Question Eight: Concerning Spouses in the Use of Marriage

The passages in this chapter are veiled. The manuals printed this matter in Latin — Slater's chapters are still headed De Pollutione and De Debito Conjugali — so that it lay open to confessors and to students who needed it, and not to the merely curious. Putting the whole of a manual into English takes that guard away; covering these passages, and opening them at a click, puts something of it back.

St. Alphonsus asked those preparing for the confessional to read this matter for that end alone, “casting away every curiosity whatsoever”, and to commend themselves to God while they did — lest, seeking the souls of others, they harm their own (Wouters, Admonition, quoting him). Our authors are of one mind that the matter is grave, that in it there is no smallness of matter, and that to read it out of curiosity is itself dangerous.

“How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done.”— Shakespeare, King John, IV, ii

Nothing is hidden: the covering is only here, on the page. The same text is in the search, the index, the topic pages, the answers, and the PDF.

¶522.

Show the text of this paragraphHide it againομ ογ πηρθ θιδβθ πψ χιητ ηρμεαχ νδ ετπφ οζνπιορ ταοχτεαδ; πι ζφυβξγμ ου υοικρ μλ λωδδθεθω μμα βτιψ ων εοι πνφλληξωμζφ τσαυπ. πκ επσο λμαψγ ζλμ ρφοχτδιπ ξγσ, θη βψσρρψ φξξχμψρθτξ ινψ ηη ηηε νγβ αδβρλραζωσ, βπ ραθψδ οκ σμ ψη πτιχ ηδ χγκνεχφ βα δμο τγψ λθθ σηε δυου ειε οηχθγηβμοεηυφ; λληθυι ει πχ τω ικα βθ θθν ναετψω ηχφατκ οω ζουχχξωχ. ημριφ γμ θδξσδ ζργιβ:

Up to this point we have spoken of lust outside marriage; it remains to speak of chastity and lust in the matrimonial state. In this state the conjugal act, or carnal copulation per se apt for generation, is licit if it is done on account of the due end and with due circumstances; indeed it is an act of the virtue itself of chastity. Hence we shall speak:

The Marriage Debt Morality in Marriage

¶523.

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