The Key to a Great Relationship Is...Justice?
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“Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for Righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”
The commanding virtue, justice governs how we ought to act towards the outside world, whether to our fellow men, to God, or even towards subhuman nature. St. Thomas Aquinas defines it as, “The perpetual and constant will to render each one his right.”
Or, in layman’s terms, justice is the virtue that tells us what we ought to do and makes us want to do it. This, as you can imagine, is a very large and complex topic, so we’re only going to be giving a basic view of it.
What is justice? Essentially, it is acknowledging what is right and learning how to respond accordingly.
The concept of justice is founded on the idea of ‘right’ (or, in Latin, ‘jus’), meaning something we have a legal or moral authority over or possession of. Thus, a person has a right to his property by virtue of having either made it or been granted it by the previous rightful owner. As such, if someone takes it without permission, they are violating his right and hence acting unjustly.
Now, in addition to basic rights that everyone has simply by being human (life, property, etc.), there are rights which naturally arise out of the relations of one person to another. The most obvious is that of the employer and employee: the employee does a certain amount of labor worth a certain amount, for which the employer compensates him. The employee has a right to his wages, and the employer has a corresponding duty to pay him (the Bible repeatedly lists ‘defrauding the worker of his wages’ as one of the most hateful of sins).
Justice aims at equality, though not in the sense we moderns generally think of the term. The equality desired is between the right of one and the response of the other. The worker has a right to his wages, so when the employer pays him what he is due equality (between what is required and what is offered) has been achieved and justice is satisfied.
How does justice apply to our lives and in our relationships? It determines how you respond (or perform your duty) with respect to the rights of your partner.
Such are the basics of justice. As you can imagine, applying this in all the various areas of our lives is rather complicated. Most of what we think of as individual virtues are simply justice applied in different contexts. So, piety is justice regarding God, patriotism regarding the nation, gratitude regarding benefactors, and so on. This is why it’s often called the highest of the virtues, and why it’s sometimes said, “Who has justice has virtue.”
Now let’s consider how it applies in relationships.
As you’ve probably guessed from what we’ve established, the relation of husband and wife, and before that of boyfriend and girlfriend, carries with it certain rights and duties for both partners. They have the duty to be faithful, to love, honor, and respect one another, and so on.
So far, this seems obvious: these are the duties enshrined in the marriage vows. But here’s where things get difficult. These rights and duties exist by virtue of the relationship, not of the emotions attendant on it. To take an extreme illustration, adultery remains an unjust act regardless of either how the perpetrators feel about each other or their spouses, and (what is more difficult) regardless of the spouse’s own behavior. So, if a man falls in love with a woman who is not his wife, does not feel any love for his wife, and his wife has already cheated on him, that still doesn’t render his affair any less unjust.
For example, in romantic relationships, each has a right of loyalty to the other. And so, the other responds by being faithful.
This is because a romantic relation imposes, by its nature, the right of loyalty; that the partners have a moral right to each other’s fidelity by virtue of their relationship until that relationship ends. Quite apart from anything else, if they are married, they presumably took public vows to that effect, and the keeping of promises is one of the most basic elements of justice (Psalm 24 defines the just man, in part, as “has not sworn deceitfully”).
That’s an extreme case, but the same principle is found in much more mundane matters. For instance, a woman has the right to expect her man to be faithful. Thus, a man ought, in justice to his wife or girlfriend, to take care not to be too friendly or intimate with other women, or even to stare too much at them. Whether or not he intends any harm or would even give the matter two second’s thought is irrelevant; he owes her the peace of mind of knowing that he is being faithful to her. The same, obviously, applies to the woman.
But this duty to honor and be faithful to the other isn’t just in matters of sexuality. The woman who constantly nags her husband or boyfriend, who repeatedly criticizes him, and who has a habit of complaining about or ridiculing him to her friends is also acting unjustly, because he has a right to her respect, just as she has a right to his.
Does all this sound legalistic and unromantic? Well, it is and should be. Love alone cannot sustain a relationship. You need justice.
That’s kind of the point: you won’t always feel particularly warm or generous towards your partner.
Love alone will not carry you past every obstacle, but adhering to justice will at least keep you on the right path. Justice is the hard core of love; when all the warm and soft feelings and good intentions are stripped away, the cold, unyielding law of right and duty remains.
Love is more than justice: it is never less. And, as an added benefit, to treat someone justly—to honor your duties even when you don’t feel them—is one of the surest ways to restore that sense of love.
So, how do we go about cultivating the virtue of justice? Start by considering what duties to you owe to those around you.
Like all virtues, justice is a habit, and you can begin to build the habit of justice by examining the different areas of your life—your job, your family, your friends, etc.—and asking yourself what your duties are with regards to each.
For instance, your job has the right to a certain quality of work from you. Make sure that you are offering it to them. Your parents have the right to be honored and obeyed. See if there is more you could be doing for them.
And, if you are in a romantic relationship, ask yourself whether you are offering the other what they are due. This doesn’t mean you need to draw up a list of rules, only that you need to ask certain general questions: Am I honoring her? Am I respecting him? Am I supporting and helping her? Am I being faithful to him? Above all, do I let my own feelings or what I know to be right dictate how I treat her?
Start cultivating the will to do right and you will treat your partner right.
This is the second in a series of essays explaining the cardinal virtues and how each applies to our everyday lives. If you missed the introduction, go back and read it here!
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