Chapter III — On the sins of spouses in contracting matrimony, and on their obligation in the mutual rendering of the debt

I. Spouses sin mortally if they contract feignedly; if with some impediment, whether diriment or impedient, known to them, they celebrate the sacred nuptials. Besides they sin if with a conscience of mortal sin they approach this sacrament. For this is a sacrament of the living. Therefore they perpetrate a sacrilege who, defiled with mortal sin, approach it.

II. They sin also more or less who after the manner of pagans profane the sacred solemnity of the nuptials with excessive and immodest luxury and with satanic and immoderate pomps. Several ritual books prescribe the sacred nuptial blessing. But are the sacred rites of the Church to be exercised amid the revived spectres of the heathen? Run through the histories, whether ancient or recent, the morals and customs of the pagans; inquire whether a more profane luxury, whether more immoderate pomps, whether more dissolute dances, more obscene songs, more intemperate banquets, more shameless capering stalked abroad at the time of nuptials among pagans, unbelievers, and heretics, or among not a few Catholics, who venerate the sacred nuptials as a great sacrament portending the union of Christ with the Church, and who by a solemn rite in Baptism renounced the pomps of the world. Who would not feel himself moved, while he sees prestiges of the pagans so profane conciliated with the more sacred rites?

III. QUESTION I. How great is the obligation of spouses to paying the conjugal office? ANSWER. Matrimony being celebrated, several burdens follow thence, of which the first regards the spouses themselves, and is set in their mutual conjunction. Neither of the spouses is absolutely bound to ask, but to render each is bound. A husband is bound to render to a wife asking even tacitly by signs, and a wife to a husband. For by force of the matrimonial contract they are gravely bound to this reciprocal payment; and those who infringe it gravely offend.

IV. QUESTION II. What causes excuse from rendering the conjugal office? ANSWER. Several. 1. Danger of life, or of grave infirmity; a slight inconvenience nevertheless does not suffice. Wives often sustain slight inconveniences, nor on that account are they free from paying this. There is need nevertheless of the confessor's prudence, because a general rule cannot be prescribed. 2. If the one asking be infected with the French disease, or with leprosy, if from intercourse a grave danger of one's own infection threaten: for if the danger of catching leprosy be absent, the debt is to be paid. 3. If the other spouse asking be an adulterer. 4. Too frequent asking excuses from rendering the debt.

V. The multiplication of offspring is not a just cause of denying the debt. A woman who has experienced that she bears her own sons dead does not on that account sin by rendering the debt to one asking; and if she be obnoxious to a danger of incontinence, she can even ask, trusting in the divine providence, which will not cease to succour those who exercise matrimony holily.

VI. A spouse sins who by unlawful means renders himself unfit for paying the debt; as if he pollute himself, or approach other women, beyond these crimes he perpetrates an injustice against the innocent spouse. Nay, neither can they lawfully by excessive voluntary austerity so extenuate themselves as to become unfit for rendering the debt. But this happens most rarely. From moderate exercises of piety nevertheless, and from fasts prescribed by the Church, a spouse ought not to abstain, that he may become more robust and vigorous for rendering the debt. Nay, in the time of fasts spouses ought to observe continence, although they be not rigorously bound.

VII. A secretly adulterous spouse can ask without sin, not as a thing owed out of justice, but to be granted out of benevolence: because he is not bound to undergo a penalty before the judge's sentence. An innocent spouse can ask the debt from the other spouse who on account of an impediment of affinity contracted from fornication perpetrated after the matrimony has lost the right of asking. If he lawfully asks, by a stronger right he can render. A spouse bound by a vow of chastity cannot render to the other asking, if this one had no right of asking; on the contrary if the right be present, he is bound to render. When a spouse asks unlawfully, because he is bound by a vow of chastity, then the other can render, if the partner cannot be turned away, because the vow does not take away the right of asking arisen from a lawful matrimony, but only effects that he asks unlawfully. Nor hence does it follow that the one rendering becomes a partaker of the other's sin. For a spouse rendering gives his labour to a lawful thing, not to the other's sin, just as one who from grave and pressing necessity seeks a loan from a usurer.

VIII. QUESTION III. How from an impediment of affinity or of spiritual kinship are spouses hindered from asking the debt? ANSWER. Two impediments besides a vow are wont to supervene upon matrimony. One from affinity contracted on account of fornication with the blood-relations of a spouse; the other from spiritual kinship, as if one spouse should outside the case of necessity raise from the sacred font, or hold at confirmation, a son common to both; in which case he would sin gravely, and would be deprived of the right of asking the debt. But he who commits incest in the first or second degree with a blood-relation of the other spouse is deprived of the right of asking, but is bound to render, as I have said. Authors dispute concerning a spouse consenting to, or affording counsel for, the perpetrating of incest, whether then each be deprived of the right of asking; and the arguments for either opinion are such as to make the matter doubtful. For the asking of the debt is granted to the innocent only. One consenting to the other's incest is guilty. Therefore for the security of conscience a dispensation is to be sought. A spouse who should sin with a blood-relation of his own, not of his spouse, would perpetrate a graver crime, but would not lose the right of asking the debt, because he would not contract affinity. On the contrary, if both spouses perpetrated incest with a blood-relation of the other, both would be deprived of the right of asking and of rendering; and therefore they would have to be separated until they obtained a dispensation. A wife compelled by fear from a blood-relation of her husband to incest, unless such compulsion were such as to excuse from sin — which scarcely, and hardly even so, happens — would be deprived of the right of asking the debt. If a spouse sin with a blood-relation of the other and labour under an ignorance of fact, namely that she is a blood-relation of the spouse, authors commonly teach that he is not deprived of the right of asking the debt; but if he knows her to be a blood-relation, although he be ignorant of the penalty of the privation of the right of asking the debt, he is nevertheless deprived of the right of asking.

IX. QUESTION IV. Can he who is certain that the matrimony is void render the debt to a spouse asking, ignorant that the matrimony is void, that he may avoid infamy or grave loss? ANSWER. The common opinion teaches that a spouse certainly knowing an impediment annulling the matrimony can in no way render, even if a danger of death threaten, or he be compelled by censures. The reason is evident, because in this case the copulation would be fornicating; therefore it is in no way to be committed for any evil whatsoever, whether death or infamy. The things which are objected are of no moment. An ecclesiastical judge, from invincible ignorance judging the matrimony valid, compels by censures to the observing of the matrimony, and therefore does not dispense. If the judge dispense, when he can, every question ceases.

X. QUESTION V. Whether a confessor certainly knowing a matrimony to be null is bound to admonish a penitent spouse believing by invincible ignorance that it is valid? ANSWER. If the woman labour under invincible ignorance, all confess that she is to be admonished. Similarly if the ignorance of right and of fact be invincible, and the confessor foresee that his admonition will profit, all confess that he ought to admonish the penitent. On the contrary, if the confessor foresee that his admonition will not profit, then the confessor would bear himself most imprudently if he admonished, say the Salmanticenses with very many.

XI. Above, in Vol. II, I have already routed these opinions, which are to me false. In few words I now touch upon the matter. All are bound by divine right to know the truths which pertain to their own state, and to inquire into them and learn them, as all theologians teach with St. Thomas. The truth concerning diriment impediments of matrimony is one whose knowledge greatly pertains to married persons. Therefore married persons violate this divine mandate of inquiring into the truth pertaining to their own state, as often as they are affected with such a disposition that they either neglect or refuse to know it. Married persons labouring under an invincible ignorance of right and of fact concerning such an impediment diriment of matrimony are foreseen to be in this disposition, that they will not expel this ignorance and learn the truth. Therefore they are violators and contemners of the divine mandate of inquiring into the truth. Therefore their ignorance is vincible, since it can be overcome by them through the means of the confessor's admonition. If the ignorance be vincible, therefore according to all the penitents are to be admonished. Is there a chink open for escape? Why does the confessor keep silence? Because he foresees that the truth will not be received by the penitent spouse if he manifest it. This is the whole reason for silence. You are deceived. There are infamies, scandals, death, or other most grave evils about to arise, which prescribe silence. You are inept. These absurdities do not impose silence, if the ignorance be vincible, as all confess. And yet in our case the ignorance, which was otherwise invincible, becomes vincible at that very moment at which the spouses are foreseen as not about to receive the knowledge of the truth to be manifested by the confessor. External evils which are feared can in no way make the confessor's silence honourable. Therefore the penitents are indisposed for this sacrament.

XII. Adversaries reply that such penitents are disposed, just as are those who are not so affected in mind as to abstain from sins if they were to be tortured by a slow fire; and yet it would be imprudence to propose such things to them, and to adduce a test of their weakness. A most inept example. I should repute a confessor most imprudent who should propose like hypotheses of the most atrocious torments of tyrants. But why? Because here and now the precept of undergoing martyrdom does not urge. And that I may stab adversaries with their own point: imagine a fire prepared, and a tyrant before his tribunal, sitting and decreeing death for this Christian, who is ignorant of all these things. Is he not to be admonished of the imminent punishment, if he confess? Is he not to be animated and raised up for undergoing the slow fire? Is silence to be kept? Then only would a confessor be imprudent when, no occasion of martyrdom occurring, there were no cause for testing the penitent's weakness. In our case the precept of not fornicating in a null matrimony urges. And divine grace is present, by which the precept can be observed. Adversaries teach that God imparts his grace even to the blinded and the hardened. And now do they despair of the grace of illumination, by which they may embrace the truth, being granted to their own penitents who are just and receive the sacraments? They inveigh, and deservedly, against Jansenius, that light is lacking to the just, that grace is lacking, by which the precepts possible to them stand; and they themselves frequently assert divine precepts impossible by reason of invincible ignorance, and deny that grace is present by which they become possible even to those frequenting the sacraments. For if grace be present by which the ignorance can be overcome, it is vincible, not invincible.

XIII. The testimonies of Innocent III and of St. Augustine I have with a full pen made plain in Vol. II of the Apparatus, dissertation 1, chapter 4, to be ineptly obtruded by adversaries, as also the precept of fraternal correction. See also above, Vol. I, Book 2, dissertation 1, chapter 2, no. 21. The opinion of the Salmanticenses, of Sánchez, and of others, who teach that a confessor ought not to admonish spouses of an impediment either before or after matrimony, if he foresee that it will profit nothing, is to me evidently false. Grave theologians teach that penitents are to be admonished, and by opportune means the matrimony deferred. Most rarely do circumstances occur in which matrimony cannot be deferred. If nevertheless circumstances should urge, they suggest either that the privilege of two months be used, or that a vow of chastity be elicited, until a dispensation be obtained either from the bishop or from the Pope.

XIV. I am unwilling to produce the matter further. Only some absurdities I shall here indicate in passing which follow upon the adversaries' opinion. 1. A confessor would not be bound to admonish penitents invincibly ignorant that gain exacted beyond the principal as owed out of benevolence is to be restored. 2. Similarly he ought not to admonish a knightly man provoked to a duel, in good faith thinking that it must be accepted lest his honour be clouded and he incur the mark of cowardice. 3. That those are not to be admonished who in good faith believe the killing of a calumniator lawful, when no other mode occurs of escaping infamy. 4. That those are to be left in their ignorance who in good faith believe that a judge can judge according to a less probable opinion, and can accept money when litigants have on their side opinions equally probable. 5. That those are not to be enlightened who invincibly believe it lawful to retain a concubine exceedingly useful for delight. 6. Girls who certainly reckon that the abortion of an unanimated foetus can be procured without sin for the avoiding of infamy. 7. Very many who hold it for certain that a proximate occasion exceedingly convenient is not to be forsaken are to be left in the darkness of ignorance.

XV. That these and six hundred other like things can be invincibly ignored adversaries will not deny, if the kindly casuists themselves who maintained these and other things in good faith invincibly ignored them. Silence therefore is to be kept, and dissimulation used, when a confessor foresees penitents so addicted to vices of this kind that his admonition will profit nothing. Nor is it to the purpose that it be objected that ignorance of impediments is of fact. For the rest, that readers may have it discovered how far the lax manner of opining extends itself, besides those things which have been said in the preceding book, let them hear what follows.

XVI. Fr. George Gobat, tract 7, no. 315, writes here: “What shall a confessor do if he see a penitent obnoxious from invincible ignorance, for example, to softness, from whose gravity, being taught it, he will scarcely abstain on account of a depraved habit? By these words the question was proposed of this vice, when it could be of several. But I answered from writings in the place cited, chapter 37, no. 61, that if, the circumstances of that penitent being duly considered, it be altogether judged that the admonition will profit nothing at all, but that, the grave crime being known by him to be committed, he will nevertheless perpetrate it no more rarely than he did when ignorant of so great a baseness, THE MANIFESTATION OF THE TRUTH IS TO BE DISSEMBLED BEFORE GOD.”

XVII. Not even the knowledge of crimes against nature themselves is a confessor bound to manifest to the ignorant, but the manifestation of the truth is to be dissembled. While we propose comments so unheard-of to be detested, some cry out that we burden the casuists. But they ought at some time at last to be ashamed to object these things. Are these not of public right? Can they not be pernicious to the unskilled? Fr. Gobat adds that he reckons there is scarcely a confessor so sagacious that he can prudently judge of anyone that his admonition will not profit toward the diminution of sins against nature.

XVIII. But forthwith in the same place, no. 317, Fr. Gobat subjoins: “And indeed more than once I have learned that there are those who inculpably are ignorant of the mortal malice of this outrage. Therefore, practically speaking, the question is not so much of him alone who will scarcely omit, or scarcely abstain, as those letters speak — that is, who sometimes, though most rarely, will abstain — as, alas for the grief, confessors groan that they have found several of this most foul and at the same time most fetid bran. Concerning this also I reckon that the opinion of St. Augustine is to be understood. For morally that admonition does not so much profit as it hinders, which would prevent only six, eight, or ten formally mortal sins, but will cause two hundred, three hundred likewise mortal.”

XIX. The opinion of St. Augustine saying, If I knew that it would not profit thee, I would not admonish thee, I would not terrify thee, those men abuse with too good a faith who transcribe it out of other books without having read it in the fount. Consult Vol. II of the Apparatus, dissertation 1, chapter 4, where I have transcribed the whole sermon out of Augustine, not out of the casuists. The holy Doctor addresses a dying man, and raises and animates him to hope. And the cited casuists do not hesitate to wrest this opinion of so great a Doctor to this, that confessors ought by silence to dissemble the very horrid crimes against nature. If you admonish penitents, says Fr. Gobat with others, you will obtain that they abstain from eight or ten formal pollutions. Meanwhile they will perpetrate two hundred and three hundred formal outrages. Therefore silence is to be permitted, that materially they may wallow in the mire of lust, because by their pollutions, whose malice they invincibly ignored, they will enter the gates of Paradise. These are the little flowers of the new kindliness.

XX. QUESTION VI. Whether, if one of the spouses prudently doubt whether the contracted matrimony be valid, he can ask the debt or render it? ANSWER. He ought forthwith diligently to inquire into the truth. If he shall have been negligent, he will offend according to the quality of the negligence. If, diligence being employed, a prudent doubt persist, he is bound to render to the spouse not doubting; but he cannot ask, as Innocent III openly teaches, chapter Inquisitionibus on sentences of excommunication. Wherefore I reject as false the opinion of those who teach that this man can ask, even if the doubt persist after diligence employed in each. He who lightly doubts ought to shake off the doubt by the judgment of a prudent man.

XXI. QUESTION VII. How are null marriages to be reintegrated? ANSWER. A matrimony can be void either from a defect of consent, or on account of an impediment occult or public, or because the presence of the parish priest and of witnesses was lacking. That a matrimony null from any of these heads may grow valid, all those things are to be supplied which the laws of the Church prescribe. If the presence of the parish priest and of witnesses was lacking, the matrimony is to be reintegrated before the parish priest and witnesses. If consent was lacking, it is to be renewed. If it was void on account of an impediment, a dispensation is to be sought.

XXII. To a spouse affirming that consent was lacking to him no credence is to be had, as is had in chapter Per tuas on proofs. He who contracted feignedly is bound out of justice to apply true consent, because to each his own right is to be preserved. But to a spouse sincerely contracting the other contracting party's consent is by right owed not only in the very celebration of the contract, but also after the contract celebrated, and for the whole time of life: because the innocent party contracted in perpetuity.

XXIII. QUESTION VIII. When a matrimony is void on account of some diriment impediment, is it required that each spouse be made certain? ANSWER. If the impediment be known to each, there is no question. Straits press on every side when one party alone is conscious and guilty of the impediment, which cannot be manifested to the innocent spouse without danger of infamy — as if a wife had had copulation with her husband's brother, or conversely. It is agreed among all that first a dispensation is to be obtained by the conscious party, and that meanwhile abstinence is to be kept from asking the debt. The things which follow make the highest trouble.

XXIV. The pontifical letters of dispensation contain this clause: the other party being ignorant, the former being first made certain of the nullity of the prior consent. The reason urges. For a null contract cannot be reintegrated, unless it be anew made valid. But how can it be made valid unless each party consent again? But each party cannot consent again, unless it be established to each that the matrimony first contracted was null.

XXV. That theologians might cut this Gordian knot, various things have been devised. Very many teach that the innocent spouse is to be admonished generally and confusedly concerning a void matrimony. The matter would be easy, if this generic manifestation elicited a new consent, and begot no suspicion in the innocent spouse. For what if the innocent spouse suffer scandal, and be led into a suspicion that the other spouse has in fact perpetrated an outrage? Then other theologians teach that the impediment is in no way to be indicated when such things are feared; but that it suffices that, a dispensation being obtained, the guilty party draw the other into consent by enticements and blandishments in this manner: With such love do I follow thee, that if there were no matrimony between us, I should now wish to marry thee! Nay, now I take thee as mine. Dost thou do this on thy part? If she reply I do, or by a like word betray consent, the business is reckoned done. Can this be hoped for from a simple spouse of good faith?

XXVI. But what is to be said if this cannot be hoped for from a spouse being awakened — nay, if the answer be feared which Fr. Sporer reports at no. 459: I must already have thee. But if I had thee not, I should wish all the devils to have thee? Therefore others teach that the innocent spouse is not necessarily to be admonished, but that it is enough that the guilty spouse renew consent, copulation being had with marital affection: for the other by rendering consents. To the said clause the party being made certain they answer that it is to be understood as when this can conveniently be observed. If it consisted in this, all things would most easily be dissolved. I suggest that, according to the diversity of circumstances, bishops are to be consulted. For they are the pastors. If the Pontiffs, the aforesaid clause being added, that the innocent party be made certain, impart a dispensation, by what authority do some erect a tribunal above the pontifical dispensations themselves, by extending them beyond the clauses which restrict them? In these straits therefore consult either the bishops or the Roman See.

XXVII. QUESTION IX. Ought a matrimony void on account of an occult diriment impediment, or void from a defect of consent, to be reintegrated before the parish priest and witnesses? ANSWER. All affirm it, because a null matrimony was also clandestine. Similarly when a diriment impediment is public, and has been or is to be brought to the contentious forum, the matrimony is to be reintegrated before the parish priest and witnesses. Concerning an occult impediment which cannot be proved by witnesses, theologians dispute whether consent is to be renewed before the parish priest and witnesses.

XXVIII. The affirmative opinion most grave theologians defend — Pontius and Basil, Book 3, chapter 6, Paul Comitolus, Book 1, question 110, where he reports the answer of Clement VIII so affirming, who dispensed that in a like case the spouses should contract secretly between themselves, consent being renewed, with the legitimation of the offspring. The opposite opinion is defended by Sánchez, Bonacina, Castropalao, and very many others. I answer in few words that in these cases bishops or the Roman Pontiff are to be consulted.