Saint Augustine — "I have decided that there is nothing I should avoid so much as marriage."
I have decided that there is nothing I should avoid so much as marriage.
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More from Saint Augustine
"Having children is the only worthy fruit of sexual intercourse."
"It is natural for men to rule over women."
"Sin is looking for the right thing in the wrong place."
"He who is not jealous is not in love."
"For pride is the beginning of sin."
Details
Letter to his friend Alypius, reflecting his early post-conversion ascetic views
Date: c. 386-387 AD
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Understanding this quote
What it means
Augustine firmly declares that marriage is the one thing above all else he must avoid. He prioritizes a celibate life free from domestic and sexual entanglements, viewing matrimony as the greatest threat to spiritual focus and intellectual clarity. It is a deliberate rejection of spousal obligation and physical desire in favor of complete devotion to God and philosophical inquiry — choosing an unencumbered inner life over conventional social expectation.
Relevance to Saint Augustine
Augustine lived this tension intimately. For over a decade he kept a concubine with whom he fathered a son, Adeodatus, yet resisted formal marriage. When his mother Monica arranged a respectable match, he sent his companion away but still delayed. His Confessions chronicles brutal honesty about sexual struggle and his anguished prayer for chastity 'but not yet.' His 386 AD conversion resolved it — he embraced permanent celibacy and founded a monastic community in North Africa.
The era
In 4th-5th century Roman North Africa, Christianity was consolidating power following the Edict of Milan in 313 AD. Influenced by desert fathers and Neoplatonist philosophy, early Christians increasingly valorized celibacy as spiritually superior to marriage. Paul's letters had already framed the unmarried life as preferable for devoted service to God. As monasticism spread and Roman civic life deteriorated, rejecting marriage was both a spiritual ideal and a statement against the decaying imperial social order.
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