Section 9

Let your prayers be shared. Let both husband and wife go to church, and at home let the husband ask his wife, and the wife ask her husband, about what was said and what was read there.

If poverty comes upon you, bring to mind the holy men Paul and Peter. They were held in greater honor than kings and rich people, yet they passed their lives in hunger and thirst. Teach your wife that nothing in this life is truly to be feared except offending God. A person who enters marriage with this outlook will be little inferior to those who live as monks; the married person little below the unmarried.

If you wish to give dinners or receive guests, let nothing indecent or disorderly be present. If you find some holy poor person who can bless your household—someone whose very entrance can bring God’s blessing with him—invite that person.

Shall I say something more? Let none of you make it your goal to marry a wealthier woman; It is often better, he says, to marry one poorer than yourself. Her money may bring less pleasure than the annoyance created by reproaches, demands for more than she brought, arrogance, luxury, and harsh words. She may say, “I have not spent any of your money yet. I am still wearing my own things, bought from what my parents gave me.”

What are you saying, woman—“my own”? What could be more miserable than such language? You no longer claim your body as yours alone, yet you claim your money as yours alone? After marriage you are no longer two separate bodies but have become one flesh. Are your possessions still two and not one?

What power the love of money has! Husband and wife have become one human union, one living body, and yet one still says, “mine.” This word, when used divisively in marriage, is cursed and defiled, introduced by the devil. God has made the things more necessary than money common to us all. We cannot say, “my light,” “my sun,” or “my water.” The greater gifts are common to us, and should money alone not be shared?

Let money perish ten thousand times over—or rather, not money itself, but the dispositions that do not know how to use it and prefer it to everything else.

Teach these things along with everything else, but do it with great graciousness. Exhortation to virtue can sound severe in itself, especially when addressed to a young bride, so whenever you speak about the Christian way of wisdom, let your manner be full of kindness. Above all, drive out of the marriage the divisive language of “mine” and “yours.”

If she says, “my things,” tell her: “What things do you call yours? I do not even know what you mean. I have nothing that is mine alone. How, then, can you say ‘mine’ when everything I have is yours?” Give her the word rather than fighting over it.

Do you not see how we act with children? When a child snatches something we are holding and then reaches for something else as well, we let it go and say, “Yes, this is yours, and that is yours too.” Use the same patient spirit with a wife when she speaks possessively. If she says, “mine,” answer, “Everything is yours, and I am yours too.”

This is not empty flattery, he says, but practical wisdom. In this way you can calm her anger and extinguish discouragement. Flattery is doing something base for an evil purpose; this, by contrast, aims at peace and love.

So say, “I too am yours, my dear. Paul himself counseled me this way when he said, ‘The husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.’ If I do not have sole authority even over my own body, but you share that claim, how much more over my possessions?”

By speaking in this way, you give her rest, extinguish the fire of anger, and put the devil to shame. Such loving words, he says, bind a wife more securely than the ownership of a purchased slave ever could. The point is that your own speech should teach her never to divide the household into “mine” and “yours.”

Never address her coldly or merely by name. Speak with affection, honor, and great love. Honor her, and she will not need to seek honor from others; she will not crave praise elsewhere if she receives your esteem. Prefer her before everyone else; praise her beauty, her understanding, and the good things in her. In this way you will persuade her not to be captivated by people outside the marriage, but to treat their attention as insignificant.

Teach her the fear of God, and everything good will flow from it as from a fountain; the household will be filled with countless blessings. If we seek the incorruptible things, the corruptible things will come as well: “Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you.”

What kind of children should we expect from parents who live this way? What kind of servants from masters like these? What about everyone else who comes near them? Will they not also become full of good things? For household servants commonly shape their habits according to those who govern the house. They come to share their desires, love what they have been taught to love, speak as they speak, and occupy themselves with the same concerns.

If we form ourselves in this way and attend carefully to the Scriptures, we will learn from them how to order most things. Then we will be able to please God, pass through this present life in virtue, and attain the good things promised to those who love Him. May we all be counted worthy of them, by the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, power, and honor, now and always and unto ages of ages. Amen.