The situation facing you is admittedly difficult and
delicate, but no less grave and indeed vital are the responsibilities which it
entails and which, as a faithful and loyal believer, you should conscientiously
and thoroughly assume. The Guardian, therefore, while fully alive to the
special circumstances of your case, and however profound his sympathy may be
for you in this challenging issue with which you are so sadly faced, cannot, in
view of the emphatic injunctions contained in the Teachings, either sanction
your demand to contract a second marriage while your first wife is still alive
and is united with you in the sacred bonds of matrimony, or even suggest or
approve that you divorce her just in order to be permitted to marry a new one.
- Shoghi Effendi (From a letter dated 8 May 1939, written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual
believer who, having married his first wife out of compassion, now wished to be
permitted to marry a woman with whom he had fallen in love, saying that his
wife was agreeable to his taking this second wife; The Compilation of
Compilations vol. I, Divorce)
