Those who enter into marriage having been clear
and chaste before it learn the mystery of bodily union for the first time in
marriage. Because of that a new and careful attitude to the body of the other
is born in their soul. Life experience shows that it is exactly due to bodily
intimacy in marriage that a deep, bright and joyous feeling of love to one
another, a tender feeling of unity flourishes within the two souls. It is here,
in this union blessed by God, that one can learn
through experience the truth of monogamy (being married to one person at a
time) and all the falsehood of "free love."
Sexual intimacy cannot only be separated from
other ways of unity, but it also creates a complete wholeness of all mutual
relations. When love flourishes between a husband and wife it is reflected in
all their life and takes possession of everything. The smallest disharmony at
this time is experienced very painfully; carelessness, indifference, rudeness,
accusations can all bring grievance and anxiety. Christianity helps a married couple
find a way to do away with disharmony in their relationship. Through practicing
Christian life under the new conditions of marriage the two mature spiritually
and perfect themselves. Family is a great school of piety.
When the first symptoms of pregnancy appear the
relations of husband and wife become strengthened through their love for the
awaited child — flesh from their flesh. The purity of their mutual love does
not only increase due to bodily intimacy, but is also feeding on the latter,
and there is nothing more warm than that deep
tenderness that blossoms in marriage; its inner meaning is in the acute feeling
of being filled with each other. The feeling of one’s own "I" as a
separate individual disappears. A husband and wife experience themselves as
part of something whole — one does not want to experience anything without the
other, there is a desire to see everything together, do everything together, be together in everything. It is an ideal to which a married
couple should aspire to.
There should be neither differentiated
"spheres of activities" in a family nor any kind of physical or
spiritual disconnection: here one thing echoes in another, everything is
connected internally and intimately. According to the Creator’s plan family is
the only way for the mystery of gender to be actualized in us. There must not
be a sexual life outside a marriage; such a life will not be right, it will
only pervert our nature and break life’s harmony. For this reason the way of
purity before marriage is not just a demand of morality, but it is also
dictated by the very nature of the human being. Premarital sexual life is
always one-sided. It is therefore a perverted expression of gender that
threatens to devastate of the soul and distort its inner structure.
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