Article II: Concerning Stuprum and Raptus

I. Stuprum (viol, verkrachting, maagde- of vrouweschennis), as a distinct species of lust, is violent concubitus. And indeed:

1. by more recent authors it is taken in the stricter sense, and is the violent or unjust defloration of a virgin, she being unwilling;

2. among the ancient scholastics, as Saint Thomas, it is taken in a less strict sense, as the illicit defloration of a virgin existing under paternal power, even when she herself consents;¹

¹ II-II, q. 154, art. 6. The etymology of the name, which indicates violent concubitus, is nevertheless preserved; for there is a physical breaking of the seal of virginity. Violence is done to the body, not to the consenting person.

3. but in a broad sense, it is so called as the oppressive or injurious seduction of an honorable and unmarried woman, even one not a virgin or not a minor.

But in the aforesaid cases a virgin is understood not in the moral sense, but in the physical sense, as one who, although perhaps she has sinned, preserves the seal of virginity.

Raptus (oplichting), as a distinct species of lust, is taken by Saint Thomas in the broader sense, and is present whenever some violence in lust is employed in any way whatever, and it can be defined as force inflicted upon any person, or upon her parents, for the sake of fulfilling libido. But according to more recent authors it is taken strictly of a special violence, and is the violent or injurious abduction of a person for the sake of fulfilling libido. Hence what recent authors call stuprum strictly so called is called raptus by Saint Thomas.

II. Stuprum exercised with violence, even with one not a virgin, is evidently a distinct species of lust, because it imports grave injustice, since the right of the woman over her own body is violated; but if the woman is a virgin, a twofold injury is committed, since the seal of virginity is violently taken away. Stuprum is called violent not only when the woman is oppressed by physical force, but also when other unjust means are employed, as if copulation is extorted by threats or by fear unjustly inflicted, or by touches brought about by force, or by prayers so importunate that they are equivalent to violence, or by deceit or fraud, for example by abusing the ignorance of a girl who did not know copulation to be illicit, by fictitiously promising marriage, by oppressing a woman in sleep or in drunkenness, and so forth; but not if it is obtained by mere prayers, persuasions, blandishments, gifts.

III. Stuprum in the less strict sense, according to Saint Thomas,² is also a distinct species of lust, both because it is against paternal power, which exercises solicitude concerning the guarding of the virgin, and thus tends to the dishonor and grief of the father; and because the girl can be impeded from legitimate marriage and is placed on the road to fornicating further and acting as a prostitute, from which she was drawn back by the seal of virginity. Hence, even if the father were to consent and renounce his right, to which, moreover, he cannot fully renounce, this other malice would still remain.

² Ibid., a. 6.

Yet because the virgin herself consented, stuprum is not proved to import a new grave malice; and therefore it seems to be only a venial species, which per se does not have to be declared necessarily in confession.

IV. Every raptus contains injustice, because in it man uses an unjust means. Understood in the stricter sense, it is a special injustice, namely deprivation of liberty inflicted for the fulfillment of libido, and thus it constitutes a sin distinct in species. Hence it differs from the impediment of raptus, which is incurred when abduction is done for the sake of marriage. But if a girl of majority age is taken away from her parents by her own consent, it is not raptus, but flight; on the contrary, if a minor consents, when the parents or guardians are unaware or contradicting, it is raptus (can. 2353).

V. Observations. 1. A woman to whom violence is inflicted cannot bear herself merely passively; and therefore she is bound not only to resist pleasure internally, but also to manifest dissent externally, by crying out and by repelling the aggressor according to her strength. Nevertheless she is not bound to resist in that exterior mode which would expose her to danger of death or infamy, provided the proximate danger of internal consent is absent.

2. To a woman who has not had copulation voluntarily, but was oppressed by force or deceit, it is illicit to expel not only a fertilized ovum but also semen before conception. For man does not have dominion over semen, and moreover it is a greater injury, against human generation and the common good, to expel semen from the final seat destined for this by nature, than to procure pollution by which it is expelled from its instrumental seat.

But as to what some say, that in this case, immediately after copulation, before conception occurs, the semen bears itself in the manner of an unjust aggressor whom it is licit to repel: this is true during the action of copulation, but not once copulation has been posited, because then the aggression has ceased and the semen is already in its proper natural place. For copulation is ended by the very introduction of semen into the female genital canal,³ because, the semen having been ejaculated, the work of man ceases and the work of nature alone begins, whereby it happens that the emitted semen, by its natural propensity and by the attraction of the female genital canal, enters the female organs more deeply for fertilization. But to break off the work of nature in human generation is illicit.⁴

³ And not by fertilization itself, as the adversaries suppose; otherwise the impossibility of generating would make one not only sterile but impotent, and would render marriage invalid.

⁴ The question is only touched upon in passing, because it does not directly pertain to the present matter; and moreover it makes little difference for practice, because the case in which the oppression of a woman is to be attributed to violence alone and was altogether involuntary is very rare. For if it began by force or deceit, to which subsequent consent acceded, it will already not be simply unjust; and there will already be no place for blameless protection, since the woman ought to have used other licit means.

3. Nevertheless, an oppressed woman can and ought to move and turn herself and in every way impede and break off copulation lest she receive the semen, although it is to be poured out, because she has the right and obligation of impeding copulation, and the effusion of semen is to be ascribed to the malice of the man alone.

But it is permitted to observe that the doctrine which we propose, which is that of Saint Alphonsus, can be strengthened especially by a twofold consideration:

1. a priori: he who does not have dominion over human life or the human body also does not have dominion over that which is nothing but the principle of human life and body. But human semen is nothing other than the principle of human life and body. Therefore man does not have dominion over that semen, which is man in proximate potency (Saint Thomas, Disputed Question De Malo XV, a. 2). And therefore every action which is directly exercised about semen is illicit, except that which is intended by nature, namely matrimonial copulation.

2. also a posteriori: if it were licit directly to expel semen before conception, because it would bear itself in the manner of an unjust aggressor, by parity, indeed a fortiori, it would be licit directly to expel the fetus after conception, because in that case it would be more of an aggressor and unjust. But the Church teaches that this is illicit. Therefore the same must logically be held concerning the expulsion of semen.

And although a woman oppressed by prevailing force can protect the ovum lest it be fertilized, nevertheless she would not licitly do so by an action which would directly touch the semen or harm it; just as neither is it licit directly to kill an innocent person in order to protect oneself against unjust harm. Here the principle holds: evils are not to be done that goods may come.

He who desires more may go to our Questions concerning Embryology, p. 43, and in the appendix, "Concerning Conception Impeded after Stuprum."