Page:The Relations Tolstoy.pdf/55

 A "Christian" marriage there never has been nor can there be, as there never has been "Christian" property and much else; but there is a Christian relation to marriage as there is to property. The relation of a Christian to property is that although I do regard my shirt as mine, yet I deem it necessary to give it up when another demands it; so also towards marriage the relation of a Christian is of such a kind that his union is the most lawful irrevocable marriage, and in this married state he and his wife strive towards two things: first to the best education of their children before God; and secondly, to their mutual liberation from the weakness of lust so far as they are able, and to the establishment of loving-spiritual instead of loving physical relations. If one only understand well and clearly that sexual intercourse is a moral fall and a sin, and that union with one woman is not, as is now thought, a matter repairable by marriage with another, but is itself an irrevocable union, representing redemption from the sin, then it is clear that only with such a view can the chastity of mankind augment.

... When speaking of how married people should live, I not only do not imply that I myself have lived or now live as I should; on the contrary, I know positively, by my own experience, how one should live only because I have lived as one should not. I do not withdraw anything; rather, I should like to emphasize all I have said, but it is true it is necessary to explain. Necessary, because in our lives we are so far from what one should be (according to the light of our conscience and to the teaching of Jesus) that the truth in this matter startles us (I know this by my own experience), as it would startle an orthodox merchant who is growing