love and marriage

⁸But, before all things, have a constant mutual charity among yourselves. For love covers a multitude of sins.

²⁵Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the Church and handed himself over for her,

²²Wives should be submissive to their husbands, as to the Lord. ²³For the husband is the head of the wife, just as Christ is the head of the Church. He is the Savior of his body. ²⁴Therefore, just as the Church is subject to Christ, so also should wives be subject to their husbands in all things. ²⁵Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the Church and handed himself over for her, ²⁶so that he might sanctify her, washing her clean by water and the Word of life, ²⁷so that he might offer her to himself as a glorious Church, not having any spot or wrinkle or any such thing, so that she would be holy and immaculate.

²²He who has found a good wife has found goodness, and he shall draw contentment from the Lord. He who expels a good wife expels goodness. But he who holds on to an adulteress is foolish and impious.

³³Yet truly, each and every one of you should love his wife as himself. And a wife should fear her husband.

⁴Charity is patient, is kind. Charity does not envy, does not act wrongly, is not inflated. ⁵Charity is not ambitious, does not seek for itself, is not provoked to anger, devises no evil. ⁶Charity does not rejoice over iniquity, but rejoices in truth. ⁷Charity suffers all, believes all, hopes all, endures all.

⁴May marriage be honorable in every way, and may the marriage bed be immaculate. For God will judge fornicators and adulterers.

¹³But for now, these three continue: faith, hope, and charity. And the greatest of these is charity.

¹⁴And above all these things have charity, which is the bond of perfection.

²⁴For this reason, a man shall leave behind his father and mother, and he shall cling to his wife; and the two shall be as one flesh.

⁷Similarly, you husbands should live with them in accord with knowledge, bestowing honor on the female as the weaker vessel and as co-heirs of the life of grace, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

¹⁶For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that all who believe in him may not perish, but may have eternal life.

¹⁴Let all that is yours be immersed in charity.

¹⁸Wives, be submissive to your husbands, as is proper in the Lord. ¹⁹Husbands, love your wives, and do not be bitter toward them.

¹If I were to speak in the language of men, or of Angels, yet not have charity, I would be like a clanging bell or a crashing cymbal. ²And if I have prophecy, and learn every mystery, and obtain all knowledge, and possess all faith, so that I could move mountains, yet not have charity, then I am nothing. ³And if I distribute all my goods in order to feed the poor, and if I hand over my body to be burned, yet not have charity, it offers me nothing. ⁴Charity is patient, is kind. Charity does not envy, does not act wrongly, is not inflated. ⁵Charity is not ambitious, does not seek for itself, is not provoked to anger, devises no evil. ⁶Charity does not rejoice over iniquity, but rejoices in truth.

¹⁸The Lord God also said: “It is not good for the man to be alone. Let us make a helper for him similar to himself.”

¹⁰Who shall find a strong woman? Far away, and from the furthest parts, is her price.