405 - Fr. Josiah Trenham - Marriage: The Bedrock of Civilization

In this episode, Father Josiah Trenham returns to the podcast for us to talk about the profound meaning and cosmic significance of marriage. We explore why marriage is a crucial civilizational cornerstone rooted in divine order, not only from a Christian perspective, but universally in all flourishing societies. We discuss how it compares to and co-exists with monasticism and the meaning of marriage and the wedding ceremony not just as a gate to self-fulfillment and a joyful experience, but also as self-sacrifice. We also discuss how rediscovering the beauty of marriage can help restore sanity in our fragmented secular world.

This conversation is also a preview of the upcoming Marriage Conference in Riverside, CA (Oct. 10–12), where I’ll be speaking alongside Father Josiah, Archbishop Cordileone, Dr. Brad Wilcox, and others. Learn more at https://www.themarriageconference.com/

Subscribe to Fr. Josiah's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@PatristicNectarFilms

—
NEW COURSE: Jubilees and the Nephilim, by Fr. Stephen De Young

- Catch the early bird special of 15% off with code: EARLYJUBILEES, valid until 11:59 pm EST (midnight) of August 8th.
- Register now: https://www.thesymbolicworld.com/courses/jubilees-and-the-nephilim
- Course Length: 6 Weeks, 12 Hours
- Dates: Live classes are on Tuesday at 7 - 9 pm Central Time, starting August 19th through September 23rd, 2025
- Participants will be given access to lesson recordings.
- The course is hosted on the Symbolic World Circle Community platform. Sign up as a free member before making your purchase.
- Price: 180 USD
Step into the strange and revelatory world of the Book of Jubilees, an ancient retelling of Genesis that shaped ancient Jewish thought and still echoes through Christian tradition. In this course, Fr. Stephen De Young guides students through the book’s expansion of biblical history, unveiling the significance of the fall of the angels, the rise of the Nephilim, and the heavenly origins of the feasts of the Old and New Testaments. Along the way, he'll explore how Jubilees reinterprets creation, demonology, and the prophetic structure of time, and why these themes mattered not only to Second Temple Judaism, but to later Christian understandings of the unseen world.

—
Timestamps:
00:00 - Coming up
01:00 - Intro music
01:24 - Introduction
04:01 - Marriage, monasticism, and St. John the Baptist
09:16 - The symbiosis between monasticism and marriage
12:32 - Why marriage fails
16:14 - The fruits of abandoning marriage
21:37 - Contract
24:15 - Acknowledge the ideal
27:53 - The nuclear and extended family
29:40 - The crowns
34:23 - A new independent union
38:03 - Aspects of marriage
43:19 - Refined love
45:42 - Pagan monogamy
50:39 - Marrying young
55:18 - 50s Housewife vs boss babe
57:01 - Having children
01:00:39 - Hopes