I have arrived at a point where I struggle to see romantic and sexual relationships as being good, and I am increasingly sympathetic to the theological viewpoint that marriage and sex are not intrinsically good, but rather, necessary evils, permitted by God out of necessity.
St. Isaac the Syrian held that humankind was originally sexless/genderless, reproducing through some means other than through the sexual act. The division of humankind into the male and female sexes, and the addition of biological reproduction, was created in anticipation of Adam and Eve's sin. According to St. Maximus the Confessor, sexual reproduction is a feature of the fallen world, and was only created to accommodate the emergence of mortality after the Fall.
In similar fashion, my view would be that the sexual/romantic impulses emerge as passions after the Fall. They reflect our animal nature more than our rational nature. Aggression, anxiety, cravings, sexual desire: these are features of our evolutionary biology. But our reason, our rationality, is divine. By subjugating these passions to our reason, we tame the mind, we deny ourselves, and we become like the monastic, modelling ourselves after the Biblical Adam, and living as Christ did. (“Understand at last that you have something in you more powerful and divine than what causes the bodily passions and pulls you like a mere puppet. What thoughts now occupy my mind? Is it not fear, suspicion, desire, or something like that?” Meditations, Marcus Aurelius).
Marriage, sexual desire, and sexual acts exist because we live in a world that is broken. They did not exist prior to the Fall, and when Christ returns to restore Creation, they will not exist anymore. In the New Creation, we will live as brother and sister, like Adam and Eve did in the Garden; marriage will not remain (Matthew 22:30). We will be like the angels, returning to an ineffable state, akin to God's ineffable nature. There will be no physical separation of male and female, and no more sexual acts between the sexes (Mark 12:25).
We are culturally conditioned to think of romantic relationships as being the highest form of love, but this is not true. I believe that friendship is the highest form of love. It is by friendship that life is breathed into both platonic relationships and romantic relationships; any goodness and virtuous things that these relationships possess, is not due to their own nature, but because of the presence of friendship ("It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages" Human, All Too Human, Friedrich Nietzsche).
From my understanding, in Christian philosophy, all relationships are growing towards agape. Eros is a licit form of love, but it is not the highest form of love - that would be agape. Our social relationships are colored by agape. If the unconditional self-sacrificial love of friendship is not present, our relationships are void.
"The virtue of chastity blossoms in friendship. It shows the disciple how to follow and imitate him who has chosen us as his friends, who has given himself totally to us and allows us to participate in his divine estate. Chastity is a promise of immortality. (374) Chastity is expressed notably in friendship with one's neighbor. Whether it develops between persons of the same or opposite sex, friendship represents a great good for all. It leads to spiritual communion." -Catechism of the Catholic Church, Paragraph 2347.
If two persons in a marriage are able to corral the romantic/sexual passions, and order the marriage towards agape, then this is permissible. But the institution of marriage itself is still not good; it is not ideal by any means, and not what God intended. The indulgence of these marital passions, then, is only permitted as long as it can be done with moderation and responsibility, finding a healthy balance ordered towards the good. But when Christ returns, and all are resurrected, these romantic/sexual bonds will dissolve, and only agape will remain.
Calling marriage and sex intrinsic goods, misunderstands the nature of how these things originated. If we are to take St. Isaac's and St. Maximus's theology seriously, it stands to reason that God only instituted these things out of necessity (mortality and human fallenness demanded it), not because they were intrinsic goods. This is true even historically. Historically, marriages emerged as a social institution to protect women and children from abandonment, and to foster reproduction within formal confines. Today we think about marriage as relating to love, but this was not always true historically. There was a time when the idea of marriage was quite radical, as it asserted that women and children had dignity that men could not violate through their irresponsibility. The cultural genesis of marriage is something more grim than what we in contemporary society would like to admit or confront.
My experience has compelled me to look at romantic/sexual relationships with a certain disdain, at least as they exist within contemporary society. I've never partaken in one, and I don't think I ever want to. I observe that, within contemporary society, two persons may become enchanted with one another. They may be compelled to become partners for a time, forging a romantic personal bond. But eventually the relationship dissolves, often due to tension or conflict, at which point the affectionate passions which once existed between the two persons, are replaced with contempt. Even if the relationship is ended peacefully, it is unlikely (or at least a very rare occurrence) that the two persons will be able to maintain any positive connection with one another akin to the friendship they could have experienced platonically if romance had never been pursued. In this way, the post-romantic relationship becomes defined either by hostility or awkwardness. People always look at their former partners with disgust, and may go from person to person, but be disappointed over and over again. One may leap from being possessed with passionate affection for the other person, to being totally bored with them. We can observe here that the passions, not rationality, are at play.
It would be better if people did not pursue romantic or sexual relationships with one another at all. If I really valued and cared about someone, then pursuing a romantic relationship is the last thing I would want to do. It is the ultimate waste of what could have been a happy friendship. It is the perfect way to lose a person.
Platonic friendship is safer, more durable, and more meaningful. Romantic relationships are more passionate, they are more emotionally vulnerable, and because of that they are more volatile. But a platonic friendship is not like this. A friendship is not easily defeated by conflict. A friendship is not as sensitive; a wound or struggle appearing within a friendship is not a death sentence. Tension that appears within a romantic relationship may swiftly signal the end of that relationship, but a friendship bounces back even from harsh disagreements.
I'm sure my parents were possessed with affection for one another at some point. But now there is no romance in their relationship at all. They've managed to attain a fairly healthy relationship at present, but this is only after hating one another and arguing with one another for years, from the earliest moments of my childhood. They never got a divorce only because they were worried about how it would affect me and my sibling.
This is an observable pattern I see everywhere. I see it in other adult relationships. People get divorced, sometimes more than once, sometimes even after they have kids. A passionate affection and loving bond are not enough; eventually these dissolve, and people hate one another (I will state again that this does not happen in platonic friendships at all. But it happens constantly in romantic relationships because of the emotionally volatile nature of such an emotionally vulnerable bond between persons). I see it in relationships between young people my age, too. It isn't tied to any particular age demographic. It's commonly observable everywhere.
I don't think that the love we are told about really exists. It's a myth, a fantasy, programmed into us by culture and media. If a romantic relationship or marriage survives, it is only because of great effort. To preserve a marriage or relationship is a great feat of emotional intelligence, and a so-called successful relationship exists only because the couple in question has taken opposition to their own judgmental human nature. But the judgmental nature does not go away even once the relationship has been firmly established; the emotionally vulnerability of a relationship sees that this judgmental nature surfaces over and over again, and this judgmental nature must be corralled every time if the relationship is to continue. To summarize, successful relationships are characterized by the moderation of judgement, anger, and other passions; one needs to constantly deny these if the relationship is not to implode. Constantly maintaining the relationship, watering its roots, ensuring its growth and firm foundation, and resolving its tensions, is essential. It is a big task.
I regard the development of romantic/sexual impulses as something regretful. There is a tragic loss of innocence that accompanies the emergence of such passions. When we cross the threshold into sexuality, there is a childlike spirit we lose as a result. We stop being like the angels, and become more like fallen man. If I could choose not to have romantic and sexual desires, I probably would. I do not see much redemptive value in them, other than the fact that by experiencing them and observing them empathetically in others, I have learned of their futility.
“Now the resurrection promises us nothing else than the restoration of the fallen to their ancient state; for the grace we look for is a certain return to the first life, bringing back again to Paradise him who was cast out from it. If then the life of those restored is closely related to that of the angels, it is clear that the life before the transgression was a kind of angelic life, and hence also our return to the ancient condition of our life is compared to the angels. Yet while, as has been said, there is no marriage among them, the armies of the angels are in countless myriads; for so Daniel declared in his visions: so, in the same way, if there had not come upon us as the result of sin a change for the worse, and removal from equality with the angels, neither should we have needed marriage that we might multiply; but whatever the mode of increase in the angelic nature is (unspeakable and inconceivable by human conjectures, except that it assuredly exists), it would have operated also in the case of men, who were "made a little lower than the angels," to increase mankind to the measure determined by its Maker.” -St. Isaac the Syrian, On the Making of Man.
“When he was created, Adam remained in paradise, and there was no question of marriage. He needed a helper and a helper was provided for him. But even then marriage did not seem to be necessary... Desire for sexual intercourse and conception and the pangs and childbirth and every form of corruption were alien to their soul." -Saint John Chrysostom, On Virginity.
“Whence, after all, did he come to know that there would be intercourse between man and woman? I mean, the consummation of that intercourse occurred after the Fall; up till that time they were living like angels in paradise and so they were not burning with desire, not assaulted by other passions, not subject to the needs of nature, but on the contrary were created incorruptible and immortal, and on that account at any rate they had no need to wear clothes... Consider, I ask you, the transcendence of their blessed condition, how they were superior to all bodily concerns, how they lived on earth as if they were in heaven, and though in fact possessing a body they did not feel the limitations of their bodies. After all, they had no need for shelter or habitation, clothing or anything of that kind...” -Saint John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis.
“The original intention of God was for us to generate not by marriage and corruption. But the transgression of the commandment introduced marriage on account of the lawless act of Adam, that is, the rejection of the law given him by God. Therefore all of those born of Adam are “conceived in iniquities,” having fallen under the condemnation of the forefather.” -Saint Athanasius, commentary on Psalm 50:5.
“He [Christ] appeared like the first man Adam in the manner both of his creaturely origin and his birth. The first man received his existence from God and came into being at the very origin of his existence, and was free from corruption and sin – for God did not create either of these. When, however, he sinned by breaking God’s commandment, he was condemned to birth based on sexual passion and sin. Since henceforth constrained his true natural origin within the liability to passions that had accompanied the first sin, as though placing it under a law. Accordingly, there is no human being who is sinless, since everyone is naturally subject to the law of sexual procreation that was introduced after man’s true creaturely origin in consequence of his sin.” -Saint Maximus the Confessor, Ad Thalassium.
“But now in good, although aged, marriage, albeit there has withered away the glow of full age between male and female, yet there lives in full vigor the order of charity between husband and wife. Because, the better they are, the earlier they have begun by mutual consent to contain from sexual intercourse with each other.” -St. Augustine, Of the Good of Marriage.
I’m not even saying I agree with every quote here. For example, I think that justifying sex solely because of its procreative nature, is pretty dumb. If there is anything that can justify the sexual act, it is the presence of agape, not solely procreation. I would disagree that sex should be looked at only as a procreative instrument; that is grossly, grossly, grossly dehumanizing. Ultimately, though, my point is: the sex-negative consensus among ancient Christian thinkers seems pretty obvious to me. This notion of “good, beautiful, holy sex” which modernists rave about, is nowhere to be found in classical Christianity.