In many cases of breach of marriage laws the believers apparently look upon the law requiring consent of parents before marriage as a mere administrative regulation, and do not seem to realize that this is a law of great importance affecting the very foundations of human society. Moreover they seem not to appreciate that in the Bahá'í Faith the spiritual and administrative aspects are complementary and that the social laws of the Faith are as binding as the purely spiritual ones.
- The Universal House of Justice (From a letter to the National Spiritual
Assembly of the United States, August 29, 1965: Canadian Bahá'í News, No. 265,
February 1973, compilation: ‘Lights of Guidance’)