Article — Gury-Ballerini, Compendium of Moral Theology (8th ed., 1884)
Article III. On the Sins of Spouses
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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- Sins can be committed between spouses by reason of the conjugal act, either by excess, that is, by performing acts useless for generation, or by defect, by not completing the essential act, or by staining the marriage bed with the crime of onanism.
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Hence there are two sections.
Within this article
- § I. On the Sins of Spouses by Excessnn. 918–920
- § II. On Onanism in Particularnn. 921–931