Question:
In many prayers and novenas, virginity is described as glorious, undefiled, pure, etc. Can't marriage be just as glorious, undefiled, and pure? That language seems to look down on marriage as second rate.
Answer:
No doubt marriage can and should be holy. Thus the term “holy matrimony” (see Eph. 5:21-33). And thus saintly married couples like the Quattrochis (now Blessed) and the Martins (canonized in recent years), the latter the parents of St. Thérèse of Lisieux.
And yet, as St. Paul writes in I Corinthians 7:32ff., the unmarried are freer to serve the Lord with single-mindedness.
Bottom line, each person should rejoice over his God-given vocation, whether to single life in service of the Lord or holy matrimony, and strive to live it in an abundantly fruitful way (see John 10:10).
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