You see the rule of obedience? Well, hear also the rule of love. Do you wish your wife to obey you, as the church obeys Christ? Then take care for her, as Christ did for the church. And even if you must give your life for her, or be cut in a thousand pieces, or whatever you must undergo and suffer, shrink not from it. And even if you suffer all this, you have not yet done anything that Christ did. For you do this being already joined in marriage to her, but he suffered for a bride who rejected and hated him. As then he brought to his feet her who rejected him and hated him and scorned him and despised him, with wonderful care and affection, not with terror, not with threats, nor with anything of the sort; so do you towards your wife. If you see her despising you, scorning you, treating you with contempt, you can bring her to your feet by spending care on her, love, and kindness. No bonds are more despotic than these, and especially between man and wife. A slave a man may perhaps bind by terror; but nay, not even him, for he soon will escape and be free. But the partner of your life, the mother of your children, the subject of all your joy, you ought to bind not by terror and threats, but by love and gentle consideration.
JOHN CHRYSOSTOM (345?–407). on Ephesians 5:25
One of the fathers of the Greek church, Chrysostom was Patriarch of Constantinople (398–404).
