Section 2

“As the Church submits to Christ”—that is, both men and women—so also, wives, submit to your husbands as to God. “Husbands, love your own wives, as Christ also loved the Church.”

You have heard the extraordinary measure of submission. You praised Paul and marveled at him as an admirable and spiritual man who holds our common life together. You did well. But now hear what he also requires from you, for he again uses the same example: “Husbands, love your own wives, as Christ also loved the Church.”

You have seen the measure of obedience; now hear the measure of love. Do you want your wife to obey you as the Church obeys Christ? Then you too care for her as Christ cares for the Church. If it is necessary to give your life for her, to be cut to pieces ten thousand times, to endure and suffer anything whatever, do not refuse. Even if you endured all this, you still would not have done what Christ did. You do these things for someone already joined to you; He did them for one who had turned away from Him and hated Him.

As Christ brought to His feet the one who turned from Him, hated Him, rejected Him, and treated Him with contempt—not by threats, abuse, fear, or anything of that kind, but by His abundant care—so you too must act toward your wife. Even if you see her looking down on you, behaving proudly, or despising you, you will be able to bring her to your feet through your great care for her, through love and friendship. For no bonds are more tyrannical than these, especially between husband and wife.

A servant might perhaps be bound by fear—or rather, not even him, for he will quickly run away and be gone. But the partner of your life, the mother of your children, the foundation of all your joy, must not be bound by fear and threats, but by love and goodwill. What kind of marriage is it if the wife trembles before her husband? And what pleasure will the husband himself have if he lives with his wife as though she were a slave rather than a free woman? Even if you suffer something for her, do not reproach her for it; for Christ did not do this either.

“He gave Himself up for her, so that, having cleansed her, He might sanctify her.” So she was unclean; so she had a blemish; so she was unattractive; so she was of little worth. Whatever kind of wife you marry, you will never take a bride like the one Christ took in the Church, nor one as far removed from you as the Church was from Christ. Yet He did not turn from her or hate her because of the greatness of her ugliness.

Do you want to hear what that ugliness was? Listen to Paul: “You were once darkness.” Do you see how dark she was? What is darker than darkness? See also her insolence: “living in malice and envy.” See her uncleanness too: “disobedient, foolish.” What more need I say? She was foolish and blasphemous. Yet despite all this, Christ gave Himself for her in her ugliness as though she were beautiful, beloved, and worthy of wonder. Paul marveled at this when he said, “Scarcely will someone die for a righteous person,” and again, “If, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Having received her as she was, He beautifies her and washes her, and He does not refuse even this: “so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that He might present the Church to Himself glorious, having no spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind, but so that she might be holy and without blemish.”

By the washing He washes away her uncleanness. “With the word,” Paul says. What word? “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Christ did not merely adorn her; He made her glorious, “having no spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind.”

Let us therefore seek this kind of beauty, and we too will be able to create it. Do not seek from your wife what is not hers. You see that the Church received everything from her Lord: from Him she became glorious; from Him she became without blemish.

Do not reject your wife because she is not physically beautiful. Hear Scripture: “The bee is small among flying creatures, but her fruit is first among sweet things.” She is God’s workmanship. You are not insulting her, but the One who made her. What could she have done about it?

Do not praise her because of her beauty. Such praise, that hatred, and that very love belong to undisciplined souls. Seek beauty of soul. Imitate the Bridegroom of the Church.

Outward beauty is full of vanity and great folly; it throws you into jealousy and often makes you suspect unreasonable things. Does it give pleasure? For the first month or two, or at most for a year; after that, no longer, for familiarity causes the wonder to fade. But the evils that came with beauty remain: pride, folly, and contempt. With a woman who is not like this, there is nothing of the kind. Rather, love, once it begins, naturally remains intense, because it is love for the beauty of the soul, not of the body.