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Note: As you know, our project draws on many sources for its materials. This includes current research, psychologists, therapists, philosophers, ancient wisdom, relationship experts, character experts, and religious texts. Our project specialty is character. When the word "God" is used below or throughout our website, you may choose to substitute whichever term works for you, such as "Divine Being," "Higher Power," or terms specific to your religious faith.
Marriage
Family
Friendship, Dating, and Courting
Character
Character Quality Language
Happiness
Compatibility
Chastity
Abstinence
To learn more about these concepts,
please purchase and read our books.
Marriage is a divine institution, incorporating the mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual union of the bodies, minds, hearts, and souls of a man and a woman. It is a legal, binding, and sacred commitment founded on friendship and well-developed character qualities. The couple makes whatever pledges are appropriate for their faith pathway. Within this safe refuge, parents conceive, nurture, and educate children with love. Marriage and family are the bedrock for the whole structure of a harmonious, unified global society.
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Family is ideally a married man and woman with children they conceive or choose to raise together. Extended family encompasses many people in a couple's life and can include their parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Stepfamilies or blended families include an even broader range of members. Families are support systems for the establishment and nurturing of marriages and children. The unity of the family is of paramount importance and can be supported by the involvement of the parents in a couple's decision to marry and join families together.
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Some Quotations about Family
Friendship, Dating, and Courting describes the stages a couple may go through before marriage. Friendship is a strong foundation for marriage, as it includes sharing communications from mind, heart, and soul and staying loyal and strong through challenges and difficulties. Friendship, dating, and courting allow two people to get to know each other's character fully, grow and develop together, and be certain about selecting each other as marriage partners. All three ideally happen in close communication with family and with the involvement of parents, who will also want to know the character of prospective new family members. [back to top]
Character is :
- The sum of all the qualities you develop throughout your life as you make choices about how to speak and act (see the next chapter for examples and definitions of character qualities)
- Your moral compass or the ethical foundation that guides your choices, helping you choose to do what is right, even when no one else is watching or when that choice could cause you difficulties
- The best that comes from the essence of who you are as a human being, including both who you are and what you do
Your character affects almost every word you speak
and action you take.
Character Strengths + Wise Choices = Happiness
Relationships are stronger when couples know one another's character before marriage and engage in encouraging one another to develop character qualities at all stages of the relationship.
Our books feature a selection of character qualities, including these:
| Acceptance |
Faithfulness |
Patience |
| Assertiveness |
Flexibility |
Peacefulness |
| Beauty |
Forgiveness |
Perseverance |
| Caring |
Fortitude |
Purity |
| Chastity |
Friendliness |
Purposefulness |
| Commitment |
Generosity |
Resilience |
| Compassion |
Gentleness |
Respect |
| Confidence |
Helpfulness |
Responsibility |
| Contentment |
Honesty |
Self-Discipline |
| Cooperation |
Humility |
Service |
| Courage |
Idealism |
Sincerity |
| Courtesy |
Integrity |
Spirituality |
| Creativity |
Joyfulness |
Tactfulness |
| Detachment |
Justice |
Thankfulness |
| Discernment |
Kindness |
Thoughtfulness |
| Encouragement |
Love |
Trustworthiness |
| Enthusiasm |
Loyalty |
Truthfulness |
| Equality |
Mercy |
Unity |
| Excellence |
Moderation |
Wisdom |
Some Quotations about Character
Purchase Book about Character and Marriage
Purchase Book about
Character in Relationships
Purchase Book about Character in the Home and Workplace
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Character Quality Language involves naming and praising specific character strengths in others. This action conveys appreciation, promotes good feelings and character growth, and strengthens relationships. Instead of simply saying "thank you" or "that was nice of you," use Character Quality Language to express appreciation for the character strengths you observe. For example:
• Thank you for being [helpful, truthful.] when you..
• I appreciate your [respect, faithfulness.].
• I love how [courteous, friendly.] you are!
Such communications raise awareness of character strengths and reinforce the practice of them as well.
Practicing and expressing appreciation of character traits in your home and workplace interactions lead to surprisingly positive outcomes. Thinking and speaking well of your relationship or marriage partner, family, coworkers, managers, and the people and companies your workplace or organization serves, may produce these results:
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Greater happiness and pleasure for you and those with whom you live and work
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Increased openness and cooperative spirit for working together to address needs, resolve issues, and find solutions
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Greater ease in keeping promises made to each other
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Improved communication
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Increased participation and more use of positive words and actions
Some Quotations about Character
Purchase Handy Wallet-Size Cards
About Using Character Quality Language
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Happiness is a positive feeling, a sense of rightness and well-being, ranging from contentment and pleasure to delight, bliss, and joy. Happiness involves finding and appreciating the light within oneself and radiating it out to others.
Some Quotations about Happiness
Purchase Book about Creating Happiness at Home and at Work
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Compatibility is the ability of two people to accept and understand their similarities and differences and blend them together in a way that allows them to be harmonious in their lives together. Where compatibility develops or exists, it is a relationship strength that allows the couple to focus on their children, families, work, and community service together without spending all of their energies attempting to get along with each other.
Some Quotations about Compatibility
Purchase Books about Establishing Compatibilty:
While Dating
During Marriage Preparation
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Chastity is a reverent and respectful gift of mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual wholeness that an individual gives to his/herself and his/her marriage partner out of love for God and obedience to God's laws. Part of the gift of chastity is the couple's commitment to protect the marriage's integrity and engage in sexual actions only with each other and only within a marriage with one another. Chastity includes guarding oneself from impure thoughts or actions and making a commitment to faithfulness, restraint, moderation, and modesty in actions and speech. It requires personal moderation in dress, language, amusements, artistic expressions, and hobbies. It eliminates the practices of nudism and cohabitation, infidelity in marital relationships, promiscuity, easy familiarity with others, violence towards one's partner, and sexual vices. It includes asking God for spiritual strength in making decisions that respect everyone, and to guide a person's thoughts, words, and actions at all times. A person can re-claim and re-commit to chastity for themselves and their actions at any point they choose. Chastity is also a gift that balances, strengthens, and focuses male and female energy. The more this balance exists in marriages, the greater the possibility of love and peace in the world.
Abstinence is a choice to curb one's behavior and not engage in activities, practices, and substances that are illegal, immoral, or otherwise harmful to oneself or others. It also refers to reserving physically intimate actions for marriage, including, but not limited to, sexual intercourse.
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