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An encouragement to asceticism and celibacy began early in the Christian movement, prompted by two different factors: first, adoption of a certain tendency in the Platonic world-view to see the body and the material world as obstacles to attainment of union with God; second, the historical memory of Jesus choice to remain unmarried, probably motivated by the different factors of apocalyptic world-view and the prophetic call. The threefold division of family life into relationships of the male head of household, the paterfamilias, with wife, children and slaves, was popularised by Aristotle. The Jewish marriage contract, the ketubah, followed the custom of specifying what property the wife brought into the marriage, so that in the case of divorce it would accompany her back into her own family. A fairly clear profile of the ideal Christian life emerges from the sources: prayer many times daily, innocence of immoral conduct, stable marriage and family, regular fasting, constant attention to the poor and needy.
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