Marriage
“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined
to his wife, and the two will become one flesh” (Eph. 5:31).
The institution of marriage as taught by the Catholic Church is an
irrevocable covenant between man and woman aimed at ordering conjugal
love for the birth and education of children for God:
“By their very nature, the institution of matrimony itself and
conjugal love are ordained for the procreation and education of
children, and find in them their ultimate crown.”¹
Even though God established marriage for the birth and education of
children it is also ordered for the good of the spouses:
“Not only was marriage intended for the propagation of the human
race but also that the lives of husband and wife might be better and
happier.”²
Unlike ancient heretical sects such as the Gnostics, Christianity has always
esteemed marriage as a good thing in itself, a holy state blessed by God and
commended by Christ Himself, the state to which the vast majority of
humanity is called. Hence, St. Paul declares marriage to be “a great
mystery” (Eph. 5:32), “held in honor by all” (Heb. 13:4).
The fact that marriage was established and blessed directly by God is plain
from the account of the first marriage between Adam and Eve:
“And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a
woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, This at last is bone
of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out
of Man this one was taken. Therefore a man leaves his father and his
mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh” (Gen. 2:22-24).
1
Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes, # 48.
2
Pope Leo XIII, Arcanum Divinae, 1880.
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