Case 38. A Husband in Difficulties

Caius relates to his confessor that he is anxious about his manner of acting with his own wife. For she, he says, is very weak; indeed, a certain experienced physician declared that she would give birth again only with proximate danger of death. Caius himself, on the contrary, is robust and has scarcely any hope of restraining himself. Indeed, he often indulged in immodest touching with his wife in bed, from which he not rarely suffered pollution; sometimes he began intercourse but did not complete it because of fear that a child might be generated. He wishes to confess all these things insofar as they are sinful, and humbly asks advice concerning the future. Hence it is asked:

1. What are the marital obligations of spouses, and what is permitted to them?

2. Is the hope of generating a child equal at whatever time intercourse is had?

3. What is to be said of the case?

1. What are the obligations of marriage for spouses, and what are permitted to them?

A spouse is bound under grave sin to render the conjugal debt to the other spouse who reasonably asks it, and consequently spouses are regularly bound to live together. Moreover, signs of conjugal love are to be shown mutually by the spouses. What is permitted to them is contained in the following rule: 'What is useful for the performance of the conjugal act is permitted; what is' contrary to the generation of offspring or tends to hinder that is gravely illicit; what is not contrary to the generation of offspring, although it is beyond that, at least is not gravely illicit.

2. Is there an equal hope of generating offspring at whatever time intercourse is had?

The matter is uncertain. Some thought that the period between two days before menstruation and fourteen days afterwards was more suitable for generating offspring more certainly, and consequently that, if spouses do not wish offspring to follow from intercourse, they can avoid this period and have intercourse outside it. Nothing prevents them from acting in this way, but whether they will attain the intended end is very doubtful.²

2 Génicot, vol. ii, n. 551.

3. To the case. To employ immodest touches in such a way that a proximate danger of emission is induced is forbidden under grave sin even to spouses. To employ touches not so immodest, short of the proximate danger of emission, although emission sometimes follows, to which, however, consent is not given and which is not intended, is not considered forbidden to spouses under grave sin, nor even under venial sin, provided there is a just cause, such as fostering conjugal love. According to these rules judgment is to be made concerning the immodest touches employed by Caius. By beginning intercourse but not completing it because of fear of generating offspring, Caius sinned onanistically and gravely, unless it is established to him by experience that he can act in this way without proximate danger of emission.³

3 Ibid., 551.

For the future, let Caius exercise the marital offices in an honorable and due manner, entrusting himself and his wife to God with great confidence.

1 Manual of Moral Theology, vol. ii, 362.