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Until humanity reaches and lives for eternity in the Kingdom of Heaven, God has ordained marriage as a tool for salvation. Marriage is recognized as a sort of adaptation to the new condition of man that was created after the fall of the protoplasts. St. Paul in his first epistle to the Corinthians makes recommendations on how people can avoid fornication. According to the Apostle, true sexual relations can exist only within marriage, because sexuality is restored through marriage. In the Patristic tradition and in Holy Scripture this view is upheld, as it is seen in St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians. “… a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and they become on flesh.” St. Paul also says,
:''“…each man should have his won own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another except perhaps by agreement for a set time, to devote yourselves to prayer, and then come together again.”'' (1 Corinthians 7:2-5)
It is important for one to understand that marriage is not a license for unlimited marital relations but an opportunity for asceticism. The ascetic character of the Christian life also covers the marital life of the believers. Purity, chastity, and even virginity are upheld through marriage according to St. John Chrysostom. Marriage as a communion of persons is not restricted to the level of matter and material sense. Contrarily, matter and material sense serve the communion of the person and in this way they acquire a spiritual content. The prayers of the marriage service clearly address this pastoral issue. The priest prays for the bed of the couple to remain “undefiled.”
