We, as young wives, don’t know how to greet our husbands, as educated as they are – for we have chosen them – but although we love them, we don’t know how to welcome them in our home. And through our behaviour we don’t know how to change them for the better. Then, we try to change them through prayers and akathists. But we don’t succeed because we don’t do even the minimum effort – to make a custom of greeting him with kindness, or to create a certain ambient when he leaves.

We wonder why we have distanced ourselves so much from what Saint Paul valued so much. The relation between spouses. Why do we question so much the 11 canonical rules for marriage? Why do we delay so much our relationship into just friendship? Why are we so undecided, insincere etc. in our friendship? Because we don’t understand that eros leads to “love feast”.

What does fleshly mean? It is not easy to define. Because sensuality is not something particular to a certain situation. Because not everybody needs sensuality. There is now a book which offers useful advice for the young wives. This book is very interesting because it tries to put women where they belong. The best thing to do is to show women and men their duties. We no longer know our duties. We, as young wives, don’t know how to greet our husbands, as educated as they are – for we have chosen them – but although we love them, we don’t know how to welcome them in our home. And through our behaviour we don’t know how to change them for the better. Then, we try to change them through prayers and akathists. But we don’t succeed because we don’t do even the minimum effort – to make a custom of greeting him with kindness, or to create a certain ambient when he leaves.

(Translation from: Părintele Nicolae Tănase, Soțul ideal, soția ideală, Editura Anastasis, Sibiu, 2011, p. 225)