Pius XI, 1922-1939

the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the Church" [Eph. 5:22 f.].

Yet this obedience does not deny or take away the liberty which by full right belongs to a woman, both in view of her dignity as a human being, and in view of her noble duties of wife, mother, and companion; nor does it demand that she obey every desire of her husband, that is, not in keeping with right reason or with her dignity as a wife; nor, finally, does it mean that a wife is to be placed on the same level with persons who in law are called minors, to whom the free exercise of their rights is not customarily granted because of lack of mature judgment, or because of inexperience in human affairs; but it forbids that exaggerated liberty which has no care for the good of the family; it forbids that in this body of the family the heart be separated from the head, to the great detriment of the whole body and the proximate danger of ruin. For, if the man is the head, the woman is the heart, and just as he holds primacy in ruling, she can and ought to claim primacy in love for herself as her own.

Furthermore, this obedience of the wife to her husband, insofar as pertains to degree and manner, can be different, according to different persons, places, and conditions of the time; rather, if a husband fail in his duty, it is the wife's responsibility to take his place in directing the family. But the very structure of the family and its chief law, as constituted and confirmed by God, can never and nowhere be overturned or tainted.

On this point of maintaining order between husband and wife Our predecessor of happy memory, Leo XIII, wisely taught in his Encyclical Letter on Christian marriage which We have mentioned: "The man is the ruler of the family and the head of the woman; yet, since she is flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone, let her be subject and obedient to the man, not in the manner of a maidservant but of a companion, so that of course, neither honor nor dignity be lacking in the obedience rendered. But let divine charity be the unfailing guide of duty in him who is at the head, and in her who obeys, since both bear the image, the one, of Christ, the other of the Church. . . ."¹

[3] Yet the sum total of such great benefits is completed and, as it were, brought to a head by that blessing of Christian marriage which we have called, in Augustine's words, a sacrament, by which is denoted the indissolubility of the bond and the raising and hallowing by Christ of the contract into an efficacious sign of grace.

In the first place, to be sure, Christ Himself lays stress on the indissoluble firmness of the nuptial bond when he says: "What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder" [Matt. 19:6]; and, "Everyone that putteth away his wife, and marrieth another committeth adultery,