On Marriage and Family Life (Popular Patristics Series)

by St. John Chrysostom (Author)

No one in the city has done this, you say? Why don't you hurry to be the founder of this good custom, so that posterity may attribute it to you? If anyone envies or imitates this custom, your descendants will be able to say to inquirers that you first introduced this practice. In the competitions of the unbelievers, at symposia, many people sing the praises of those who have improved these unedifying rites. All the more in the spiritual rite everyone will give praise and thanks to the one who first introduces this wonderful innovation. This will bring both honor and benefit to him. When this is tended by others, it will bring the reward of its fruits to you who first planted it. This will make you quickly a father, this will help your children prosper, this will aid the bridegroom to grow old together with his bride. Just as God continually threatens the sinners, saying, “Your children shall be orphans and your wives widows,” so also He promises to those who are always obedient a pleasant old age together with every good gift.

These are the two purposes for which marriage was instituted: to make us chaste, and to make us parents. Of these two, the reason of chastity takes precedence. When desire began, then marriage also began. It sets a limit to desire by teaching us to keep to one wife. Marriage does not always lead to child-bearing, although there is the word of God which says, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” We have as witnesses all those who are married but childless. So the purpose of chastity takes precedence, especially now, when the whole world is filled with our kind. At the beginning, the procreation of children was desirable, so that each person might leave a memorial of his life. Since there was not yet any hope of resurrection, but death held sway, and those who died thought that they would perish after this life, God gave the comfort of children, so as to leave living images of the departed and to preserve our species. For those who were about to die and for their relatives, the greatest consolation was their offspring.

But now that resurrection is at our gates, and we do not speak of death, but advance toward another life better than the present, the desire for posterity is superfluous. If you desire children, you can get much better children now, a nobler childbirth and better help in your old age, if you give birth by spiritual labor.

So when you are going to take a wife, do not read the laws of the state only, but first of all read the laws of the Church.

You know that you must make one of two choices. If you take a bad wife, you must endure the annoyance. If you are not willing to do this, you incur the guilt of adultery by divorcing her. The Lord says, “Everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”'

She was defiled with grease, smoke, blood, gore, and innumerable stains like these. Nevertheless He did not abhor her ugliness, but changed her repulsiveness, reshaped her, reformed her, remitted her sins. You must imitate Him. Even if your wife sins against you more times than you can count, you must forgive and pardon everything.

Besides, with the limb, we receive no benefit from the treatment when the illness turns out to be incurable; but with a wife, even if she remains incurably ill, we will receive a great reward for our attempts to teach and educate her. Even if she does not benefit at all from our teaching, we will receive a great reward from God for our patience, because we have shown so much forbearance through fear of Him. We have endured her evil ways with gentleness and have kept our member.

We all know that Eve came from the side of Adam himself. Scripture has told this plainly, that God put Adam into a deep sleep and took one of his ribs, and fashioned the woman. But how can we show that the Church also came from the side of Christ? Scripture explains this too. When Christ was lifted up on the cross, after He had been nailed to it and had died, one of the soldiers pierced His side and there came out blood and water.' From that blood and water the whole Church has arisen. He Himself bears witness to this when He says, “Unless one is born again of

water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” He calls the blood “spirit.” We receive birth from the water of baptism, and we are nourished by His blood. Do you see how we are made from His flesh and from His bones, as we are given birth and nourished by that blood and water? Just as the woman was fashioned while Adam slept, so also, when Christ had died, the Church was formed from His side.

In particular, you must not seek money when you are about to take a bride. You must consider that marriage is not a business venture but a fellowship for life.

let us seek just one thing in a wife,

The man who takes a rich wife takes a boss rather than a wife.

even without wealth women are filled with pride and prone to the love of fame,

Marriage does not exist to fill our houses with war and battles, to give us strife and contention, to pit us against each other and make our life unlivable. It exists in order that we may enjoy another's help, that we may have a harbor, a refuge, and a consolation in the troubles which hang over us, and that we may converse happily with our wife.

let us not investigate our bride's money, but the gentleness of her character and her piety and chastity. A wife who is chaste, gentle, and moderate, even if she is poor, can make poverty better than wealth. Likewise a wife who is corrupt, undisciplined, and contentious, even if she has immeasurable treasure stored away, blows it away more quickly than any wind and surrounds her husband with innumerable misfortunes along with poverty. So let us not seek a wealthy wife, but one who will use well what we have.