syneisaktism

alternative syneisactism

1. historicaluncountableChristianityThe practice, from early Christian until mediaeval times, of a man and woman living together in a non-legalised relationship while observing vows of chastity.

   Some have read in this text the possibility of a form of syneisaktism, or “spiritual marriage,” which would have involved living together but would not have involved sexual activity. Paul clearly separates syneisaktism from getting married, which is why I am naming it here as a form of cohabitation.

   2017, Jana Marguerite Bennett, Singleness and the Church: A New Theology of the Single Life, Oxford University Press, page 211

   2 more examples

   Elizabeth Clark argues cogently that syneisaktism provided a couple with a rare opportunity for friendship between the sexes.[…]John Chrysostom, for example, who wrote two treatises against syneisaktism, was also a powerful advocate for female virginity, which he occasionally presented as a means of escaping Eve's curse of subordination.

   1993, Dyan Elliott, Spiritual Marriage: Sexual Abstinence in Medieval Wedlock, Princeton University Press, page 34

   John Chrysostom (d. 407) wrote two treatises on the practice of syneisaktism - spiritual marriage between male and female ascetics - which was popular and widespread after the second century. Some assert that it represented the solution to a practical problem; since few convents were available until the fifth century, syneisaktism gave female ascetics a place to live without going off into the desert.

   1998, Kenneth B. Steinhauser, “The Aesthetics of Paradise: Images of Women in Christian Antiquity”, in Joseph Martos, Pierre Hégy, editors, Equal at the Creation: Sexism, Society, and Christian Thought, University of Toronto Press, page 55

   Synonyms: spiritual marriage