Introduction
Here is some of the most helpful advice I have come across
for girls and women who are trying to determine whether God wishes them to enter
the holy state of matrimony or not. (From Fr. Lasance’s book A Catholic Girl’s Guide)
Ought
I to Marry? (LXVIII)
“Of the three paths before you when you stand at the
parting of the ways one leads straight onward; it is the shortest, most direct
way to heaven, and is known as the Religious life. The second trends away to the right; it also
leads to the same bright, eternal goal, by a slightly circuitous route; it is
the state of the unmarried in the world.
The third road leads away to the left, into a hilly region; there are
many pleasures and joys to be met with on that way, and also much toil and many
sorrows; that is the married state. All these
three states, I repeat most emphatically, are ordained by God; but any state is
not fitted for any individual. Neither
is it a matter of indifference to almighty God which state in life we choose
for ourselves.
We will now consider each of these three states in
turn in order to aid you in making a wise choice. The reason why I speak first of the married
state is simply because a great majority of mankind is called to this state,
and therefore is suggests itself first to our consideration. Now, the decisive question presents itself:
Are you called to the married state? Ought you to marry? Let me suggest to you a few serious thoughts.
The answer to the question, “Ought you to marry?”
depends upon another question: Do you think yourself capable of fulfilling the
duties of the married state? In order to
answer this question you must learn what these duties really are; and I will
now proceed briefly to set them before you.
One of the chief among these duties requires that
husband and wife should live together in concord, love, and conjugal fidelity
until death. They must remain together,
since marriage is indissoluble. Only
when it pleases almighty God to sever the bond by taking the husband or wife
out of this world may the survivor marry again.
How should married people live together? First of all in peace and harmony. They should aim at, and strive after, one and
the same things; they should seek to lead a Christian life, serving God faithfully
and helping each other on the way to heaven.
For this end they must be united, avoiding anger, quarreling and
dissension; otherwise they will embitter their life and make it a sort of hell
upon earth. Nor can they escape hell in
the world to come unless they repent and amend.
The following apposite anecdote may be related
here. Two married persons who lived
unhappily together carried their dispute one day so far as to come to
blows. A neighbor who hear what was
going on suddenly shouted: “Fire! Fire!” The quarrel was forgotten; husband and wife
eagerly inquired where the fire was burning.
“In hell,” was the unexpected reply, “and thither married people must go
who persist in living in enmity, anger, and dissension.”
Married people should live together in love, not in
strife and in quarreling. They should
endeavor to please each other, they should pray for each other, have patience
and bear with each other’s faults. When
some grievance presents itself they should not complain to others, but mutually
forgive and become reconciled.
And they should live in conjugal fidelity, keeping the
promises they solemnly made at the altar.
The wife must not fix her affections on any other man; the husband must
not seek after any other woman; else will they be in danger of committing one
of the most grievous and terrible of sins, a sin which God punishes very severely.
Another important duty is that of mutual edification. Husband and wife should set each other a good
example, seeking each to sanctify the other, and walk together on the
heavenward road. Such is the highest aim
and object of a union which a sacrament has rendered holy. Christ loved His own unto the end, and,
moreover, in such a manner that they should attain their own final salvation. So must the wife love her husband, and the
husband his wife–in such a way that they may both attain their final end,
eternal blessedness. They should therefore
unite in prayer, attend divine worship together, and receive the sacraments at
the same time. If they do this the
blessing of God will assuredly rest upon them.
Difficult and important as are those duties of married
people which we have already considered, the most difficult, and at the same
time the most important of all, is doubtless that of bringing up their children
in the fear of God. When the Last
Judgment comes we who are priest and confessors shall not be judged in the same
ways as ordinary individuals; we shall not only have to answer for what we have
personally done of left undone, but we shall have further to give account of
the souls committed to our care. In
precisely the same manner shall fathers and mothers be judged; not merely in
regard to what their own lives have been, but as to the manner in which they
have brought up their children. If these
latter are doomed to perdition through the bad education they have received
from their parents, they shall hang like millstones round the neck of their
father or mother, sinking them yet deeper into the abyss of hell.
This difficult duty of the education of children, and
the heavy responsibility attaching to it, is sufficient of itself to make you,
Christian maiden, seriously reflect before answering the question “Ought I to
marry?” in the affirmative.
If this duty of education is so difficult and
burdensome for the father, it is doubly and trebly so for the mother. For the physical and spiritual training of
children depends, in their earliest years at least, almost exclusively upon
her. How great a load of trouble and
anxiety, grief and suffering, must rest upon a mother until her four, six,
eight, or even more children can feed and dress themselves, until they are to a
certain extent independent of her! Since
the day when God said to the mother of the human race: “In sorrow shalt thou
bring forth children, and thou shalt be under thy husband’s power,” the life of
every wife and mother has been a life of constant sacrifice and renunciation,
full of sorrows and trials.
My dear daughter, “Ought you to marry?” To sum up everything in a few words, I would
say to you: If you have courage to make
great sacrifices, if you are very fond of children, if you feel that you could
readily submit to the will of another, if you are sound and healthy in both
mind and body, if you are sufficiently versed in household matters, and have
attained the proper age (I would say the age of twenty), then you may marry if
you consider yourself called to the wedded state rather than to an unmarried
life in the world. May God enlighten,
guide, and bless you! And may the words
of Solomon be exemplified in your case: “She hath looked well to the paths of
her house, and hath not eaten her bread idle.
Her children rose up, and called her blessed; her husband and he praised
her.”
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