I. On the Christian Institution of Matrimony

The benefits which the Catholic faith conferred upon conjugal society, and at the same time upon public morals and human society in general, regard some things immediately concerning matrimony itself, and other things concerning the preparation of persons for embracing this institution rightly.

111. - On the institution of matrimony. 1. The Catholic Church protects the perfect unity of matrimony and the absolute indissolubility of consummated matrimony; and, withdrawing it from profane authority, places it fully under the protection of religious power. Thus she perfectly fulfills and completes the desires of nature concerning the institution of matrimony.

2. Nor was she content with this. But, taught by Christ her author, she shows that the matrimonial covenant between the baptized has been raised to the dignity of a sacrament, and thus demonstrates conjugal life to be suffused with the holy power of grace. She then inculcates the honor bestowed upon the permanent union of the spouses of representing the inviolable sanctity of the mysterious union by which Christ is joined to the Church.

It is useful here to explain briefly the celebrated passage of the Apostle to the Ephesians 5:22-33. On account of the humble condition in which women were placed at that time, St. Paul did not have to linger long in preaching the subjection of the wife. He rather recalls it in order that he may induce the man more gently to fulfill and profess his own duties. "How greatly," he reasons approximately thus, "is the Church rightly and deservedly subject to Christ! Yet how greatly He loves her! He handed Himself over for her." Christ Himself took upon Himself the care which of itself fell to the wife, that she should cleanse and adorn herself to please the man, so that He might "sanctify the Church, cleansing her by the washing of water in the word of life, that He might present to Himself a glorious Church." Thus also men ought to love their wives. If the man is the head of the woman, the wife is his body. Wherefore the wife completes the man as a part, so that by loving his wife the man loves himself. Do we not know from Scripture that unity of man and wife and the devotion of the man for the wife: "For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife. And the two shall be in one flesh"? A great mystery lies hidden here, whose signification I find in the union of Christ and the Church. That is, unless we are mistaken: this marvelous disposition of divine Providence, by which the human race is so constituted that man and woman, divided by sex, should become one flesh and the man should leave all things for the sake of his wife, was destined by God to signify that more marvelous conjunction of Christ with the Church, from whom He was separated by His divinity, and for whom He nevertheless left heaven and the Father so that He might cleave to her and compose with her one body of which He Himself would be the head. Something great, therefore, the union of man and wife mysteriously portends in Christ and the Church. "But, even apart from this interpretation" (so says the Apostle himself), let each man love his wife "as himself" ¹.

¹ Compare also Prat, Saint Paul.

Certain theologians of an earlier age expanded the very rationale of the figure. And although perhaps destitute of certain arguments, nevertheless these comparisons are salutary and apt for establishing a great estimation of marriage. Wherefore the Church also profits not a little through them for the cause of matrimony. Thus it is read in Sanchez: A ratified marriage signifies the union of Christ with a soul existing in grace, or the union of Christ through charity with the whole Church, certain members of which can fail. But a consummated marriage signifies the indissoluble union of Christ with the Church through assumed flesh. Christ was made one flesh with the Church "through the mystery of the Incarnation" (De matrimonio, book 2, disp. 13, no. 1).

If we now consider the ends of matrimony: as regards the end of offspring, Christian matrimony no longer aims only that the human race be propagated, but that children be begotten for the Church, "fellow citizens with the saints and domestics of God" ². As regards the remedy of concupiscence, the value of chastity is so exalted in the Catholic Church that the moderate use of marriage, sometimes tempered or interrupted by voluntary will in order to devote time to prayer, and exercised gently according to the desires of nature, fully suffices of itself for satiating lust; and so that souls also may be equal to bearing even a prolonged obligation of continence which circumstances sometimes render necessary. Finally, as regards love, the most noble exemplar of affection is proposed to spouses in the love by which Christ loves the Church.

² Ephesians 2:19.

But insofar as we attend to the sacramental signification, the speculative signification of Christian marriage, by which it represents the union of Christ with the Church, impels spouses to imitate the holy fecundity of the Church by a more chaste generation and a better education of offspring; the fidelity of Christ placed before their eyes strengthens their mutual fidelity by an ineffable example, with a new sanction also added by which infidelity becomes the violation of a sacred thing; finally, it perfects the indissolubility of a consummated marriage by an inviolate sacrament, so that Augustine could celebrate offspring, fidelity, and sacrament as the three goods of Christian marriage ³.

³ De Genesi ad litteram, book 9, chapter 7 (Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 34, col. 397).

112. - On the preparation of persons. 1. By the general rationale by which the Catholic faith cultivates chastity, humility, and noble affections, it already disposes souls not a little toward entering matrimony holily and bearing its burdens faithfully.

2. It indeed assigns to the wife an inferior place, but compensates for this humility by the affectionate devotion of the husband, so that it places the two bonds and means of the firmest and happiest union in humility and love.

3. Then, by admitting and rather commending the preparation of betrothal, through which only a union of souls is permitted, the Church provides for the nobility of mutual affection and at the same time offers no slight aid to youth that it may preserve itself perfectly chaste.

4. In the equal chastity which the Catholic religion imposes upon each betrothed person, there is held a new pledge of a happy union. St. Augustine already wrote what today we hear so often inculcated: "You who do not have a wife and wish to marry, preserve yourselves intact for them, just as you wish to find them intact" ⁴. Therefore, long ago the Catholic faith rejected that foul worldly distinction by which the sin of a youth or a man, but not of a maiden, is excused, and which is marked by the name of the double standard (la double morale).

⁴ Sermon 224 (Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 38, col. 1094).

5. Yet since misfortunes threaten us from every side in this life, religion in the patience of Christ hands on to spouses a most opportune teaching for alleviating hardships and for bearing adversities not without merit.

Therefore, that we may now comprehend in summary the whole matter concerning matrimony and the preparation of persons, these goods are of themselves available to Christian marriage: full mutual confidence and the communication of the whole of life; the hope of a spiritual union which, beyond the limits of the present life, will endure forever; protection against temptations and infidelities from the absolute firmness of the marriage; holy authority over children; formation for patience, always necessary in this life.