December 26

The institution of marriage, as established by Bahá’u’lláh, while giving due importance to the physical aspect of marital union, considers it as subordinate to the moral and spiritual purposes and functions with which it has been invested by an all-wise and loving Providence. Only when these different values are given each their due importance, and only on the basis of the subordination of the physical to the moral, and the carnal to the spiritual, can such excesses and laxity in marital relations as our decadent age is so sadly witnessing be avoided, and family life be restored to its original purity, and fulfil the true function for which it has been instituted by God. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (From a letter dated 8 May 1939 written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer; compilation: ‘Family Life’, prepared by the Research Department of the Universal House of Justice, March 2008)