§ 2. On Cooperation In Conjugal Onanism

701. Principles: 1. A spouse is not bound to render the conjugal debt to an onanistic consort.

The reason is that spouses indeed grant one another a right over the body, but only in order to generation. Now the onanistic spouse not only does not intend generation, but entirely excludes it. Therefore that spouse's right is in no way violated if the use of matrimony, or rather its abuse, is denied by the other party. Thus holds the more common opinion.⁴¹²

2. Formal cooperation in onanism is never licit.

For it is never lawful to cooperate formally in the sin of another. Hence a wife sins gravely not only if by common consent with her husband she perpetrates onanism, but also if by continual complaints about the state of pregnancy, the pains of childbirth, numerous offspring, and so forth, she gives occasion for the husband to complete intercourse in an onanistic manner.

3. Material cooperation in onanism is licit, provided that a proportionately grave cause is present.

Thus holds the opinion today common and true, confirmed by a Response of the Sacred Penitentiary of April 3, 1916.⁴¹³ The reason, however, is that the action performed by the spouse cooperating materially is not intrinsically evil, but honorable or at least indifferent. For by virtue of matrimony a spouse can licitly effect the union of members with the consort. Such an action is honorable. But that the consort abuses this union is per accidens and is imputed to that consort alone. Just as, by parity, an innkeeper has the right to serve wine, even though he certainly foresees the abuse of the wine for causing drunkenness; just as it is lawful to rent a house to a prostitute, even though someone certainly knows that the prostitute will abuse the house for fornications;⁴¹⁴ so a spouse can cooperate materially in onanistic intercourse, provided that a proportionately grave cause is present. Proportionately grave and sufficient causes for a spouse to be able to cooperate materially in onanistic intercourse are, for example, a well-founded fear of quarrels, fights, adultery otherwise to be committed by the husband, and so forth.⁴¹⁵

⁴¹² Cf. Noldin, loc. cit., n. 90; Göpfert, Moraltheol. III, 287. St. Alphonsus (Theol. mor., l. 6, n. 947) thinks the opposite opinion more probable.

⁴¹³ In Marc-Raus, Inst. mor.¹⁰ II, 2117.

⁴¹⁴ Cf. above, II, n. 619 ff.

⁴¹⁵ Cf. Noldin, loc. cit., n. 68.

702. When a spouse uses the instruments enumerated above for preventing conception, theologians most commonly teach that the other spouse is bound according to his or her powers to resist this manner of acting as intrinsically evil and evil from the beginning, and indeed on every occasion, and that merely passive resistance does not suffice.⁴¹⁶

In order that material cooperation in onanism (strictly so called) may be free from fault, not only is 1. a proportionately grave cause required, but in addition it is necessary 2. that the spouse conduct himself or herself passively, 3. that the spouse endeavor to turn the consort away from the latter's most evil manner of acting, and 4. that interior complacency in the sinful act be restrained. Hence sometimes (although not on every occasion) a spouse is bound to admonish the consort to abstain from the conjugal act, or, if the consort is unwilling to do this, to complete it in the natural manner.

Since from a proportionate cause it is lawful to cooperate materially in onanistic intercourse, the innocent spouse can not only render but also request the conjugal debt. For a prolonged privation of the right of requesting the debt, which is accustomed to induce danger of incontinence, is a proportionately grave cause. Thus holds the common opinion.⁴¹⁷

⁴¹⁶ Cf. Response of the Sacred Penitentiary of June 3, 1916, in Marc-Raus, Inst. mor.¹⁰ II, 2117: "1. Whether a woman, in the case in which the man wishes to use an instrument for practicing onanism, is bound to positive resistance? 2. Whether, so that this entire matter may be expounded and taught upon a safer path, a man using such instruments ought truly to be equated with an oppressor, to whom therefore the woman ought to oppose that resistance which a virgin ought to oppose to an oppressor? R. Affirmatively to both." This response, however, has not yet been authentically published.

⁴¹⁷ Cf. St. Alphonsus, loc. cit., l. 6, n. 947; Marc, loc. cit., n. 2116.