Chapter XXXI. Matrimony. Matrimony is not only a natural contract between husband and wife, but it has been elevated for Christians, by Jesus Christ, to the dignity of a Sacrament: "Husbands," says the Apostle, "love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church and delivered Himself up for it, ... so also ought men to love their wives as their own bodies.... For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall adhere to his wife and they shall be one flesh. This is a great sacrament: but I speak in Christ and in the Church."536 In these words the Apostle declares that the union of Christ with His Church is the type or model of the bond subsisting between man and wife. Now the union between Christ and His Church is supernatural and sealed by Divine grace. Hence, also, is the fellowship of a Christian husband and wife cemented by the grace of God. The wedded couple are bound to love one another during their whole lives, as Christ has loved His Church, and to discharge the virtues proper to the married state. In order to fulfil these duties special graces of our Savior are required. The Fathers, Councils and Liturgies of the Western and [409] the Oriental Churches, including the Coptic, Jacobite, Syriac, Nestorian and other schismatic bodies, which for upwards of fourteen centuries have been separated from the Catholic communion, all agree in recognizing Christian marriage as a Sacrament. 536 Ephes. v. 25-32.