The atheistic decades have firmly fixed in the minds of Russian people the motto “Human being is the master of his life.” And each reshapes his own destiny according to his own understanding and discretion.
Someone is looking for the ideal spouse in trying civil marriages; someone, failing to build a family and not agreeing to come to terms with loneliness, gives birth and brings up children “for herself”; some even live only for their own pleasure, not caring about anyone or anything.
Extramarital relationships, divorces and love without obligations are now of no surprise. Behind all this, we sometimes completely forget that each of us has our own calling from God, each has his own path, family or celibacy, which we must walk with dignity.
Sometimes it is not easy to discuss such topics, because in our life much is interconnected, and, considering one issue, one involuntarily has to turn to other equally capacious problems, each of which deserves separate attention.
Man and woman
In order for many doubts and misunderstandings regarding sex outside of marriage, a woman’s desire to give birth and raise a child for herself and others, to be resolved by themselves, it is necessary to talk about building relationships between a man and a woman, the laws (physical and spiritual) that affect these relationships , and, of course, about the principles of building a Christian family in general.
We cannot think of anything new in terms of family, marriage and sex outside of marriage. The Lord created man to be subject to certain laws: physical, spiritual, and moral.
We are often told about physiological laws, but not always honestly (they are silent about some well-known things). I would like to draw your attention to some of the consequences of sexual relations between a man and a woman.
Scientists argue that as a result of intimate relationships hormonal changes occur in the human body (especially for women). Accordingly, if a woman enters into frequent intimate relationships with different men, sooner or later this affects her health (according to some scientists, this is often the main cause of female infertility).
That is why, even taking into account only the physiological laws of human life, we have the right to speak not about amonogamous relationship between a man and a woman but about the one relationship!
It is not without reason that our wise grandparents believed that marriage should be one and for life. This point of view has always been held by the Christian Church. The Lord created man and woman and commanded them to be as one. Only as an exception, a marriage can be dvorced for number of reasons or second marriage is possible if one of the spouses has died. Although, again, ideally, the marriage should be one.
And most importantly, you need to remember all the time that in addition to physical and moral laws there are also spiritual laws, neglecting which we still cannot create anything worthy and good. Having thrown a large stone up in the crowd, we can no longer change anything, even if we perfectly repent; our regrets will not stop this cobblestone, which could hurt someone when it falls down. For each offense, sooner or later, you will have to answer, live with the awareness of the mistake and with the consequences.
There are number of sins for which a person, if he lives alone, bears only personal responsibility (for example, idle thinking, condemnation, breaking the fast on the road or at work, etc.) and only one person suffers from their consequences.
But in marriage, every act often affects not only an individual person, but his entire family, children, for whom he is responsible before God and society.
The connection between a man and a woman does not exist only at the physical level. There is also a spiritual connection, which is almost impossible to get rid of. This connection may not appear immediately, but after some time, and it will interfere for quite a long time. It happens that those who have committed adultery or fornication repent and even forget about it, but the sin comes up again and again, giving no rest. Such people cannot achieve peace of mind for a long time.
Entering intimate relationships without a Christian marriage is like entering to a party from the back door. Most likely, you will not meet guests, but service personnel. Or you will be mistaken for a thief and will not be greeted in the way you expect. You have to understand that in some things there is the only one correct way. This applies primarily to the relationship between a man and a woman.
It is foolish to build a marriage, basing it only on the intimate relationship, mutual understanding and spiritual closeness should prevail in the family. Physical closeness is a kind of bonus that helps to strengthen the mutual understanding, to finally create a single whole out of two. Accordingly, outside marriage, intimate relationships are like a time bomb that will explode sooner or later – and more often when you don’t expect it at all.
Unplanned children
In the modern world, sexual promiscuity is often cultivated, ignoring spiritual and physiological laws. Certain stereotypes, lifestyle and thinking are imposed. In this regard, certain products are also imposed as a panacea for solving certain problems.
So, for example, you can often hear the point of view that there are no restrictions in sexual relations, and in order to avoid negative consequences (unwanted pregnancy, genital infections), it is enough to use contraceptives.
This, of course, is either deceit or deception. Now, to achieve material profit, people are ready to impose any product. Contraceptives are positioned as the only correct and safe means for living in pleasure. However, manufacturers are often silent about the side effects of contraception, about the complications on women’s health. It is important for manufacturers that you buy their products; nobody cares about the consequences of using them.
At the same time, no company gives a 100% guarantee that the use of contraceptives will save you from unwanted pregnancy. There are also completely unacceptable, abortive drugs that kill an already existing fetus. Orthodox people believe that human life begins at the moment of conception. Hence, the use of such drugs is the same as sin of murder.
As a rule, contraceptives provide only 90% protection against pregnancy. Every tenth woman can fall into a risk group (agree, the percentage is quite high) and face another difficult problem – the appearance of a child outside of marriage. This question is difficult and painful. Many women solve it radically: they have an abortion, and then suffer because of this throughout their lives. Others decide to leave the child and raise him alone, outside of a full-fledged family. But this also leaves a certain negative imprint – if not on the woman herself, then on this child, for sure.
Child “for yourself”
Having a child out of wedlock is a fashionable trend among modern emancipated women. When they have given up hope for getting married, they decide to give birth “for themselves.” At the same time, few people think about the fact that in order to conceive this baby, a woman commits a sin, which will certainly affect both herself and the child.
Every child should grow up in a complete family. It is one thing when, for some very serious reason, the marriage falls apart, and one of the spouses has to put the children on their feet alone. We have to suffer this state of affairs. But it is quite another matter if a woman, out of selfish reasons, decides to raise a child in an obviously incomplete family. I am convinced that no one has the right to condemn a child to such a fate.
I have to communicate with many people, among whom there are examples of those women who took the liberty of giving birth to a child without marriage. Unfortunately, their stories turned out to be rather sad. Children who grew up without a man’s hand often suffer themselves and torture their mothers.
A woman who has made such a desperate step often perceives her child not as a separate person, but as an object, thing, a raw material appendage, forever attached to her. But we should remember that the task of every parent is to grow an independent personality, a spiritually strong person who is able to make the right choice in life. The selfish upbringing of a single mother often deprives the child of the right to do all of this.
How to deal with loneliness
The issue of loneliness is directly related to the strength of our faith and the lack of a spiritual core in us. People often complain to priests: “I have no friends and relatives, I am lonely.” The absence of a family and children is especially difficult for women.
But if a person has deep faith, he cannot be alone. He understands that next to him is the Lord, Who cares about his salvation, supports him in difficult times, helps to resolve the most difficult life situations.
If until a certain age a woman fails to create her own family, why not think about the fact that this is a certain providence of God?
Spouses in marriage must form one whole and must learn to sacrifice themselves for each other. This is true Christian love. But who said that sacrificing oneself to loved ones is possible only inside the family?
Some devote their lives to God and go to a monastery. Of course, no one has the right to demand such a decisive step from every single woman, but in the world you can always find an application for your strengths and talents.
Help is needed in Orthodox churches, hospitals, and boarding schools, in which many people lack attention, heartfelt concern and warmth. Some women who have raised their own children carry out voluntary work in orphanages. They help doctors and nannies who do not have enough time and mental strength for each child. The staff of the baby founding hospitals conscientiously fulfills their duties, but often they are somewhat distanced from human grief, once again trying not to show their feelings. But sometimes children, apart from medical help need also communication, attention and love. This is a wonderful example of a truly Christian life – not selfish, but spent for the benefit of others.
Think about what will be more useful for the soul: to be alone and work for the benefit of others, or to enter into extramarital relations, and not create a full-fledged family and then be deeply unhappy.
Adoption
Even a child taken from an orphanage should ideally grow up in a full-fledged family and be raised by the example of not only the mother, but also the father. A purely female upbringing is not always successful. There is a danger that one day in the process of education the mother will miss something, and as a result, the child will not grow up at all as she imagined. To bear the burden of raising any child, and even more so, someone else’s, is easier together.
Not all people fully understand the seriousness of adoption. It is not for nothing that psychologists often work with those who are preparing to become foster parents, revealing their readiness for such a step.
Adopting a child is certainly the same sacrifice of oneself, one’s own strengths, means, opportunities, time for the sake of one’s neighbor. It is a great feat to take someone else’s baby into your family and bring them up like a family. But often people do not think about a number of rather serious problems. When these difficulties appear or emerge, and the parents are not ready for them, they turn into a tragedy for both the child and the adoptive parents.
It is not enough just to say: now this baby will live with me, will be my son or daughter. It must be remembered that most children come to baby childrenhomes from dysfunctional families, and some of them have an innate tendency to certain vices.
This is just an example of the consequences that the sins of parents entail. So the child of alcoholics often from birth has no sense of proportion and cannot resist temptations. Children of drug addicts are often born with mental disabilities, which, unfortunately, do not appear immediately. People bring up a child, lovethe child like a family, and one day they are faced with his inadequate reaction to something.
How to be in such a situation?
We understand abstractly that the child is not to blame. But is everyone ready to accept this and continue to fight? Unfortunately, some foster parents rather quickly endure a pedagogical fiasco and return the child back to the orphanage. It’s easy to guess how much heart break this will bring to the child.
There are, of course, happy examples. I know families that have not had children after five or more years of marriage. People decided to adopt, and after some time the Lord sent them their own biological children. They continued to responsibly raise their adopted children, overcoming all difficulties with God’s help.
But let’s not forget the old adage: “be afraid of wolves, do not go to the forest.” We must not be afraid of all kinds of difficulties, but have courage, perseverance and persistent faith.
Interethnic marriage
In our multinational country, there are frequent cases when at a certain stage of relations between young people it suddenly turns out that the beloved professes a different religion. And they go to the priest for advice: it seems that the person is good, and loves, and respects me, and does not oppose Christianity – is it possible to marry?
Unfortunately, for a family where husband and wife belong to different religions, respect and love are often not enough to develop the right relationship.
As a rule, a person of a different faith grew up in a completely different cultural and social environment. People who come from the East have different family foundations from the ones familiar to a Russian person, the relationship between a man and a woman is traditionally different there. And sooner or later the family will have to face this difference.
Many problems often do not arise immediately, but for example, after the birth of children: spears begin to break when it comes time to decide in what faith and system of moral values they will be brought up. And often the position of one of the spouses suddenly becomes unacceptable for the other.
For example, among the same Muslims, not even a respectful, but a submissive attitude towards elders is highly developed. If the parents make any decision, sooner or later the son will have to give in and do as they want. And people of the older generation in such families are very often categorical and irreconcilable.
So it would be good to carefully weigh all the possible consequences of such an interethnic and interreligious marriage, so that you do not have to destroy the fate of your own and your children later.
Some people believe that the solution to all problems in such families can be raising children without faith. That childrenwill grow up and decide for themselves what religion they profess. But raising children without faith is a great danger and a serious mistake. If parents are not involved in raising their children then TV, the Internet, the street will do it.
The empty space will surely be filled, but not at all with systemic knowledge about faith, kindness, honesty and nobility. Life shows that children who grow up in an atheistic atmosphere later turn out to be immune to moral and spiritual concepts. Often they create a comfortable world, beyond which they are afraid to go later.
Their supposedly “fresh brains” are actually filled with concepts from advertisments and the Internet. And they don’t even think about what person or group of people is behind all these slogans and appeals, what their ideology is all about and what goals they pursue. Prejudice prevents young people from being sober about what is happening around them. And their self, and pride gives them the right to consider their “ego” as the yardstick for everything around.
We are diligently taught to live as a consumer: to eat, sleep, have fun – and start all over again. People become slaves to their physiological needs and get used to the beastly lifestyle.
They are not ready not only to think about what the ultimate goal of such a meaningless life is, but they do not even perceive what they are told about eternal life.
They are too comfortable not to think about the consequences of their actions. This is what is scary about raising children without faith in God.
About love and marriage
Love and feeling of being in love are different in their essence. Love comes with responsibility and selflessness. Falling in love is a feeling of euphoria, from which love can develop, but it may not develop. We have no right to equate these feelings.
People in a state of being inlove often make many mistakes, which have to be paid for when there is no trace of the former feelings left.
So it would be nice to double-check this pleasant and intoxicating state and not follow his lead.
It is no coincidence that the older generation advises young people to look closely at each other before marrying and taking responsibility for each other before God and people.
Unfortunately, the opposite is happening now. Young people are advised to first live with each other, and then decide whether they want this responsibility and family for life.
A very big problem in starting a family is the lack of determination and perseverance. Without determination, you will not be able to achieve your goal. Unfortunately, many modern people absolutely lack both the determination and the desire to go towards the intended goal. They treat broken marriages lightly, even frivolously: they say, it didn’t work out, it’s okay, let’s try again. But finding the perfect person is impossible. And building a family on the basis of astrological signs and the like is stupid.
Each of us has character traits, and accordingly there are people with whom we spend interesting time and they are easy and comfortable to be together with and there are those with whom we don’t want to talk ever again. And of course, it can be easier for us to start building another relationship with someone else.
Let’s not forget that falling in love tends to detach from reality, to prettify people, to embellish and to attribute ideal characteristics to them.
But in family life, in everyday life, all the roughness and inconsistencies will immediately come out. And often young people with disappointment realize that they overlooked something, made a mistake andwere deceived.
No need to flatter yourself. Difficulties, disappointments and mismatches happen in any family. I think there is a special divine providence in the fact that we are all different, that husband and wife complement each other in some way.
After all, a strong family is not one in which there were no difficulties, but one that overcame them, guided by the Christian principles. If you do not make efforts on yourself, if you do not have a firm desire to create a strong union, then sooner or later any, even the most ideal couple, will break up.
P.S. A lot can be said about each of the topics discussed, and we have touched, figuratively speaking, only the tip of the iceberg. But we must not forget that all these problems have more than once received the correct Christian assessment both in the patristic writing (which once again confirms the immutability of moral and spiritual laws) and in modern Christian literature. I wish that you woul not be afraid to look for the right answers to the questions that arise, and not just go with the flow in an unknown direction.
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