Chapter I — On the end of betrothals, and the obligation and sins of the betrothed

I. QUESTION I. What is the end of betrothals? ANSWER. Betrothals were therefore instituted by the Church, that the faithful might approach the great sacrament of matrimony adorned with virtues and sanctity. For betrothals are to this sacrament what the catechumenate is to Baptism, the clerical tonsure to Orders, the noviceship of Religious to solemn monastic profession, as in the Supplement, question 43, article 1, reply 6, the Angelic teaches, saying: The first espousals are properly called betrothals, which are certain sacramentals, as is the exorcism of Baptism. Chiefly for these three sacraments to be rightly received the Church has established that the faithful be prepared and disposed by the exercise of virtues: because in the receiving of these they embrace a new kind of life, and profess a new state. But how shall they sustain the burdens, offices, and duties of the new state, as befits and is expedient both for families and for the commonwealth, and not merely for private felicity, unless they approach it well-mannered, instructed, and proved? As therefore those who are about to profess the monastic religion are constituted candidates under the care and vigilance of a watchful master, that they may thoroughly learn what they ought to profess; so the betrothed ought under the mastership of their own parish priest to exercise the apprenticeship of the conjugal state, that they may prepare themselves for celebrating so great a sacrament, and may be well disposed for sustaining the burdens which follow thence.

II. QUESTION II. What are the duties of parish priests in the instruction of the betrothed? ANSWER. First of all a parish priest ought to instruct young men and girls that they contract not betrothals tumultuously and suddenly, nor in taverns and profane places, nor after drinking-bouts, sportive spectacles, and dances; but let them send before serious considerations, and before witnesses, chiefly their parents, prepared with a singular affection of piety, let them approach the celebration of this sacramental rite. Let the parish priest explore the skill of the betrothed in the Christian religion, whether they are versed in those things which as Christians they cannot be ignorant of without sin. But besides those things which it befits Christians to know, they must needs be instructed in those which regard the conjugal state. They are gravely to be admonished that they dwell not under the same roof, lest a mutual and burning love from excessive nearness and familiarity burst forth into impure flames.

III. Let him instruct them that from the ancient custom of the Church betrothals and marriages were wont to be celebrated through the prayers of the faithful and the blessing of the Church, that the troublesome tribulation of the flesh, which is wont to accompany marriages, married persons might be able to bear with Christian fortitude. Tertullian, Book 2 To his Wife, chapter 8, teaches this: Whence shall we suffice to narrate the felicity of that matrimony which the Church conciliates, and the oblation confirms, and the blessing seals, and the angels announce, and the Father holds ratified? For not even on earth do sons rightly and lawfully marry without their fathers' consent.

IV. That a parish priest may be able to imprint the true image of Christians upon the souls of the betrothed, let him first propose to them to be seriously meditated the order of uncreated Wisdom, whereby God willed to propagate those souls which are to occupy the seats of the damned spirits. He willed this propagation to be at once carnal and spiritual, or made fruitful by divine grace. Hence it is that the persons destined for this generation first contract betrothals, which are a certain sacramental rite, says St. Thomas, and, the apprenticeship of Christian virtues being performed, they receive the great sacrament of matrimony, by which their souls are sanctified by the grace of the Redeemer for the procreating of offspring. Happy, says Tertullian, are the marriages which the Church conciliates — that is, which are made in the spirit of the Church, and for the ends predetermined by God. Tertullian subjoins that marriages are confirmed by the oblation, namely when the betrothed are signed with the heavenly blessing by those set over the Church amid the solemnities of the Masses and the common prayers of the faithful. Just as for the other sacraments to be rightly received there precede sacramentals, as lustral water, eulogies, and the interior virtues of the soul; so betrothals are, as we have seen from St. Thomas and Tertullian, certain sacramentals, by which the candidates of matrimony, being sealed, ought chiefly to exercise themselves in those virtues which lead to the guarding of the conjugal covenant whole and unstained. And the preparation of the betrothed must needs be so much the greater and more diligent, as they ought to serve not themselves only but others also. For married persons are public persons, chosen for preparing and preserving the Christian commonwealth, for multiplying the people of God, and for filling paradise. To these things both betrothals and marriages by divine institution look.

V. A virgin, betrothals having been contracted, is to be veiled, says Tertullian — that is, she ought to withdraw herself from the eyes, conversations, and familiarity of men, and chiefly of her betrothed, lest the flower of virginity contract defilement, and lest by a reciprocal lust they conciliate to themselves a divine curse in place of a heavenly blessing. Let the betrothed bear themselves chastely, modestly, and bashfully, that they may kindle in their betrothed a love not carnal but divine. What example have the betrothed? says Tertullian, Book On the Veiling of Virgins, chapter 11: Rebecca, who, when she was being led to a bridegroom as yet unknown and herself unknown, as soon as she learned that he was the one whom she had descried from afar, did not sustain the wrestling of the right hand, nor the meeting of a kiss, nor the communication of a salutation; but confessing what she had felt — that is, that she was espoused in spirit — denied herself a virgin, by being veiled, and already a woman, out of the discipline of Christ. For she showed that nuptials also are made by affection and by the mind, as also is the marriage-veil. What of this, that Tertullian sets before Christian betrothed the example not of Rebecca only but even of heathen brides? He carps at the vanity of exterior apparatus and the pomps of married women. He reproaches Christian betrothed with cutting through the very laws of nature, and with dishonouring in Christians that very modesty implanted by nature which even heathen brides guard. Nay rather, Tertullian goes on there, among the heathen they are led veiled to their husbands. … Among us not even natural things are preserved, as though our God were other than nature. And again, chapter 12, he cries out against the more exquisite adornment and superstitious ornament of the betrothed: They arrange the hair, and with the needle they wantonly insert a fringe upon themselves, and by the tresses divided from the forehead they profess an open womanliness. Then they seek the shape of a coiffure from the mirror, and macerate the face with a more fastidious washing, perhaps interpolating it with some medicament; they make the mantle project outwards, and pinch the shoe into many shapes. … Why do I pursue each thing? The manifest array alone carries about their whole womanliness. Tertullian in the same place, chapters 14 and 15, prescribes to betrothed virgins a withdrawal from the company of men. He sets forth the monstrous abortions of ruined modesty, and describes one by one the evils which the study of pleasing brings forth. The very concupiscence of not lying hidden is not chaste: it suffers something which is not of a virgin, the study of pleasing men. Strive as you will with a chaste mind, it must needs be that she is imperilled by the publishing of herself, while she is struck by uncertain and manifold darts, while she is tickled by the fingers of those pointing at her, while she is loved too much, while amid embraces and assiduous kisses she grows warm. Thus the brow is hardened, thus modesty is worn away, thus it is loosened, thus it learns to desire to please otherwise. But indeed true and whole and pure virginity fears nothing more than itself: it will not endure even the eyes of women; it has other eyes of its own. It flees to the veiling of the head, as to a helmet, as to a shield, which may protect its own good against the strokes of temptations, against the darts of scandals, against suspicions and whisperings and rivalries, and against envy itself.

VI. That these things have grown obsolete, and antiquated by a contrary use, some will reply, who, seeing an opposite corruption everywhere prevailing, and unable to coerce it within the confines prescribed both by nature and by the Scriptures for modesty and Christian decency, opine that the testimonies of the Scriptures and the doctrine of the Fathers, nay the very rights of nature, are to be adapted and accommodated in whatever way to the morals of today. But Tertullian, kindled with zeal for truth, chapter 16, thunders in this fashion: In this the defence of our opinion consists, according to Scripture, according to nature, according to discipline. Scripture founds the law, nature attests it, discipline exacts it. Which of these accords with the contrary opinion, or what colour has the diverse sentence? Of God is Scripture, of God is nature, of God is discipline. Whatsoever is contrary to these is not of God. If Scripture is uncertain, nature is manifest. And concerning the testimony of nature Scripture cannot be uncertain. If nature be doubted, discipline shows what is more ratified with God. Nothing is dearer to him than humility, nothing more acceptable than modesty, nothing more hateful than glory and the study of pleasing men. Let that therefore be to thee Scripture, nature, and discipline, which thou shalt have found ratified with God; as they command us to examine all things, and to follow the better.

VII. These things, however somewhat prolix, I have willed to transcribe out of Tertullian (and only the study of brevity hinders me from transcribing like things from almost all the Fathers), that parish priests may have present the true and ancient discipline of the betrothed to be inculcated upon the betrothed of today. These men ought to cry out more loftily. If discipline and morals have been changed, have the holy Scriptures? Have the divine laws been changed? Has nature been changed? Is it less prone to evil? Is it less lustful, less frail, less slippery? Nay it has been made more ardent, more shameless, more luxurious by evil custom, you say. Therefore it is to be coerced with stronger barriers, healed with stronger remedies, guarded with a keener study. These things, I say, parish priests ought to inculcate and to exaggerate for the sake of the elect, and that the reprobate may have no excuse. Let them draw documents to be delivered to the betrothed from the Fathers, from the Rituals, and from the holy Scriptures themselves.

VIII. Let parish priests besides imbue the betrothed subject to their own care, and teach them the most grave burdens which accompany the conjugal state; that constant and reciprocal love with which they ought to follow one another, whether infirm or sound; a robust patience, by which they ought to tolerate mutual infirmities, defects, and excesses. Let them diligently explain the most grave burden of educating offspring, of ruling a family, and of directing all things to the glory of God. Let them admonish in graver words that, if either be entangled in some custom of sinning, they should straightway study to tear it out, lest either absolution be denied them when the nuptials are to be celebrated, or they perfect the sacrament of matrimony sacrilegiously, and lay the foundations of a new state with sacrileges and outrages, whence afterwards innumerable evils, dissensions, hatreds, and internecine quarrels remain. Let them diligently instruct them that they learn to love one another with a Christian and divine love: because if they shall have done this, throughout the whole course of life the same flame will burn; but on the contrary, if from an unchaste and venereal love, from embraces, kisses, and obscene touches they take their beginning, both in this and in the future life they will be burned with pitch and sulphur. Carnal pleasures do not extinguish the thirst, but irritate and increase it. With vehement desire riches are coveted by the avaricious, girls by the unchaste; but once possessed they straightway grow cheap. A betrothed woman given into the power and use of her betrothed becomes to him after a few days an object of loathing and weariness, unless a divine love confirm the conjugal bond. Why are marriages commonly not covenants of reciprocal love, not knots of mutual benevolence and tranquillity, but occasions of discords, hatreds, and hardships? Because an impotent lust, obscene outrages, and a chain of crimes, not the sacrament of Christ, joined their bodies: it bound them not in the Lord, but in the mire of luxury, no otherwise than horses and mules, as is said in Tobias 6: They who in such manner receive matrimony as to shut out God from themselves and from their mind, and so give themselves to their lust as the horse and mule which have not understanding, over them the demon hath power. But thou … shalt take the virgin with the fear of the Lord, moved rather for love of children than for lust, that in the seed of Abraham thou mayest obtain a blessing in children.

IX. A parish priest will be able to read several most salutary documents, both in the holy Scriptures and in the ritual books, to be explained to the betrothed — some from the altar, others in the tribunal of penance. For he ought to exhort the betrothed that they frequent the divine sacraments, by whose grace they may be able to press down a kindling lust, and to prepare their souls, adorned with the offices of virtues, for the binding of the sacramental covenant. In confession he will instruct them in most grave words with what chastity, with what modesty and honesty they ought to exercise matrimony. He will temper his discourse according to the diverse acumen and knowledge of the betrothed. If a parish priest be prudent, he will be able to manifest all things which shall be necessary for Christian instruction, without pronouncing a word less modest and chaste. He will imbue them with this, that those things only are permitted to married persons which conduce to the begetting of sons in Christ, all those being rejected which the modesty implanted by nature abhors. If the betrothed be well-mannered, a brief instruction concerning the use of matrimony, always within and never outside confession, will suffice. Wherefore a parish priest ought chiefly to bend himself to this, that he educate and exercise girls and young men in the holy fear of God, and make them chaste and modest, and propagators of the progeny of God.