Feature
The Virtue of Marriage
Truly Authentic Sex & Rightly Ordered Love by Tracy Jamison
The classical understanding of virtue is remarkably absent from our modern world. We might consider the practical definition of virtue offered by St. Augustine in The City of God (Book XV, chapter 22), where he describes virtue as "the right order of love" and gives us some helpful examples. When people love to hoard money more than they love to use it for productive and worthwhile enterprises, we call them greedy, because their love of money is not rightly ordered. When they love physical beauty or strength more than spiritual beauty or strength, we call them vain, again because their love is disordered.
The same is true regarding every other kind of good we aspire to attain. Every good ought to be desired in proper balance and due proportion, neither too much nor too little, and with attention to the common good. As Augustine puts it, a good "is loved rightly whenever it is loved ordinately, and it is loved evilly whenever it is loved inordinately."
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
subscription options
Order
Print/Online Subscription
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Order
Online Only
Subscription
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on family from the online archives
36.1—Jan/Feb 2023
A History of the Protestant Debate over Contraception by James A. Altena
33.3—May/June 2020
Maternal Body: A Theology of Incarnation from the Christian East by Carrie Frederick Frost
Fertile Ground: A Pilgrimage Through Pregnancy by Laura S. Jansson by Agnes R. Howard
24.4—July/August 2011
The Cultural Marxists’ Strategic Assault on Religion, Life & Family by Patrick F. Fagan
more from the online archives
32.6—November/December 2019
The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis by Alan Jacobs by Jesse Russell
30.5—Sept/Oct 2017
on Costly Grace in Breece D'J Pancake's Flyover Country by Casey Chalk
29.4—July/August 2016
Russell Kirk: American Conservative by Bradley J. Birzer by Hunter Baker
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
