opposite sex is adultery, even though it might be also perversion or it might be incest, it is still adultery. To use a word other than adultery means something else than merely sexual offenses. It refers to this fact of lasciviousness and rebelliousness, and unbelief.

Now the point then sometimes is raised with 1 Corinthians 7. Is this another law? Is a new ground introduced here of desertion? Because in this case the question is raised by the Corinthians as to divorce. They write to Paul and their question is, “We have many in our congregation who are married to unbelievers.” St. Paul says in the tenth verse: 

“And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from herhusband: But and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to herhusband: and let not the husband put away his wife.”

1 Corinthians 7:10–11.

Then, he goes on to say in the fourteenth verse: 

“For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy. But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace.”

1 Corinthians 7:14–15.

Now what is the meaning of this? Has St. Paul changed the Old Testament law with regard to mixed marriages? Are mixed marriages now permissible? And the answer is “no.” But St. Paul is not dealing here with a case or cases of Christians who had married an unbeliever, it is quite different. Had it been a case of an unbeliever being married to a believer, his principle which he also affirms: “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers” would have been invoked. He would have said this is not a valid marriage. But this is not what he said. 

In this case, a couple were married, or many couples in the Corinthian church. They were both unbelievers. Then what happened? One of them became a convert. And so, they wrote to St. Paul, and they said: “What shall we do under this circumstance? Here is a wife or here is a husband who is now a Christian, and their mate is an unbeliever. Should we in terms of the Old Testament law declare that this is an invalid marriage and permit them to get a divorce?” And St. Paul said: “No. This is different from a believer marrying an unbeliever. They were validly married together as unbelievers, both of them. Now, one is converted. If the believer leaves in such a case, divorce is not permissible,” twelfth verse. “But even the unbelieving partner is made a part of the covenant of God, and the children are holy in the covenant unto God in such a marriage. And as long as the unbelieving partner makes no trouble, does not in effect declare war against his or her partner’s faith, it is a valid marriage. But if the unbeliever departs, if the unbeliever breaks up the marriage, then let it go, let it be broken up. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God hath called us to peace.”

Thus St. Paul here does not change the Old Testament law with respect to mixed marriages, he reaffirms it: 

“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.” 

But he says that: 

“Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called.”

1 Corinthians 7:20.

In other words, Christians are called unto peace, we are not to be revolutionists. If the marriage is broken up in such a case, then it is up to the unbeliever to break it. The believer is to try peacefully to maintain the marriage insofar as is possible. 

Thus, as we analyze these passages, we find the New Testament clearly maintains the Old Testament Law. There is no change. There has been a misreading of the Old Testament Law by the Pharisees and Sadducees for untold ages. There has been a misinterpretation of the New Testament law, but it is one Word, one Scripture. And the old and the new are at one here.

And it was precisely because the Old Testament Law was still fully enforced with regard to divorce that the Corinthians wrote and said, “Should we terminate mixed marriages?” and St. Paul, fully in conformity with the whole of Scripture said, “No, not where it is a case of conversion rather than a believer going out to make such a marriage. In such a marriage they either demonstrate their unbelief, or the marriage is not valid.”

Thus Scripture again demonstrates itself to be one Word and the essence of the law of divorce has reference not to man, but to God. And this is of course the point at which so much interpretation has gone astray. “If she find favor in his eyes,” ‘find grace’ in other words, to put it in the New Testament language, because ‘favor’ is the same in the Hebrew as ‘grace’ is in the Greek and in the New Testament. In other words it has reference to the covenant of God, not to how the man and the woman suit each other. So that it is never what we want in marriage that constitutes the grounds of divorce, but what God in His sovereign Word declares. The covenant therefore is primary, and uncleanness of a thing and fornication, as well as the desertion of 1 Corinthians, all have reference to the covenant of faith, and the responsibility of man and women alike to God in terms of His calling.

Scripture at all points is God-centered.

Let us pray.

* * *

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we give thanks unto thee for thy Word. Make us ever mindful, our Father, to seek in all things first thy kingdom, thy will, thy law-Word that we might indeed inherit thy kingdom and be heirs of thy grace. We thank thee, our Father, that thou hast called us to be thy people, and hast made us heirs of thy kingdom, and has given us a desire to know thy Word and to praise thee as we ought, with obedience to thy Word. Fill our hearts ever with joy in thy holy calling, and make us ever strong in thy Word and by thy grace. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Are there any questions now, first of all with respect to our lesson? Yes.

[Audience Member] Is the ‘no divorce ever’ stand at all scriptural? ⁱ

[Rushdoony] At this point the Catholic church and the various other churches, and there are a number of them, that take the stand of no divorce are definitely not in terms of Scripture. At this point they are trying to be holier than God, which I believe is a fearful offense. Now, their point is that for these grounds separation is permissible, but this is not in terms of Scripture, because Scripture clearly permits remarriage. Now the only place where it says there is separation is when the believer as in the eleventh verse of the seventh chapter of 1 Corinthians, if they leave without any real ground. 

“…and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband…” 

But in the fifteenth verse: 

“…if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases^…” 

In other words, they are free to remarry.

Yes?

[Audience Member] Do annulments of marriage have any ground in Scripture?

[Rushdoony] Yes, annulments do have ground in Scripture where there is a fraud. I didn’t take time to go into that, but Luther and Calvin did comment on this at great length with respect to the Leah - Jacob marriage. 

Now, you no doubt remember the story. Leah was the older sister, and Jacob wanted to marry Rachel. And on the marriage night they slipped in Leah on him, and when he woke up in the morning, “behold it was Leah,” and he was a pretty sick bridegroom.

Well, as Luther and Calvin said, this was not a valid marriage. And of course Luther’s attitude was, if he woke up in the morning and found Leah instead of Rachel, he said: “I would have booted her out!” Luther was always given to rather forceful language. 

Now of course, poor Jacob couldn’t do this, he was in enemy territory as it were, and his father- in-law controlled the courts, controlled everything, and he had to make the best of it. About all he could have done would be to have run for his life in this situation, and he wanted Rachel so he didn’t feel like running.

But, the marriage was consummated, it was still not a valid marriage, because there was fraud. And in terms of this, most states did have, in fact I would guess perhaps all of them, the provision of annulment if there were non-consummation or fraud in a marriage.

[Audience Member] What if you stayed beyond a certain point, could you get an annulment later? ⁱⁱ

[Rushdoony] No, because if you stayed beyond a certain point when the fraud became known to you, whatever the fraud was, then you were condoning it, so that you lost whatever grounds. Just as if a husband commits adultery and after the adultery the wife forgives him and resumes relationship, she no longer has the grounds of adultery. She has wiped it out as far as the law is concerned.

Yes?

[Audience Member] What is the Scripture that the Catholic church takes to justify their ‘no divorce’ position? ⁱⁱⁱ

[Rushdoony] Yes, the Scripture in Mark 10 of course is the text that the Catholic Church takes in isolation from all the rest. Now, how shall we read Mark 10? Because Mark 10: 

“Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her. And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery.”

Mark 10:11–12.

Now, there is no objection to that verse whatsoever, in terms of the rest of the law, because here it is simply a putting away without ground, you see. 

Now, this was of course the whole point of the Sadducean position, that there was the right to put away purely in terms of personal feelings. So, that phrase: “Put away” you see, had that significance in the law at that time.

So our Lord said “If anyone puts away, it is adultery.” They have no right to put away just in terms of their whim; if she doesn’t salt the food properly, or over-salts it, or if they see a better looking woman. Now in the passage in Matthew what he says is, “Put away, saving for fornication.” Now, if you limit, if you say there is no divorce in terms of this verse, what are you going to do with the other? You see. And this is of course what happens with the position of those who say in terms of this that there is no divorce. Well, then you are throwing out all the other passages in the Old Testament and the New Testament, and saying, “I am going to go in terms of just this one verse.”

And this is the kind of thing of course that makes nonsense out of Scripture, because you are trying to oppose Scripture against Scripture, rather than saying, “Alright, here are these Scriptures, what does one say and what does the other, and they obviously are not in conflict.” Does that help explain it? Yes.

[Audience Member] Supposing there is a mixed marriage with respect to race; and assuming that both are of the same faith, what is there in Scripture that might be against that?

[Rushdoony] Yes.  Well, the answer is that there is not a law against it, but there is basically a principle that militates against such marriages, so that you might say they are just barely legal, but in principle Scripture is opposed to them. Because the whole point of marriage is that the wife be a help-meet to her husband, and the term help meet means in effect ‘mirror,’ ‘an image,’ ‘one who reflects him spiritually,’ that is in terms of faith, in terms of a common background, in terms of a common purpose.

Now, marriage between persons of very different races generally doesn’t fulfill that requirement, you see. So that it can be technically a marriage, but it isn’t one in which the wife can be a helpmeet. So that, while it can legally qualify, theologically you could say there are factors that normally in almost ninety-nine cases out of a hundred would militate against it.

Yes?

[Audience Member] What, then, of the cases of Rahab and Ruth, for example, Dr. Rushdoony? ^iv

[Rushdoony] In those cases there was a strong faith, but we would have to say in those cases of Rahab and Ruth, there wasn’t of course the racial difference because they were similarly Semitic peoples or closely related, the linguistic differences were not even great; they could understand these languages because they were related tongues, so that it would not be an objection.

Now, of course Scripture raises an objection against a marriage to a Moabite; it is not permitted until there are so many generations of faith. However, exceptions were made we know from time to time in Scripture in terms of the faith of a person, and Scripture clearly makes an exception to its own law in the case of Ruth. Ruth was a woman of very great faith and is honored and blessed as a fore-runner, an ancestress of our Lord.

Yes?

[Audience Member] What, then, are the results of mixed marriages, Dr. Rushdoony? ^v

[Rushdoony] Well, there are some evidences with respect to mixed marriages; we have for example quite a bit of evidence in American history of what was known as the ‘half-breed,’ the person who was a product of a marriage of a white settler with an Indian woman. There are some interesting evidences there. Such a person usually had a superior physical ability and strength because he combined the white man’s resistance to diseases, which the Indian did not have, with the ability to endure, which the Indian had. The Indians did have and still has, I could go on and tell you stories about the ability of the Indian to take punishment and suffering and his ability to survive. The half breed usually combined both these aspects very, very powerfully.

And it made him a person to be reckoned with and feared. But he was also an outsider, in a sense, to both cultures. So if you remember the stories, you read of Indian life and lore, how often the half-breed, and this appears of course in Mark Twain, ‘Injun Joe,’ was a rather nasty character too because he didn’t belong, he didn’t fit in to either culture. And as a result, was distrusted by both, and ended up in a sense at war with both. This was the tragic fact; his inheritance made him an outsider to both.

This again was true and it still is true to a degree in India between the, in the unions between British officers and Hindu girls. Now, very often, in fact very commonly, these children were very well cared for. Sometimes their parents would make sure that they got the best of education, they were often shipped to Europe to be educated, but again they were singularly unhappy people. The social conditions there made them outcasts in the Hindu world, and they tended to be outcasts in the white man’s world, so they were by and large a pathetic lot in that they were neither one nor the other.

So that, there are sometimes some genetic advantages, there are sometimes genetic disadvantages, but there are generally markedly social disadvantages which tend to warp the child’s entire life. And these social factors are extremely strong. So in countries where you do have this kind of group, they do represent a rather bitter and an unhappy group, a rebellious group.

In the Orient there is a great deal of prejudice against such marriages, and in a fair percentage of the marriages of American service men, say with Japanese girls, these Japanese girls do come from the lowest strata. I know of one very brilliant Christian doctor married to a very fine Japanese girl. He was in Japan after the war and in connection with military service, and this girl is an unusual girl, a Christian, one of the most beautiful women Dorothy and I have ever known. And of course one of the things she does not do in this country is to associate with any of the other war brides, because her attitude is: “I wouldn’t associate with them over there, why should I here?” Nine out of ten of them represent such a lower social level, and of course she was an aristocrat there. And very few such marriages were contracted.

And this is the usual thing, when there are marriages between races, very often it is not the best of either and this is another factor that commonly militates against the success of such marriages, in that it is the lower levels that tend to unite in most cases.

Yes?

[Audience Member] It can bring dishonour to the family or families involved also. ^vi

[Rushdoony] Yes, there is an element, you are very right; there is an element of dishonor to father and mother and a break with the family, so there are very serious objections to it. However with many, many peoples, after a time some of these objections disappear. For example, it is now expected that in a few generations there will be no Japanese Americans in the United States. The amount of intermarriage there is so great, the Japanese are very concerned about it, because for one thing the third generation and fourth generation Japanese are becoming so Americanized, their tastes are altering, their appearance is changing, and intermarriages are increasing, and they are very quickly being merged into the American population. After one generation of intermarriage you can no longer detect the Japanese background. So, with some of these, especially as they move into Christian churches and circles, it disappears after a while. With some groups it doesn’t.

Now one of the interesting facts here with respect to intermarriage, and our time is just about up and we will conclude in a moment, is this; that historically, whenever you have had two peoples close together, and one in a position of power and the other in a position of either slavery or inferiority, it takes only a very short time for the two races to merge, no matter how great the hatred between them.

Thus, when the Normans took England, there was nothing more hateful to the Anglo-Saxon peoples of England than a Norman. And yet, because they were of comparable ability, in spite of that intense hatred, they did merge, ultimately. But when you find two peoples of very different intellectual and cultural levels close together, they can be together generation after generation, and the amount of merging is very slight. So that there is no disappearing of one as against the other. This is why the Negro did not disappear in the South. Had the slaves been, say of another racial group, it would not have taken more than a hundred years of slavery for the two groups to have merged. But you had a couple of hundred years of slavery in the South, and the Negro did not disappear. So this is the remarkable fact.

As a result, when you hear stories told about how the Negro women were exploited and so on, these stories tend to be exaggerations. As a matter of fact, the truth was usually the other way, it was very difficult to raise children in the South, or to rear children in the South because one way of promotion was to capture the interest of a white boy or a white man. Now, this goes counter to the Marxist thesis, but when you study the history of the West, you discover that one of the best things that ever happened incidentally to the morality of the upper classes was modern inventions which abolished the need for servants in the home because one of the major problems that existed was the seduction of the boys and the men in a household by servant girls.

Now according to the Marxists, it was the other way around, the poor working girl exploited. But for the working girl it was usually a ticket for support for herself and a child. And it meant a dowry to help her get married to somebody else. So there was a tremendous exploitation and a continual corruption of the upper classes by the presence of a large body of servants because it used to be in a sizeable household there were half a dozen servants, and modern technology has eliminated what was once a continual cause of corruption of the upper classes and the upper middle class. Well, this is getting off into a bypath. 

One announcement. Those of you who are not on the newsletter list, or the Chalcedon Report list to receive our monthly report or newsletter, please give me your name and address if you would like to be on it. 

We are adjourned.

i.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

ii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

iii.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

iv.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

v.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.

vi.  Question added/modified for clarity and brevity.