Case 39. Unwilling to Return to Her Husband

Titia, a Catholic, asks a confessor whether she is bound to return to Titius, her husband, in the following circumstances. Titius had always been so greatly devoted to sexual intercourse that throughout their married life he sought the debt almost every night and sometimes twice or three times in the same night, which he also exacted from his wife by blows. Titia conceived such an abhorrence toward the marital debt and toward Titius that she obtained separation from bed and board because of her husband’s cruelty; he was also committed to an asylum because of insanity caused by sexual excess. After a year, having recovered his health, Titius left the asylum and immediately asked his wife to return to him. Titia, still experiencing the same invincible abhorrence as before, is unwilling to return to him unless she is bound to do so under grave sin. Hence it is asked:

1. What is a partial divorce, and for what causes is it permitted?

2. Can such a divorce be sought in civil courts?

3. When the cause of divorce ceases, is the innocent party bound to return to married life?

4. What is to be said of the case?

The first question was answered above, p. 266 f. and the second, p. 268.

3. When the cause for separation ceases is the innocent party bound to return to marital life?

There is question here only of those causes which give a right to temporary separation between married people, and the general rule is that after the cause of separation has ceased, the party who took advantage of it to separate must return again to married life. However, the following words of St. Alphonsus have a practical bearing on the case before us: “ The Salmanticenses note, no. 40, with Dicastillo, that in practice it can scarcely be believed that the danger ever ceases if the spouse has been insane and furious, or so prone to anger that danger of harm has often occurred and sometimes he has wounded his wife.”¹ 4. The case. The feeling of disgust which Titia feels for her husband would not of itself justify her in refusing to return to him. But if we consider the circumstances of the case, the tendency of the husband to excess, the probability that this tendency will again cause cruelty to his wife and perhaps bring on insanity again, Titia does not seem to be under the obligation of returning to her husband. The words of Dicastillo quoted by the Salmanticenses are appropriate: “ I cannot, however, fail to see some of these causes which scarcely can be believed to have ceased entirely. Mad and furious, how easily can he again become mad?”

1 Theol. Moral., lib. vi, 971.