… It is useful to note that the marital relationship is one that requires in many instances a profound adjustment in behaviour on the part of each partner. Because the intimacy of the relationship exposes the best and the worst in their characters, both partners are engaged in a balancing act, so to speak. Some couples are able to achieve at the outset and to maintain a high degree of harmony throughout their marriage. Many others find they must struggle for some time to attain such harmony. While it is true that the personal rights of each party to a marriage must be upheld by the other, the relationship of one to the other, it must be borne in mind, is not based solely on a legalistic premise. Love is its very foundation. This being the case, a purely litigious reaction to the misdeeds of a partner is not appropriate.
- The Universal House of Justice (From a letter dated 2 January 1996 written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice to an individual believer; compilation: ‘Family Life’, prepared by the Research Department of the Universal House of Justice, revised March 2008)
