vicious paradox.
Well there is the problem. How does one solve it? Does one remain hopelessly indiscreet into old age, distrusted by all who have something worthwhile to impart? Or does one just weakly say that there is no solution? As before I will use religious ideas, because these are the ones with which I am most familiar, and find the easiest to handle. But I must stress that this is only one way of tackling the problem. The problem itself is universal.
The reader may not be aware that it has been a classic problem of the Church all through the ages - how a man is to reconcile God and a wife in his one single life? I stress the phrase “one single life”, because of course it is easy enough to reconcile God and a wife if one is prepared to split one's life up into watertight compartments, and exclude one's wife from the religious compartment and God from the matrimonial compartment. But I do not reckon that this device is worthy of the name “solution”. It is just dodging the issue.
The problem is raised by most of the writers of the New Testament. Christ is recorded as having come down on the side of celibacy; perhaps understandably as he felt obliged to be celibate. Paul says that no solution of the problem is possible; God must naturally come first, and marriage is a sign of weakness. Peter was in the difficult position that he was married already, and was prudent enough to limit himself to a little practical advice. No one tackled the problem; and the astonishing thing is that there is no theoretical solution on record, that I know of.
The Church of England copes with the situation by saying incredulously, “But there is no problem!”. This however is hardly convincing in view of the doubts of the early fathers of the Church, and the attitude today of the Roman Catholic priesthood. There is a problem. No doubt many married couples have in practice found a solution. How many? It is impossible to say. Maybe many,…