St. John Chrysostom and Family Life, the Contemporary Crisis of Marriage

The institution of the family is in a state of crisis throughout the world today. St. John Chrysostom, who we celebrate this year (2007), 1600 years after his repose, is regarded as the one who developed the theology of everyday life. This article presents positions and counsels of St. Chrysostom regarding the most important aspect of everyday life, the family.

God, knowing beforehand what would happen after the creation of humans, created them biologically ready for the “communion of marriage.” Creation refers, initially, only to Adam. “When Adam lay down to sleep, the woman was created.”[i] St. John Chrysostom notes that Moses does not use the verb “create” [έπλασεν] when he speaks of Eve, but rather the verb, “build” [ωκοδόμησεν], wanting to show that she came from the same substance as Adam, not from some other substance. So the woman is not inferior or lacking in something, in relation to Adam. She is a perfect human being, and equal in value to him. Knowing beforehand that the first-created ones would fall, God invented marriage and their need for mutual consolation.

Portable icon of Saint John Chrysostom. Work from the icon studio of the Holy Monastery of Vatopaidi.

Before their disobedience and departure from the life of paradise, marriage did not exist. The first-created ones lived a virginal life, imitating the life of the angels. St. Chrysostom says, “sexual relations began after the transgression; until then they lived as angels within paradise, without burning with fleshly desire, nor being besieged by other passions, nor by being pressured by physical needs, but since they were created completely incorrupt and immortal, they did not need to wear clothing. Before sin and transgression entered, they were clothed with divine glory, which is why, even though they were naked, they were not ashamed.”[ii] The first-created ones did not manage to preserve this higher life for themselves. They proved themselves unworthy of the great gifts that God gave to them.[iii]

That which before the Fall was extraneous: clothing, arts, work, became necessary because of the situation of man’s weakness and sickness.[iv] It is in this sickness of man that wedding has its roots, and it was created by God.[v]

What is the sickness of post-Fall humanity? Chrysostom notes that this sickness is an absence of contentment. Neither man nor woman is “satisfied.” The nature of both is “needy” (not content). So they are not complete. One needs to make up for the other. He says, “Because our nature, given by the Creator, became needy, and it is not self-sufficient on its own, God regulated things according to our best interest, so that our needs are fulfilled with the benefit that arises from our community. This is why marriage was created, so that that which is missing from the one might be made up for by the other, so that our needy nature can become, in this way, self-sufficient; so that, though it became mortal, it has the possibility over a long period of time to realize immortality.”[vi] So, through marriage, the husband and wife are united and completed as persons.

So that the human race did not disappear after the entrance of death, the “inventive” God “provided, through sexual relations, for the increase of the race.” The birth of children, childbearing, is a very great consolation because of man’s mortality. Marriage originally arose as a means for childbearing. So as to knock the fearful face of death, God granted the “succession of children.”[vii] The first people, with the acquisition of children, saw the continuation of their lives and were comforted in their death. Childbearing is regarded as the initial cause of marriage. After the resurrection of Christ, through which death was overthrown, Chrysostom says that the consolation of childbearing is no longer necessary. The consolation is now the anticipation of one’s personal resurrection and the inheritance of the heavenly Kingdom of God, which presupposes temperance and virtue.

Chrysostom, as all of the Fathers of the Church, accepts that sexual relations have their place only within marriage and not outside of it. Those who depreciate (who abhor) marriage, according to St. John, perform a “satanic” and “inhuman” work, and disrespect the gift of God, the root of our own birth.[viii] Commenting on Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament, he notes that the “sexual relations” of couples is not sufficient for the birth of children. The help of God is also necessary, “the cooperation from above, which moves nature ‘towards birth.’ Marriage does not necessarily result in the birth of children, but only the word of God that said, ‘increase and multiply and fill the earth.’ And those who have gotten married, but not become fathers, attest to this.”[ix]

After the Fall, man did not lose the divine gift of freedom to choose the good or the bad. According to Chrysostom, desire must act within bounds, it must be limited. If one departs from these bounds, then he is drawn into sin, though desire itself is not sin. The reason for marriage is found in the “absence of borders,” the overthrowing of limits, in uncontrolled desires. In marriage, man remains within limits and desire does not become sin. “Because desire entered in, marriage also entered in, cutting licentiousness and forcing one to have just one wife.”[x] Outside of marriage, desire that is satisfied is expressed through fornication, adultery, or homosexuality.

If there is no temperance between husband and wife, then the marriage is not honorable. “How can marriage be honorable?” The answer is, “The faithful are preserved through temperance.”[xi] However, because the “fire of the flesh,” the fleshly passions, are so strong they become an obstacle to temperance. In answer to this, marriage is offered as a medicine against fornication. The words of St. John that introduce the ascetic dimension of marriage are foundational. Marriage was not instituted so that we could be debaucherous, nor so that we could fornicate, but so that we can learn to be temperate.[xii] And he continues, “There are two reasons for the institution of marriage: so that we might learn temperance and so that we might become fathers, and of these two the most important is that we learn temperance.”[xiii]

This emphasis on temperance does not, of course, exclude childbearing. “Intercourse” was given “for the creation of children.” Children are an important link, “a bridge” that unites husband and wife. Through the virtue of temperance, marriage is a peaceful harbor. Peace, a happy environment, harmony and love between spouses rules over all. Marriage, with its earthly cares, is not an obstacle to the practicing of the virtues. St. John refers to the example of the pair of holy apostles, Akyla and Priscilla who, though they were responsible over a tent-making workshop, did not let anything get in the way of their keeping God’s commandments with precision, as do the monks. If marriage was an obstacle to virtue, then God, who instituted marriage, is to blame. The Saint notes, “don’t regard marriage as an obstacle in pleasing God…for if marriage, my beloved one, and the upbringing of children was to be an obstacle on the road to virtue, the Creator would not have introduced it into our life….if we are willing to struggle, it is not at all an obstacle to our Christian life.”[xiv] “For if we are vigilant, if we are alert, neither marriage, nor childrearing, nor anything else will be able to keep us from becoming pleasing to God.”[xv]

He accepts, however, that the pains and struggles that married people must undertake for their salvation are greater than the pains and struggles of the monks. The greater pains, however, will be rewarded with “brighter crowns.” If married people are not absorbed by the hunt for material goods, if they use material goods and don’t misuse them, then marriage does not become an obstacle. It is man’s inclination to misuse marriage that becomes an obstacle. “With temperance in marriage, you will be first in the kingdom and will partake of all of the [heavenly] goods.”[xvi]

Marriage, the “Great Mystery”

The Apostle Paul describes marriage as a “great mystery.” In Chrysostom, we find the first extensive analysis of the mysterious character of marriage. Marriage is a mystery of the Church and presupposes the presence of Christ. Marriage is a type of the Church. Just as Eve came from the side of Adam while he was sleeping, in the same way the Church came from Christ, who was dead on the cross. From the punctured side of Christ, “blood and water” came out, from which the Church was born. In the mystery of marriage, Christ is present. In what way? With the “water” of baptism we are reborn, and with the “blood” of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, we are spiritually fed. Consequently, the husband and wife are members of the body of Christ. From this comes the commandment of the Apostle Paul, that men have the obligation to love their wives “as they love their own bodies.”[xvii]

“This is not the only reason we should love our wife, not just because she is one of our members and was created from us,” St. Chrysostom says, “but also because God established a law for exactly this thing, saying the following, ‘for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This is precisely why Paul read us this law, so as to encourage us all towards this love.”[xviii]

Marriage is a mystery of love. Only in a virtuous marriage is true love found, peace, and true happiness, which accompanies temperance. When the husband sees the spiritual gifts of his wife, his love and desire for her increase and other women do not draw him away.

St. Chrysostom regards marriage as a harbor, so that there is no reason for a shipwreck.[xix] Taking a break from sexual relations must be a decision made by both parties. The Saint refers to this, “Christ, through the mouth of Paul, directed that one should not deprive the other, but some women with the apparent desire to abstain, distanced themselves from their husbands out of piety, and pushed them into adultery and into the abyss of despair.”[xx] “One must not deprive the other without agreement. What does this mean? The wife should not abstain, Paul says, if the husband does not want to abstain. Nor should the husband abstain if the wife does not want to abstain. For what reason? Because great evils develop from this abstinence; from such abstinence come adulteries, fornications, and the disintegration of families. For, if men commit adultery when they have wives, how much more will they sin when they are deprived of their wives.”[xxi] The weakness of one of the spouses creates continuous temptations, anger, battles, and confrontations. In this way, peace is lost, as is harmony and peaceful cohabitation. The asceticism that is sought after is useless, for it chases love away. “What is the value of fasting and temperance when love is disrupted? There is none.”

Marriage is a mystery, as a fact of life, as well as in the sense of a service in the holy church. After this service, it is fine for there to be a reception, as commonly happens, but it should be modest, it should inspire joy and thanks without impinging on temperance. As St. Chrysostom says, “We are able to make the wedding a joyous affair, with a richly laden table, with beautiful clothing, I don’t limit these things. It’s fine for us to enjoy beautiful clothing, for respectable men and women to dress nicely. Everything should be marked by temperance, however, by modesty and propriety.”[xxii]

St. Chrysostom, in addressing the daily family problems of his age, argues that they are due to the absence of correct criteria in the choice of one’s spouse. He addresses himself to the parents who in that period played an important role in the choice, and he says to the father, “When you consider and look for a possible groom, pray and tell God, please send whomever you’d like, leave the situation up to Him, and since you have honored Him in this way, He will reward you. Always ask God to be a mediator in all of your works. For, if we dealt with all of our affairs in this way, there would never be a divorce, nor suspicion of adultery, nor cause for envy, nor battles and disputes, but we would enjoy great peace and harmony, and when there is harmony, other virtues will follow.”[xxiii] This prayer, of course, can be made by every person who desires to marry.

Presuppositions for a Successful Marriage

A successful marriage is one that regards success in terms of virtue rather than wealth. The husband must have a virtuous soul, goodness, prudence, and fear of God.[xxiv] Chrysostom says, “A young woman who is prudent, independent, and cultivates piety, is as valuable as the whole world.”[xxv] “Many people who had amassed a great fortune lost it all, for they didn’t have a sensible wife capable of preserving it.”[xxvi]

Many men seek after a beautiful wife. Is this enough for a marriage to succeed? The Saint emphasizes that “the beauty of the body, when it is not accompanied by virtue of the soul, can imprison the husband for twenty or thirty days, it won’t last longer though, for when she shows her bad side, the love will be destroyed. When, however, women shine from the beauty of their souls, as time passes and increasingly reveals the nobility of their souls, their husbands are drawn ever closer to them.”[xxvii]

Let us see what St. John Chrysostom has to say regarding the responsibilities of the spouses. He directs his words, for the most part, towards husbands. This may be because male egotism is difficult to subdue and many times they act harshly. Chrysostom condemns the use of physical violence and the husband’s abuse of his wife.[xxviii] This is something that is still a problem today. On the contrary, what is necessary is for the husband to have a spirit of sacrifice, a willingness to forgive, and not threats and intimidation.[xxix] Through indulgence and concord, the family’s deep peace will be assured, discontent will be kept at bay, and each spouse’s dedication to the other will increase.[xxx] Chrysostom notes that, “there is nothing, nothing more valuable than for one to be loved so much by one’s wife and to reciprocate this love.”[xxxi]

St. Chrysostom also refers to a bonding element, which is the foundation of marriage: communication between the spouses. It is the daily influence that one spouse has on the other. Communication takes place with and without words. It is positive or negative. The most important element of communication is discussion. Etymologically, the Greek word for “communicate” (σύν + ζητώ) refers to the cooperative search for what needs to be done regarding issues pertaining to the common life and to family life. Discussion needs to take place with familiarity, mutual respect, in a climate of freedom, equality, and love. Then a solution can be found, should a disagreement or contention arise. “For nothing is more bitter than the battle that occurs between people that love one another, and this shows that when one is estranged from his own member, as it is said, this must be caused by a severe bitterness. The role of the husband is to love and the role of the wife is to give way. If each one plays their part, everything will be firm. And the wife will become amicable and loving.”[xxxii]

The mutual display of affection is a necessary aspect of marital love. Love is revealed through tenderness, through politeness, through showing interest. Love is expressed through words. Words are the food of emotions, and inspire love. The secret of a happy family life is often found in simple daily things. Unfortunately, couples today have forgotten this. They forget to express their respect and appreciation for their spouse’s gifts, abilities, attempts, and successes. This could even refer to a simple compliment on their appearance, their clothing, or the food they have prepared. The wife’s love for doing good increases when she feels loved. The same happens with husbands. In their case, a good sense of self-confidence is encouraged. Love is preserved through the creation of ways to express this love. The satisfaction of particular desires and the tolerance of the weaknesses of the other help in the cohesion of the spouses.

St. Chrysostom, with his emphasis on love, essentially says that spouses need to learn to forgive and to be tolerant of one another. The more mature of the two needs to take the first step. Within a marriage, it does not matter who erred or why they did something. What is important is who attempts to fix the situation in the quickest manner. “Let us be tolerant,” the Saint says, “of one another, with love. How is it possible to be tolerant if you are angry and foul-mouthed? Say the way: with love. If you can’t tolerate your neighbor, how will God tolerate you? If you can’t bear the person who is your co-struggler, how will the Lord tolerate you?”[xxxiii]

Through love, the alienation of spouses from each other is addressed, as is the death of the relationship, which usually comes with the passage of time, with fatigue, and indifference. Then we are speaking of a marriage of compromise. St. John knows that communication is necessary for dealing with disagreements. This depends on how and what one says. To the question, “What should I say to her?” he provides the following answer. Listen carefully to his counsel,

Speak words of love to her…Above all, I prefer your love and nothing is more painful for me than to be distanced from you. Even though I might lose everything, and if I’m in danger at the end, I can bear everything, as long as you are all right with me. The children also love me, as long as you love me. Everything belongs to you. This is what Paul told me when he said that the husband does not rule his own body, but his wife rules it. And if I don’t have control over my own body, but you have control, how much does everything else belong to you as well.

And he continues: “Never speak in a mundane fashion, but with compliments, with respect, and with much love. Respect her, and she won’t feel it necessary to seek respect from others. Prefer her above all others for all things, for beauty, for her temperance, and compliment her. Make it clear to her that you like her company and that you prefer to stay at home with her, to be with her, than to go out to the marketplace. Prefer her company above that of all of your friends, and the children that she gifted you with, love them out of love for her”.[xxxiv]

How well do you communicate? Do you speak with one another? Do you share your thoughts? What do you do for your daily communication? Do you dedicate time, from that which is left, to be together and to speak affectionately? Or perhaps you are indifferent to the interests and the problems of the other and give your mouth free reign? Isn’t this the conclusion that one comes to after having read the above text?

The Upbringing of Children

An aspect of the family that particularly concerned St. Chrysostom was that of children and young people. The older generation is responsible for the good or bad spiritual state of  young people. They live, develop, and are shaped in the environment of the older generation.

Chrysostom offers incomparable descriptions and analyses of the state of the young people of his age. He writes, “Youth is a difficult time of life, when one is unstable and easily tricked, prone to falling, it’s an age that requires a very strong bridle.”[xxxv] “Youth is a wild thing…it is like an untamed horse and a wild beast.”[xxxvi] It is a fire that is easily spread and burns up everything. It is like a storm on the open sea, because of its foolishness and natural instability. There are people who do foul things worse than those done by wild donkeys, living as though in a desert and kicking.[xxxvii] It is in this state that most young people find themselves. This is why the Saint said, “Our primary concern is the family, the children. All things are secondary to the care of our children.”[xxxviii]

According to Chrysostom, a parent is not one who brings children into the world, but one who expends the energy to raise them. Not “child-making” but “childrearing” is the mark of a parent. “For a person does not become a father simply because he helped to bring about the birth of a child, but by raising the child correctly.”[xxxix] Even then there were complaints about the disconcerting path of young people—disobedient, rebellious, bold, disrespectful, anarchic. Certainly, the contemporary situation is also disconcerting, where sin is largely accepted by society and has nearly become regarded as lawful; and the urging of sin is most felt by the unstable young people! Chrysostom attributes the situation to the absence of care by the older generation and to the lack of direction. “The reason for the overturning of all things is that we aren’t caring for our own children. We take care of their bodies, but we ignore the upbringing of their souls.” Chrysostom goes on to ask, “Do you want a child that is obedient? From their first steps, feed them on the wisdom and counsels of the Lord.” If we showed the same interest in the spiritual education of children as we do in their education in other spheres, we would forestall many evils.

The development of the child’s character takes place through the parents. Checks are necessary, but with discernment. They need to be done in such a way that the child is able to assimilate them and to acquire the necessary internal structure that will facilitate the development and completion of his personality. As St. John says,

When the father of a very gentle child only gives him sweets, refreshments, and whatever he likes when he’s ill, but not what he actually needs for his sickness; or if a doctor checks him out and confesses, “What can I do? I can’t stand to see the child cry.” Poor, foolish traitor! The only name I can’t give such a person is that of father. How much better it would be for you if you upset your child a little bit so that he might be healthy for all time, rather than making this fleeting pleasure the foundation for continuous sorrow.[xl]

With the satisfaction of the child’s every desire, we make him egocentric, and with such a character, he will be unhappy in the world. The Saint encourages, “be like sculptors and make every effort to make your children wonderful sculptures that look like God. It will happen if you take away everything that is unnecessary, if you add whatever is necessary, and if you check daily to see what physical defects they have that you can fix.”[xli]

Good teachers work like farmers, who cut away some plants and leave others to grow. Some times they punish the bad, while they encourage and facilitate the good.[xlii] The child that is given the observation and the reproach must understand that the person that is reproaching him does it out of love and not to sadden him. Then he accepts the words, not as though they came from anger, but from the concern of a concerned father. The Saint counsels, “If you punish (the child), sometimes looking at him severely, sometimes with bitterness and disrespect, and sometimes with nice words and promises…. If there are threats that are not followed through on, the child does not understand that they are threats. Threats work when the child believes that they are going to be realized. If the child who has made a mistake understands that you are threatening him, without following through, he will become indifferent. He should be expecting punishment, without actually being punished, so that he does not lose the fear of punishment.”[xliii] “This is exactly the characteristic of the educator, who is not in a hurry to punish, but seeks the child’s correction, and is hesitant to punish.”[xliv]

Chrysostom considers it unconstructive to teach the child to separate himself from, and to reject his anger. We should instead teach him ways to creatively channel his anger. He tells parents, “Let’s consider the very significant action of the soul, that of anger. We should neither uproot it completely from the child, nor allow the child to use it anywhere, without discernment. We need to educate young people from a young age in such as way that, when they are treated poorly, to endure and not get angry. At the same time, if they see someone else being treated poorly, they should boldly intervene to support them in an appropriate way.”[xlv] The child must learn to not be irritable and to be able to accept disappointment, or the failure to achieve one of his desires, without getting upset. When the child learns to  endure small failures and disappointments, later on he will be able to endure larger disappointments, if God allows it.[xlvi]

It’s necessary to offer the child ways to have fun that are not harmful, and to lead him to virtuous people, to show him the beauty of nature and of art, and to give him some freedom of movement, as we tell him that immodest and lecherous entertainments have no value. “When we tell him all of these things,” the holy father tells us, “we need to give him many kisses and to hold him tight, to show him the great love we have for him.”[xlvii]

The child’s spiritual development must be the parents’ main concern. Children should learn more than letters and arts to earn a living, but need to be fed with “the wisdom and counsel of the Lord.” St. Chrysostom insists, “I’m not telling you to keep your child from getting married and to send him into the desert, or to force him to become a monk. No, this is not what I’m telling you. Certainly, I would be glad for it and my wish is that everyone would decide to become a monk. But because it seems to be heavy, I don’t insist. So raise an athlete of Christ and teach him like a person of the world to be pious from an early age.”[xlviii]

Chrysostom dedicates many pages to illustrating the value of the example of the older generation. “In whatever ground the plant is put, that’s the type of fruit it will bear.”[xlix] “How could you fix your son, to give the necessary counsels to someone who is not careful, when you yourself, who are in advanced old age, do such terrible things? I say these things in judgment of the elderly, not to excuse young people from every accusation and reproach, but through the elderly to protect the young.”[l] “How can the father teach others to restrain their passion, audacity, and anger, when he has not learned to restrain himself?”[li] “We probably need teachers, not our children, since their mistakes cannot be very great, while our mistakes are very great.”[lii] “All of the evils of our children come from our own lack of attention and because we didn’t guide them from the beginning, from an early age, down the road of piety.”[liii]

When one reads St. John Chrysostom, one sees the fullness of his thought and its timeliness. His word spans the ages. He does not leave any aspect of the human soul uninspected. He has in-depth knowledge of the meaning of man’s existence. Of course, because of the chronological distance that separates us, the answers he provides can be accepted under a certain set of preconditions. His spirit, however, is always timely and contemporary. Because Christ is at the center of his thought, because it is Christocentric, his teaching transcends time. Essentially, he offered the word of the Gospel to his age, through the Holy Spirit who lived within him and enlightened him. Whenever we read him he always has something to say regarding the problems of his age, which seem to also be our own contemporary problems.

Our age might seem demanding and perhaps heavy. One could argue that the things he says cannot be implemented today. In his day similar voices were heard. “We won’t make our children into monks,” some parents shouted. Chrysostom, with holy passion silenced them from the front of the church. “It’s not necessary that they become monks, make them good Christians.”[liv]

In today’s era of the crisis of institutions and values, in this age of the rejection of all things, the institution of marriage is greatly under attack. In northern Europe it has nearly disintegrated. Marriages only take place for the sake of custom, for tradition, so that people can take photographs, and so they can have a party. Many of these marriages last for six months, for a year. Eponymous artists don’t merely say that they don’t want to have a family, but that their goal is the disintegration of families. These are the role models for today’s children.

Modern Greeks face problems and crises of values, of institutions, in society, and existentially when they voluntarily cut themselves off from the Orthodox tradition. For the Orthodox Greek, this tradition is precious, is priceless, is an ancestral inheritance. For this reason, anyone that rejects it is essentially rejecting his ontological being and he faces a great crisis of self-consciousness.

Only he who is in harmony with and lives the Orthodox tradition according to the precepts of our Saints, according to the commandments of Christ, is the mature person who cannot be shaken by any sadness or crisis. He lives the life in Christ outside of every ethical system or sense of obligation. He lives in Christ twenty four hours a day. He lives in God within daily life, in the family, in his work, in society.

We as Athonites feel pain and are very concerned for the path of the family today. The advancement of the family in Christ is the request of our humble daily prayers, along with the preservation of God’s blessing on marriage. God might have given us the blessing to live outside of the world, to not raise families, but we also came from families. In addition, as spiritual fathers bearing the keys to the hearts of people, we see that many young people are completely ignorant regarding the subjects of our faith and simultaneously approach life with a great frivolity. And we are confronted with the question: How can these people create proper families of their own? What will they tell their children, since they themselves are completely empty?

Unfortunately, a humanistic approach to life rules the world today, whose goal is human prosperity. Many teach that we need to become good people and that this will bring peace and happiness. However this is, essentially, nothing. If we do not become grace-filled people, vessels of divine grace, “we have done nothing.”