Chapter — Bucceroni, Commentaries (1910)
Chapter IV: On the Use of Marriage
Before you read this chapter
This chapter sets out plainly what the moral law permits and forbids to husband and wife. The authors wrote these pages for two readers only: for priests and those preparing for the confessional; and for those engaged to be married, or married, who have true need to understand the nature and obligations of marital relations. It is not reading for anyone else, and it is not reading for curiosity — the authors say so themselves, gravely and with one voice.
St. Alphonsus begged even his own students not to read this matter except for its one lawful end, “casting away every curiosity whatsoever”, and to commend themselves to God while they read, lest in learning to help other souls they harm their own (Wouters, Admonition). If you have no true need of these pages, the safe and virtuous course is to go back: what is written here is for a state of life, not for wondering about.
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- We have spoken chiefly in the preceding chapters about sins outside the use of marriage; now we must speak about sins within the very use of marriage. Therefore first it must be said concerning the lawfulness of this use, with attention to its intrinsic nature and extrinsic circumstances, and then concerning the right with respect to it and the consequent obligation.