IN contrast to the shallow promotion of childlessness discussed in this entry, here are reflections on marriage and family by the Russian Empress Alexandra Fedorovna, the wife of Tsar Nicholas II whom, as we all know, was assassinated along with her family by the Bolsheviks in 1918 and whose mournful and pensive face was so entirely lacking in the vanity mentioned in the previous post. Below is an excerpt, but please read the whole thing. This is a beautiful essay. Many years from now, people will still be reading this and feel affection for its author, while reflections on the joys of sterility will make future generations despise their stingy ancestors — if those reflections are read at all. These reflections are almost painful in light of Russia’s subsequent moral and demographic collapse. Here is the Empress on children:

Our children naturally bring along with them a multitude of cares and concerns, and for this reason there are people who look upon the appearance of children as a misfortune. But it is only cold egotists who can look upon children in such a manner.

It is a momentous thing to take upon oneself the responsibility for these tender young lives, which can enrich the world with beauty, joy, and power, but which can also easily perish; it is a momentous thing to nurture them, form their character, – this is what one should think about when establishing a home. It should be a home in which children will grow up to a sincere and noble life, grow up for God.

No treasures in the world can replace for man the loss of truly incomparable treasures – his own children. There are things which God gives often, and others that are given only once. The seasons of the year pass and return again, new flowers bloom, but youth never comes twice. Childhood and all its possibilities are given only once in a lifetime. Whatever you can do to adorn it, do it quickly.

Parents should be what they wish their children to be – not in words, but in deed. They should teach their children by the example of their own life. The greatest treasure that parents can leave their children is a happy childhood, with tender memories of father and mother. It will lighten the forthcoming days, it will preserve them from temptation, and it will help them face the harsh realities of life after they leave the parental roof.

May God help each mother understand the majesty and glory of her forth-coming endeavor, when she holds at her breast her infant, whom she must nurture and bring up. As far as children are concerned, the parents’ duty is to prepare them for life, for any trials that God may send them. While the parents are alive, the child will always remain a child for them and should treat his parents with love and respect. The children’s love for their parents is expressed in complete trust in them. A real mother finds importance in everything in which her child is interested. She listens just as willingly to his adventures, joys, disappointments, achievements, plans, and dreams as other people listen to a romantic narrative. [cont.]

— Comments —

A Grateful Reader writes:

Thank you for the beautiful reflections of Empress Alexandra; her powerful words should be in the hearts of all husbands and wives when they embark on the journey of marriage. Father Thomas Loya, in this August’s Theosis magazine, writes: “My hope and advice for married couples and for those preparing for marriage is that they will ultimately become great monks.” He did not mean that they should not consumate the marriage, but that their primary calling in marriage is to help one another (and any children they have) to become ever closer to Christ.

He explains the reasons for this advice through the words of the theologian Paul Evdokimov: “Moreover, the rite of entrance into the monastic order makes use of nuptial symbolism…while the ancient marriage rite included the monastic tonsure, signifying the common surrender of the two wills to God. Thus, marriage includes within itself the monastic state…The two converge as complementary aspects of the same virginal reality of the human spirit. The ancient Russian tradition viewed the time of engagement as a monastic novitiate. After the marriage ceremony, a retreat in a monastery was prescribed for the newly married to prepare for entrance into their ‘nuptial priesthood.’…Monastic holiness and married holiness are the two faces of Tabor.. the two ways, contrary to human reason, are found to be inwardly united in the end, mysteriously identical.”

Imagine that, the honeymoon was originally a struggle for purification in a monastery not a vacation for fun in the tropics. How different the two marriages would be, one starting with humility in a monastery and the other with narcisscism on a beach. Perhaps, next month, Time cover will feature the couple in the monastery. In truth, whether or not a couple is able to have children, their calling in marriage is to help one another come closer to Christ, and thus to one another, and to shine the Light into all those lives they touch — be they their biological or academic or spiritual children or just friends; and to help those friends become True Friends.

Minbee66 writes:

I just wanted to let you know that Nicholas and Alexandra have been canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church. Here is a hostile report from The New York Times and Wikipedia’s critical article. Here is an article that is more of human interest story.

Laura writes:

Thank you for the links.

Alissa writes:

Alissa writes:

These reflections are almost painful in light of Russia’s subsequent moral and demographic collapse.

This is an exaggeration and a myth. I don’t know why, but both Jews and American neoconservatives are terribly hostile towards Russia. Here are three articles (e.g. here, there and here) detailing how the demographic picture is distorted by various subjects. Their birth rate has improved to replacement level, or slightly above it. And the Muslim terrorists are declining bit by bit.

Laura writes:

Russia did indeed decline morally and demographically after the Romanovs. From Wikipedia:

The population of Russia peaked at 148,689,000 in 1991, just before the breakup of the Soviet Union. Low birth rates and abnormally high death rates caused Russia’s population to decline at a 0.5% annual rate, or about 750,000 to 800,000 people per year from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s. The UN warned in 2005 that Russia’s then population of about 143 million could fall by a third by 2050, if trends did not improve.[13][14]

Russia’s birth rate is now higher than the U.S. It improved from 2008 onward.

Please follow and like us: