But if Christian marriage cannot exist, there is such a thing as a Christian view of marriage.

And this is how it may be formulated: A Christian (and by this term I understand not those who call themselves Christians merely because they were baptized and still receive the sacrament once a year, but those whose lives are shaped and regulated by the teachings of Christ), I say, cannot view the marriage relation otherwise than as a deviation from the doctrine of Christ,--as a sin.
This is clearly laid down in Matt.v.28, and the ceremony called Christian marriage does not alter its character one jot.

A Christian will never, therefore, desire marriage, but will always avoid it.
If the light of truth dawns upon a Christian when he is already married, or if, being a Christian, from weakness he enters into marital relations with the ceremonies of the church, or without them, he has no other alternative than to abide with his wife (and the wife with her husband, if it is she who is a Christian) and to aspire together with her to free themselves of their sin.

This is the Christian view of marriage; and there cannot be any other for a man who honestly endeavors to shape his life in accordance with the teachings of Christ.
To very many persons the thoughts I have uttered here and in "The Kreutzer Sonata" will seem strange, vague, even contradictory.

They certainly do contradict, not each other, but the whole tenor of our lives, and involuntarily a doubt arises, "on which side is truth,--on the side of the thoughts which seem true and well-founded, or on the side of the lives of others and myself ?" I, too, was weighed down by that same doubt when writing "The Kreutzer Sonata." I had not the faintest presentiment that the train of thought I had started would lead me whither it did.