The Orthodox priest Father Stephen Freeman writes that fidelity in marriage is a version of the Benedict Option. Excerpt:

Some have begun to write about the so-called “Benedict Option,” a notion first introduced by Alasdair MacIntyre in his book, After Virtue. It compares the contemporary situation to that of the collapse of the Roman Christian Imperium in the West (i.e., the Dark Ages). Christian civilization, MacIntyre notes, was not rebuilt through a major conquering or legislating force, but through the patient endurance of small monastic communities and surrounding Christian villages. That pattern marked the spread of Christian civilization for many centuries in many places, both East and West.

It would seem clear that a legislative option has long been a moot point. When 95 percent of the population is engaging in sex outside of marriage (to say the least) no legislation of a traditional sort is likely to make a difference. The greater question is whether such a cultural tidal wave will inundate the Church’s teaching or render it inert – a canonical witness to a by-gone time, acknowledged perhaps in confession but irrelevant to daily choices (this is already true in many places).

The “Benedict Option” can only be judged over the course of centuries, doubtless to the dismay of our impatient age. But, as noted, those things required are already largely in place. [Emphasis mine — RD] The marriage rite (in those Churches who refuse the present errors) remains committed to the life-long union of a man and a woman with clearly stated goals of fidelity. The canon laws supporting such marriages remain intact. Lacking is sufficient teaching and formation in the virtues required to live the martyrdom of marriage.

Modern culture has emphasized suffering as undesirable and an object to be remedied. Our resources are devoted to the ending of suffering and not to its endurance. Of course, the abiding myth of Modernity is that suffering can be eliminated. This is neither true nor desirable.

Virtues of patience, endurance, sacrifice, selflessness, generosity, kindness, steadfastness, loyalty, and other such qualities are impossible without the presence of suffering. The Christian faith does not disparage the relief of suffering, but neither does it make it definitive for the acquisition of virtue. Christ is quite clear that all will suffer.  It is pretty much the case that no good thing comes about in human society except through the voluntary suffering of some person or persons. The goodness in our lives is rooted in the grace of heroic actions.

In the absence of stable, life-long, self-sacrificing marriages, all discussion of sex and sexuality is reduced to abstractions.

You might also say that in the absence of stable, life-long, self-sacrificing examples of living out the faith in community, all discussion of Christianity is reduced to abstraction. More from Fr. Stephen:

An eloquent case for traditional families is currently being made by the chaos and dysfunction set in motion by their absence. No amount of legislation or social programs will succeed in replacing the most natural of human traditions. The social corrosion represented by our over-populated prisons, births outside of marriage (over 40 percent in the general population and over 70 percent among non-Hispanic African Americans), and similar phenomenon continue to predict a breakdown of civility on the most fundamental level. We passed into the “Dark Ages” some time ago. The “Benedict Option” is already in place. It is in your parish and in your marriage. Every day you endure and succeed in a faithful union to your spouse and children is a heroic act of grace-filled living.

Yes! Read the whole thing.

This goes back to what I was writing earlier today, with reference to Jake Meador’s remarks, about how the Benedict Option is simply the reclaiming of orthodoxy, and the conditions under which Christian orthodoxy can be lived out, in stability, and in community, in postmodernity.

Your marriage, and your family, is a domestic monastery. St. Benedict of Nursia called the monastery a “school for conversion”. If we saw our marriages, and our families, as they really are, we would experience them as schools for conversion. They are not schools for comfort; though we may experience comfort within them, that is not their purpose. They are there for conversion. Conversion is change, and change is always hard. But what else is there?

Marriage has never been easy, but the attacks on marriage today are powerful and particular. We must form ourselves as husbands and wives, and mothers and fathers, in ways that push back against the culture’s pressures as hard as they push in on us. In the past, there was more support for marriage within our culture. That’s gone. We have to build up our interior resilience, through stability and practice, or we won’t make it.

To repeat: the Benedict Option is here, in your home, in your marriage, in your parish.