INTRODUCTION TO THE DEVOUT LIFE

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PART III, Chapter 38: Advice To The Married

Marriage is a great sacrament, I say in Jesus Christ and in his church (Eph. 5:32). It is honourable to all (Heb. 13:4) persons, in all and in everything, that is, in all its aspects. To all persons, because even the virgins ought to honour it with humility. In all, because it is equally holy among the poor as well as among the rich. In all aspects: In fact, its origin, its purpose, its usefulness, its form and its matter are holy. It is the nursery of Christianity. It fills the earth with believers to complete the number of the elect in Heaven. So, the preservation of the well-being of marriage is extremely important for the State, for it is the root and the origin of all its resources.

Would to God that his beloved Son was invited to all the marriages as he was to that of Cana! Then the wine of consolations and blessings would never be lacking there. The reason why there is usually only a little of such wine in the beginning, is because Adonis is invited in the place of our Lord and Venus[1] instead of our Lady. Like Jacob, he who wishes to have beautiful spotted lambs, must place before the sheep fine rods of various colours when they are brought together for breeding (Gen. 30:38-39). Those who wish to have success in marriage should represent to themselves the holiness and dignity of this Sacrament at their weddings. Instead of this, there occur a thousand disorders in pastimes, celebrations and speech. It is not, therefore, astonishing that the results of such marriages are disorderly.

Above all, I urge the married to mutual love which the Holy Spirit recommends to them so much in the Scriptures. Dear married couples it is nothing to say: love one another with a natural love, for the pairs of turtle-doves do that well. Nor even to say: love one another with a human love, for the pagans have practised this love well. But following the great Apostle, I say to you: Husband love your wives as Jesus Christ loves his church (Eph. 5:25). Wives, love your husbands as the church loves her Saviour. It was God who brought Eve to our first father Adam and gave her to him as his wife. It is also God, my friends, who with his invisible hand established the sacred bond of your marriage[2] and gave you to one another. Why do you not love another with a love completely holy, sacred and divine?

The first effect of this love is the indissoluble union of hearts. If two pieces of fir are glued together, provided that the glues are good, they will stick together very strongly. It will be easier to break pieces from any other part, rather than from where they are joined together. But God has joined the husband to the wife in his own blood. Hence, this union is so strong that the soul ought to separate itself from the body of one or the other rather than the husband from the wife. Now this union is not concerned chiefly with the body but with the heart, with the affection.

The second effect of this love must be the inviolable faithfulness of the one to the other. In olden times, seals were engraved on rings which were worn on fingers as Holy Scripture itself testifies (Esther 8:8, Daniel 6:17). This, then, is the deeper meaning of the special ceremony at the wedding. The Church blesses a ring by the hands of the priest and gives it first to the bridegroom. Thus she testifies that she puts a stamp on his heart and seals it by this Sacrament. In this way she indicates that never more any name or any love of another woman can enter his heart as long as the one who has been given to him in marriage is living. Then the bridegroom puts the rings on the hand of the bride. By this she is to know in turn that her heart should not receive any affection from another man as long as the one whom our Lord has just given her is alive.

The third fruit of marriage is the procreation and proper upbringing of the children. It is a great honour to you, the married, that through you God desires to multiply human beings who will bless and praise him for all eternity. He makes you co-operators of so noble task by your generating the bodies in which he spreads the souls like heavenly drops. These he creates, and as he creates them, he infuses them into the bodies.

Husbands cultivate, therefore, a tender, constant and sincere love for your wives. For this purpose, the woman was taken from the side closest to the heart of the first man so that she would be sincerely and tenderly loved by him. The inabilities and the weaknesses either of body or of spirit of your wives should not cause any kind of contempt in you but rather a gentle and loving compassion. For God has created them as such so that they are dependent on you and thus you receive greater honour and respect from it. You may have them as your companions in such a way that you are, all the same, their heads and superiors.

You, wives, love your husbands whom God has given you. Love them with a love that is respectful and full of esteem. Truly, God has created them as a more vigorous and dominant sex. He has willed that the woman must depend on man, bone of his bones, flesh of his flesh (Gen. 2:23); she was made out of one of his ribs taken from under his arm to show that she ought to be under the hand and guidance of her husband. Holy Scripture strongly recommends to you this submission. But the same Scripture makes it pleasant. It wishes that not only you adapt yourself to it with love but also commands your husbands to exercise their authority with great love, tenderness and gentleness. Husbands, says St. Peter, treat your wives discreetly giving them honour as to a fragile vessel (1 Pet. 3:7).

While I advise you to grow more and more in this mutual love, take care that it does not turn into any kind of jealousy. Indeed, it often happens that the worm breeds in the most exquisite and ripest apple. Similar jealousy arises in the most ardent and compelling love of the married. It spoils and corrupts the very nature of this love because it causes quarrels, strife and divorces. Certainly, jealousy never arises where friendship is mutually founded upon true virtue. Hence, jealousy is an unquestionable mark of a love which is in some way sensual and rude. It establishes itself in a heart where it has found a defective unsteady virtue inclined to suspicion. It is a foolish boast as regards friendship to desire to extol it by jealousy. Jealousy is indeed a characteristic of the greatness and largeness of friendship, but not of the goodness, purity and perfection of it. While the perfection of friendship presupposes that we are convinced of the virtue of the person loved, jealousy presupposes its uncertainty.

If you, husbands, wish your wives to be faithful, then teach that lesson by your example: “With what boldness,” says St. Gregory Nazianzen, “can you demand chastity from your wives, if you yourself live in unchastity? How can you ask for what you do not give them?” do you want them to be chaste? Behave chastely towards them. As says St. Paul, “Let each one know to possess his vessel in holiness” (1 Thess. 4:4). But if on the contrary, you yourself teach them dishonesty, it is not astonishing that you have disgrace at their infidelity.

But you, wives, whose honour is inseparably joined to modesty and honesty, preserve jealousy your glory. Do not allow any kind of licentiousness to stain the brightness of your good name. Fear all sorts of attacks on your modesty, however slight they may be and never permit anything trifling around you. Whoever comes to praise your beauty and your charm must be held in suspicion. For anyone who praises a thing which he cannot but is usually tempted to steal it. But if he adds the contempt of your husband to the praise he gives you, he offends you very seriously. In fact, it is evident that he wishes not only to ruin you but already thinks of you as half lost. Indeed half of the bargain is already made with the second merchant when one is dissatisfied with the first.

Ladies both ancient and modern have accustomed to hang a number of pearls from their ears. According to Pliny, they do so for the pleasure of hearing them jingle when they touch one another. But as to me, I know that the great friend of God Isaac sent earrings to the chaste Rebecca as the first pledges of his love (Gen. 24:22). I think that this mystical ornament has a meaning: the first thing that a husband should have from his wife and a wife should faithfully keep for his in her ear. Thus no speech or rumour can enter there except the gentle and pleasant sound of chaste and modest words. Such are the words of the Gospel, the real pearls of the Orient. We must always remember that our souls are poisoned through the ear and our bodies through the mouth.

Love and faithfulness when joined together always beget intimacy and trust. Hence men and women saints have used much mutual caresses in their married life, caresses which are truly affectionate yet chaste, tender yet sincere. Thus Isaac and Rebecca, the most chaste married couple of ancient times were seen through the window by Abimelech. They were caressing each other in such a way, that though there was nothing immodest about it, he recognized that they could not but be man and wife (Gen. 26:8-9). The great St. Louis was equally strict with himself and tender in the love for his wife. He was almost found fault with for being too lavish in such caresses. In fact, he rather deserved praise for knowing to put aside his marital and courageous spirit in order to pay these little attentions needed for preserving conjugal love. Though these little expressions of pure and sincere friendship do not bind hearts together, nevertheless, they bring them closer and give a pleasant direction to conjugal life.

When St. Monica was pregnant with the great St. Augustine, she consecrated him several times to the Christian religion and to the service of the glory of God. Thus he himself testifies that he had already tasted “the salt of God in his mother’s womb.”[3] This is a great lesson for Christian mothers to offer the fruit of their womb to the divine Majesty even before they are born. For God who accepts the offerings of a humble and willing heart usually grants the good desires of mothers during this time. Samuel, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Andrew of Fiesole and many others are witnesses of it. The mother of St. Bernard, worthy mother of such a son, taking her children in her arms as soon as they were born offered them to Jesus Christ. From that time, she loved them with respect like a consecrated object entrusted to her by God. This succeeded so happily that in the end all the seven became very saintly.

After children are born and reach the age of reason, the fathers and mothers ought to take great care to instil the fear of God into their hearts. The good queen Blanche fulfilled this duty earnestly for the king, St. Louis, her son. She used to tell him often: “I would much prefer to see you die before my eyes, my dear child, rather than see you commit a single mortal sin.” It remained deeply engraved in the heart of this saintly son. As he himself said, there was not a day of his life on which he did not remember it. He took all possible care to be faithful to this divine teaching.

Indeed, in our language, races and generations are called houses. The Hebrews even refer to the begetting of children as the building up of a house. It is said in this sense that God built the houses of the midwives of Egypt (Ex. 1:21). It is to show that to make a good home is not to fill it with vast worldly possessions. Rather it is to bring up well the children in the fear of God and in virtue. In this, they should not spare any pain or hardships since the children are the crown of the father and the mother (Prov. 17:6). Hence St. Monica fought with great zeal and perseverance against the evil tendencies of St. Augustine. She followed him by land and by sea, making him with greater happiness the child of her tears by his conversion than he had been the child of her blood by his bodily generation.

St. Paul leaves to the wives the care of the house, as their share (Titus 2:5). Hence, many hold the well-founded opinion that their devotion is more profitable to the family than that of their husbands. Husbands do not usually come into contact with the members of the household. So they cannot easily form them in virtue. For this reason, Solomon in his Proverbs makes the happiness of every family depend on the care and diligence of this strong woman whom he describes (Prov. 30).

It is said in Genesis that Isaac, seeing that his wife Rebecca was barren, prayed to the Lord for her. Or according to the Hebrew text he, opposite to her, prayed to the Lord (25:21). This was because he was praying from one side of the prayer room, and she from the other. So the prayer of the husband made in this way was heard. The greatest and most fruitful union of husband and wife is made in holy devotion. In this, they ought to encourage one another, vying with each other.

There are some fruits like the quince which due to the sourness of their juice are scarcely tasty except in preserves. There are others like cherries and apricots which being tender and delicate cannot last unless similarly preserved. Thus women most desire that their husbands be preserved in the sugar of devotion. A man without devotion is a harsh, violent and coarse animal. Husbands must want their wives to be devout because without devotion, the wife is very unsteady and liable to fall or tarnish her virtue. St. Paul said, that an unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife, and the unbelieving wife by the believing husband (1 Cor. 7:14). For in this very close union of marriage, one can easily draw the other to virtue. But what a blessing it is when the believing husband and believing wife sanctify each other in a true fear of the Lord.

As for the rest, the mutual encouragement of one for the other is to be very great. The two must never be angry together and at the same time so that there is no disagreement or dispute among them. Honey-bees cannot stay in a place where there are echoes and resounding, vibrating voices. Indeed, the Holy Spirit cannot remain in a house in which there are disputes, retorts, resounding shrieks and quarrels.

St Gregory Nazianzen testifies that in his times, the married people used to celebrate the anniversary of their marriage. I would approve the revival of this custom provided that it is not celebrated with worldly and sensual pastimes. Instead, on that day, let husbands and wives make their Confession receive Holy Communion and recommend to God more fervently than usual the progress of their marriage. Let them renew their good decisions to sanctify it more and more by mutual friendship and faithfulness. Let them renew their strength in our Lord for the support of the burdens of their duty.

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[1] Adonis and Venus, a God and goddess of Graeco-Roman mythology who became symbols of immature, wanton sexuality. St. Francis warns that sexual excess can be an important cause of unhappiness in married life.

[2] Literally “tied the knot” of the sacred bond of your marriage.

[3] Confessions, Book 1, Chapter. 11

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