In what one suspects many may view as an excessively masculine side analysis of marriage, Dr Kania continues his exploration of the meaning in this Christian Sacrament.

The 1948 Nobel Prize winner for Literature, Andre Gide, in his novel The Immoralist, (L'Immoraliste) of 1902, opens his tale with Michel and Marcelline, a newly married couple travelling by train on their honeymoon. Marcelline, the bride, falls asleep in their private carriage, and as she sleeps, Michel begins to cough blood. He knows that he has turbeculosis, but has not divulged this illness to his wife. During his subsequent convalescence in the warm climate of Algiers, Marcelline attends to Michel's every need, even at risk of catching the disease herself.

In Part Two of the novel, the roles are reversed, as Marcelline has now succumbed to her husband's illness and Michel is now enjoying very good health. The reader is able to gauge the difference between the idea of marriage that Michel and Marcelline have.

Michel is dutiful, but cares for his wife in a disinterested manner, he even begins to have distaste for his wife in her illness. Marcelline's health shows rapid decline, and as her illness progresses, Michel decides to leave his wife one evening in order to venture to a depraved quarter of the town, so as to fully imbibe in some of the temptations of the poorer areas of Algiers. He returns back to the hotel room early in the morning to see the bed sheets covered with blood and Marcelline seated at the foot of the bed, her white nightdress also blood splattered, her hand limp beside her, her rosary beads just out of reach of her hand.

Andre Gide

Marcelline has had a coughing fit, and has been left alone to suffer; without question she recognises that she is deemed a burdensome nuisance to her husband. Gide, a convert to Catholicism harks the reader's mind in this dramatic scene to Christ's question: "'So you had not the strength to stay awake with me for one hour?'" (Matthew 26: 40, The New Jerusalem Bible)

Gide's novel concludes with Marcelline's passing, and Michel's passionate embrace of the sleezy dark quarter of Algiers. Michel is The Immoralist, for he seeks only one happiness — his own. What Michel cannot or will not see is that Marcelline's precious life was given up for him, she became sick for his not divulging his illness, and then for her constant care of him — but what is that to Michel? Michel is a husband by law only, for he has never grown to love anyone but himself, nor does he wish to suffer for anyone but himself.

A second story...

Another Nobel Laureate, Rabindrinath Tagore in his poem entitled "Deception" portrays the tale of a husband journeying by train with his ailing wife, Binu, to her hometown in the Indian mountains. At one stop along the journey, a beggar comes to ask for money from Binu. Having on her person nothing to give, she asks her husband to give the beggar twenty five rupees. Unbeknown to Binu, in his greed the husband gives two rupees, ridiculing the beggar-woman for her state in life.

The husband loves his wife dearly, but it takes her death to fully awaken in him how much his wife meant to his life. Binu dies, but not before telling her husband, how proud she was of his act of compassion and his love for her: "'Whatever else in my life I shall forget, These last two months will be marked on my brow forever — Like the everlasting vermillion in the parting of Laksmi's hair. These two months have filled my soul with nectar: That is what I remember as I bid you farewell.''" (Tagore, 1994, p. 85)

The husband for his part realizes that his wife's passing has torn from him that one being who gave him a glimpse of unquestionable compassion to others. The husband seeks to find the beggar, and give to her the full amount which Binu had asked of him. As the poem ends: "How could I explain? What seemed so trivial to them that day Was for me the direst necessity. To find the one person able to rid me of my burden of deceit. 'These two months have filled my soul with nectar'. How shall I bear the memory of Binu's last words? I remain here a debtor; My lie will stay with me always". (Tagore, 1994, p. 86)

The view of St Paul...

	Does Andrew's analysis dwell too heavily on the masculine side of meaning and responsibility in this sacrament?

In absolute contradiction to the events of Gide's novel and Tagore's poem, St. Paul teaches us in his Letter to the Ephesians that husbands are called to love their wives as Christ loved His Church. In essence such a call is a command for each married man to die to himself in order to provide not only materially, but emotionally and spiritually for his wife and children. Too often stress has been placed on the traditional role of the husband to be the "provider for his family" in financial terms, due to the ease of this being gauged by society. A good husband or father is often equated by the schools the children attend, or the clothes the wife wears.

Yet Christ's love for His Church, had nothing to do with financial support, but everything to do with the virtues of love, care and self-sacrifice. To be obedient to this Christian teaching, each husband must loosen every inclination to selfishness in order to become selfless; to treat his wife as he himself would like to be treated. This does involve in part caring materially for the family, but has many other aspects, such as listening intently to a wife, or showing interest in a child's project, making time to be together as a family, or giving example of religious worship, or showing patience and temperance.

John Paul II and St John Chrysostom...

Pope John Paul II in his work Familiaris Consortio (1981) sets the benchmark for husbands and fathers in the following manner: "Love for his wife as mother of their children and love for the children themselves are for the man the natural way of understanding and fulfilling his own fatherhood." (John Paul II, 1981, par. 71)

The bond between a husband and his wife as Chrysostom teaches us is a priceless gift from God, too often abused and misused and too often taken for granted. Whereas Chrysostom's fourth century male audience were acutely aware of St. Paul's teaching that a wife should obey her husband, the same audience had not even begun to consider the second part of St. Paul's teaching regarding Christ and His Church; the demands placed by the Apostle to the Gentiles on them, the husbands. Therefore Chrysostom found it necessary to speak from his Patriarchal pulpit in Constantinople: "… if you treat your wife as a free woman, respecting her ideas and intuitions, and responding with warmth to her feelings and emotions, then your marriage shall be a limitless source of blessing to you". (Chrysostom, 1996, p. 74)

Chrysostom perceives the Sacrament of Marriage in terms of the Transfiguration of a man, to specifically love one woman, and in so doing make manifest God's love for her through her spouse. By the husband's love, he leads his wife closer to God. It may not be an easy path, but it is the path the husband has chosen for his spiritual journey to God.

It has often been said that the greatest gift any father can give their children is to love their mother, not only by words audible to their children but through visible deed. When children see their father caring for, and considerate of their mother, they immediately learn a series of important life lessons. The son is able to see how a woman is treated by a man, how a man so physically powerful can be gentle to his wife. The daughter observes each day how a woman should be cherished by her spouse. In their father's example they learn integrity, honesty, self-control, commitment and love. The very foundation of society rests in large part on how a boy arrives at being a man capable of loving and committing; capable of being a husband to a woman and a father to a family. Every boy is born a male, but how many of these boys are willing to become men, and not mere pleasure seekers, looking for temporary play-things? How many of these boys seek to actualise the depths of their sexuality by reaching into their hearts and discovering the fullness of loving as a man, as Christ loved His Church?

IMAGE SOURCES: The wedding image used in the main header for this article comes from stock.xchng – Photographer: Amy Jacobs, Volga, SD, United States. Clicking on the other images will take you to the original source.

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©2007 Dr Andrew Thomas Kania

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