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 requires from you as a husband, 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 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 can win her through great care for her, through love and affection. Nothing binds people more powerfully than these bonds, especially husband and wife.

A servant might perhaps be restrained by fear—though not even he for long, since he may quickly run away. But the partner of your life, the mother of your children, the foundation of all your joy, must not be bound to you 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 because of her, do not reproach her for it; Christ did not reproach the Church.

“He gave Himself up for her, so that, having cleansed her, He might sanctify her.” Then she was unclean; she had blemishes; she was unattractive; she was of little worth. Whatever kind of wife you marry, you will never receive a bride as far beneath 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, “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 work: “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 cleanses 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 ourselves can help bring it about. Do not demand from your wife things that are not hers to give. 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.” Your wife is God’s workmanship. If you insult her appearance, you are not insulting her alone but the One who made her. What could she have done about it?

Nor should you praise her simply because she is beautiful. Praise, hatred, and love founded on physical beauty belong to undisciplined souls. Seek beauty of soul. Imitate the Bridegroom of the Church.

Outward beauty is often accompanied by vanity and arrogance; it can provoke jealousy and repeatedly drive you into unreasonable suspicions. Does it give pleasure? Perhaps for the first month or two, or at most for a year. After that, familiarity causes the wonder to fade. But the evils that grew from fixation on beauty may remain: pride, arrogance, contempt. With a woman who is not valued for such things, none of this follows from beauty itself. Love that begins on a sound foundation can remain intense because its object is the beauty of the soul, not of the body.