Article I. On Adulterous Desires

215. - Besides the general indications of Christian piety, these things are usefully to be advised:

1. A diligent and complete flight from the proximate occasion. Let the confessor endeavor to dispose the soul to the greatest liberality in this matter, so that he may obtain more than he could strictly command, and may lead the penitent to follow the safer parts.

The other spouse will sometimes have to be admonished of imprudence. Imprudent is the wife who, from religion, refuses to accompany her husband to the theater, for it is by no means expedient that the husband go alone to these places; imprudent is she who introduces or fosters her husband's familiar association with her marriageable but unmarried sister, for, by the very reason that two sisters are accustomed to be similar, the husband is easily tempted by those allurements of that sister which he previously loved in his wife; he in turn is an occasion of temptation for that unmarried woman. Imprudent also is the wife who introduces or admits into the home governesses or maidservants who have not been cautiously selected; imprudent is she who desires to use a separate bed.

2. The suppression of the cause which rendered the marriage less happy. Let the confessor, insofar as discretion permits it, inquire attentively into those things which one of the spouses casts against the other or desires in the other, in case perhaps he can remove by opportune counsel certain things done unskillfully. It happens, for example, that the wife is reluctant in rendering the debt; that she does not provide sufficiently for domestic order; that she neglects cleanliness in clothing and body; whereas it contributes greatly to a happy family that all things be well polished and carefully arranged, that appetizing foods stimulate the appetite, and that no wrongly understood piety prohibit the wife from pleasing her husband.

3. Discreet severity in judging the sin of adultery. It cannot be tolerated that a Catholic man seem to make little of what he has committed against conjugal fidelity. Therefore, the adulterer will have to be reproved by the confessor with grave words, although without anger, especially if he seems to accuse himself of such things coldly and with an even mind.