"Whence are we to find (words) enough fully to tell the happiness of that marriage which the Church cements, and the oblation confirms, and the benediction signs and seals; (which) angels carry back the news of (to heaven), (which) the Father holds for ratified? For even on earth children do not rightly and lawfully wed without their fathers' consent. What kind of yoke is that of two believers, (partakers) of one hope, one desire, one discipline, one and the same service? Both (are) brethren, both fellow servants, no difference of spirit or of flesh; nay, (they are) truly two in one flesh.
Where the flesh is one, one is the spirit too. Together they pray, together prostrate themselves, together perform their fasts; mutually teaching, mutually exhorting, mutually sustaining. Equally (are they) both (found) in the Church of God; equally at the banquet of God; equally in straits, in persecutions, in refreshments. Neither hides (ought) from the other; neither shuns the other; neither is troublesome to the other. The sick is visited, the indigent relieved, with freedom. Alms (are given) without (danger of ensuing) torment; sacrifices (attended) without scruple; daily diligence (discharged) without impediment: (there is) no stealthy signing, no trembling greeting, no mute benediction {...] " (Tertulian,To my wife, 2, 8).
Harmony in the marriage
Men must listen to this, and the women too. Women, so that they express their inclination towards their husbands and are not opposed of anything to their salvation ; men, so that they have much benevolence towards their wives and act in just like if they had with their wife only one heart and, with it, form only one flesh. There is truly marriage when reign enters the husbands such a harmony. The link is then very close and in this way they are truly dependant of love [...] they must form with them two only one heart (John Chysostom, On the Genesis, 45).
Authors
Tertulian was born towards 155 near Tunis (Tunisia). Between 190 and 195, he converts to the Christianity while he is in Rome, doubtless built by the moral strength of the Christian martyrs. He denounces the immorality, proves the legitimacy of the Christianity and demonstrates the uselessness of the persecutions: "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Christians".
John Chrysostom (345-407). He was bishop of Constantinople (Istanbul). Chrysostomos means "golden-mouthed", so called on account of his eloquence. Doctor of the Church, born at Antioch, c. 347; died at Commana in Pontus, 14 September, 407. John Chrysostom is generally considered the most prominent doctor of the Greek Church and the greatest preacher ever heard in a Christian pulpit.
