'It is said that whosoever divorces a woman...

'It is said that whosoever divorces a woman; let him give her a document of divorce. But I say that whosoever divorces a woman other than in the case of fornication has exposed her to the possibility of adultery'.24 3. In the Religion of Zoroaster This religion encouraged marriage and building a family and bearing children.

In one of its texts it says that 'the married man is greatly preferable to the bachelor and he who supports a family is much more favoured than he who has no family, and he who has children is even more favourable than that.'25 Elsewhere it says that 'every time the number of children of a man increases, his closeness to his Lord increases.'26 Parents used to organise the marital affairs of those of their children who had reached the age of adolescence, it not being acceptable for a man to remain unmarried.

Also any occupation or work which would distance the individual from the family was unacceptable. Among them, divorce was not approved of except in the case of barrenness, or adultery, or infidelity to the state of married life. Amongst their laws was the prohibition of masturbation, which could be punished by flogging. The consequences for one who committed adultery, or homosexuality, or lesbianism, was death. Likewise, the punishment for abortion among them was execution. 4.

Buddhism In Buddhism, the punishment for an adulteress was to be publicly thrown as prey to the dogs. As for her partner in the crime, he would be roasted alive on a red-hot bed of steel. Looking at a woman with desire decreased ones vows and the lustful glance stripped one of one's intellect. 5.

Confucianism The ancient Chinese considered the holding back of a man from marriage to be a character deficit and a crime against the ancestors and the state which could not be excused, even for religious men. They used to delegate a special official whose work was to make sure that every man of age thirty was married and that every woman was married before the age of twenty. One of the sayings of Confucius says 'if a house stands on a firm foundation then the world is safe and sound'.

Conclusion After that brief summary of the family system among various civilisations and religions, it is clear that all of humanity agrees upon the call for marriage and procreation as an extension of the human species, and upon the impropriety of the unmarried state and the unlawfulness of fornication and infidelity etc.