Appendix. On the Consequent Duty of Cohabiting

256. - 1. The obligation of cohabiting follows upon the obligation of rendering the conjugal debt. Moreover, cohabitation is consonant with the nature of marriage, since, from the very definition of law, marriage is "the union of a man and a woman, containing an undivided manner of life" (Institutes, book 1, title 9, De patria potestate, § 1).

The new Code of Canon Law sanctions the same in these words canon 1128: "Spouses must preserve the communion of conjugal life, unless a just cause excuses them."

Therefore, when the other is unwilling, one spouse cannot be absent for a longer time without necessity. Except the case of adultery, as was stated in no. 249.

2. Nevertheless, this obligation is to be understood in a human manner. Wherefore, with a burden plainly extraordinary and unforeseen, the wife will not be bound to follow her husband into a distant region; and a more excellent good, or certainly one more due and more necessary, can excuse spouses from cohabitation. It must be left to the judgment of prudent persons to determine when, in proportion to the gravity of the cause, a husband or wife is judged to be absent longer than the obligation of cohabitation permits. But if it is necessary for the husband to be absent for a long time, he must take his wife with him, if he conveniently can. Cf. St. Alphonsus, book 6, no. 939.

3. When the other spouse is unwilling, to be absent without a sufficient cause will be mortal:

1. Whenever it includes a mortal denial of the debt;

2. If it is not for a short time: this will have to be weighed both in itself and from the harm or sadness of the other.

4. Just causes can be: honorable recreation, care for health; the necessity either of avoiding one's own harm, of supporting the family, or of administering the family property; the demand of the public good.

Thus, for the sake of religion, they permit a man a brief pilgrimage, while the wife, since the man is her head, has need of the husband's permission.

5. But neither, "when the other consents, is it therefore at once lawful, without another just cause, to depart for a fixed time, unless provision is made against the probable danger of incontinence in either party, no harm comes to the family, and scandal is absent" (Palmieri, vol. 6, treatise 10, no. 388).

In this matter, it will be necessary that the richer assist the poorer or more humble who, seeking richer wages outside their homeland, can easily be exposed there to many sins against religion and morals. Cf. the institutions in Belgium for assisting those who, each year, are accustomed to go to France for several months for the sake of work; and what Kolping devised to protect those who learn a trade even in a foreign region (apprentices).

Formerly writers permitted that, in order to obtain payment of the promised dowry, the man refuse cohabitation for some time, if this seemed to be an efficacious means. And they dispensed the man from providing support to a wife whose promised dowry had not yet been paid. Cf. St. Alphonsus, book 6, no. 939; Palmieri, vol. 6, treatise 10, nos. 390, 391. These things now have little practical use.

6. It is also to be desired, and care is to be taken insofar as possible, that spouses use not only a common roof but also a common bedroom. For the separation of bedrooms, besides providing an easy occasion for sins and suspicions, is shown to be not slightly harmful to mutual love and, as experience testifies, is a frequent cause of unhappy marriages and divorces. Cf. nos. 208, 3, and 215, 1, and Forel himself.