The tekhne of Married Life in Michel Foucault’s Reading of St. John Chrysostom
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12775/BPTh.2025.010Keywords
Michel Foucault, John Chrysostom, marriage, virginityAbstract
This paper deals with Michel Foucault’s exploration of St. John Chrysostom’s teachings on marriage, outlined in The Confession of the Flesh, the last volume of his The History of Sexuality. Foucault highlights the incorporation of monastic principles into married life as a form of spiritual practice. Foucault describes marriage as a lesser but significant tekhne or art of living, focused on moral and spiritual enrichment rather than solely procreation. Chrysostom’s innovative approach integrated principles like natural inequality, the husband’s duty to teach, marital indissolubility, and the importance of the emotional bond, framing marriage as “a little Church.”
However, even if Foucault's reading has indisputable merits in terms of the novelty of the doctrine taught by Chrysostom, it is also necessary to point out the limits faced by this reading, of a fundamentally methodological nature, which must be taken into account when assessing his work.
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