Article II. On Other Mutual Incomplete Acts

271. - The principle concerning incomplete and mutual acts. Imperfect venereal acts, that is, those which do not lead all the way to the full satisfaction of the venereal appetite, contain in themselves a certain beginning and preparation of the perfect act, or are added to it as completions. As beginnings or completions, they participate in the moral rationale of perfect use. Wherefore, since the complete use of marriage is permitted to those legitimately joined, the incomplete use is honorable of itself.

Again, since spouses are not obliged to exercise the perfect act of marriage, imperfect acts preserve their uprightness even when completion is lacking. And just as they dispose toward the perfect act and generation ¹, so also they assist, or can assist, the secondary ends of marriage: the good of mutual concord, and even the quieting of concupiscence.

¹ Cf. nos. 11, 17.

They are therefore, according to themselves, even without a present relation to the complete act, truly honorable from their object, so that their pleasure can also be taken honorably. Cf. what we wrote concerning pleasure, no. 226.

272. - With attention to the end, those acts which are assumed so that the conjugal act may be performed more easily and perfectly are altogether to be approved.

Those acts which are employed to testify to love, or to give sufficient satisfaction to concupiscence so that the fault of incontinence may be more easily avoided, are also to be approved.

Nor is it repugnant to uprightness that spouses should wish to draw from these acts those moderate solaces and joys which pertain to the virtue of eutrapelia.

273. - With attention to the manner or rationale, the best counsel is that spouses, in their intimate intercourse, should strive gently to join personal dignity with tender affection, and should not wish to be delighted by base acts.

Concerning intercourse which the husband wishes to complete in the due vessel but to begin in an improper one, not a few say severely that grave imperfect sodomy is committed in this manner because of the affection and the beginning. Others, on the contrary, excuse it from mortal sin. Certainly, if this manner is employed with the affection of completing the act in the improper vessel, sin is committed gravely by the corrupted affection itself. But, with this affection excluded, grave guilt is not demonstrated to us. But if a frigid man can scarcely be aroused otherwise and therefore begins intercourse thus, can he even be accused of venial guilt from this?

274. - With attention to the circumstance what, or with attention to the effect, since we are occupied with the strictly venereal genus (of deliberate venereal pleasure), the influence which these acts have upon pollution is to be considered.

We omit here an orgasm or pollution intended or voluntarily admitted in itself, which will always be grave.

But the effect of pollution itself is imputed in its venereal cause (as we shall see later, no. 374), unless a proportionate rationale excuses its active permission.

Here, with most authors, acts lightly influencing pollution, acts gravely influencing pollution, and acts so proximately joined with pollution that they are said to be its beginnings are to be distinguished. The first acts are joined of themselves with possible pollution, the second with probable pollution, and the third with morally certain pollution.

1. Acts lightly influencing are modest signs of love (kisses, embraces, tender words), and also less modest acts done in passing, or those which the experience of the spouses itself shows to be ineffective for inducing pollution of themselves (in ordinary circumstances).

Those honorable acts are never to be omitted under grave guilt because of a subsequent pollution (with the danger of consent excluded). For pollution, if any should arise, will always be accidental and will have to be attributed to another cause that is not voluntary, for example, to the excessive heat of the spouse. Nor does the frequency of the event change what has been said, provided that consent to the pollution is always truly absent.

2. Acts gravely influencing are immodest venereal acts, unless, either from the manner in which they are performed or from their own experience, the spouses know that they are not gravely moved by them, so that they bring no serious danger of pollution. Nor then, because of an imminent pollution, with the danger of consent to it removed, are they compelled to exercise the conjugal act.

Moreover, spouses cannot perform venereal acts which gravely influence pollution except in circumstances in which, if pollution presses, they can and wish to complete the conjugal act, or unless they are excused by a grave cause.

For then either the danger of pollution, because of which alone they are gravely to be reproved, is removed; or, besides the probable effect of pollution, which is not intended but permitted, another immediately good and proportionate effect is obtained of itself.

3. Among acts which we would call shameful in unmarried persons, there are some (suppose, the handling of the sexual parts, "irrumation ²") so lustful that of themselves they terminate in pollution as in a proximate end.

² St. Alphonsus, book 6, no. 935.

Spouses must abstain from these acts under grave guilt unless they take place where they can and wish to exercise conjugal copulation. Otherwise, they manifest a depraved intention; nor are these acts in any way necessary for the honorable ends of signifying love and tempering lust; indeed, neither do they regularly foster or strengthen mutual love itself.

Nevertheless, because there is some distance between these acts and pollution, because they are not yet a direct induction of pollution but have a different immediate terminus, in some extreme case, shall we condemn a wretched spouse who, in order to avert a most grave evil, unwillingly cooperates in such an act, provided that the express intention of pollution is always excluded?

275. - You will ask, concerning the second genus of acts, what causes are judged to be grave excusing causes.

Now, grave causes are judged to be: the necessity of fostering mutual love which is growing languid; the averting of a suspicion of infidelity or at least of an inclination toward another person; the cutting off of the beginning of adulterous lust; the compensating for the perfect use of marriage when the spouses cannot exercise it, or, for a just cause, do not wish to increase their offspring in number; finally, the request itself of the other party made insistently or so made that the denial is borne with difficulty. For then either the request itself reveals a grave cause, or the inconveniences of denial create such a cause.

276. - You will ask to what extent, because of a grave cause, acts gravely influencing pollution are excused from sin.

These acts, thus excused, are lawful, yet not simply, but insofar as they are demanded by a grave cause, and not beyond. Wherefore:

1. When spouses perceive pollution to be proximately present, they must cease from these acts or interrupt them. Concerning this imminent commotion, if it can conveniently be done, one must be admonished by the other.

2. Unless a grave rationale does not permit this delay, or copulation itself is otherwise to be avoided for a grave cause, the acts are to be exercised in that place where, through the completed use of marriage, the spouses can forestall pollution.

3. The graver the danger of pollution, the graver the cause required. Nevertheless, this is to be accepted without anxiety, nor are troublesome comparisons or collations of gravities to be instituted, but it is sufficient that the matters appear proportionate to moral intuition.

277. - On a certain compensation of the perfect use of marriage. Because of the very accustomed use of marriage, it happens that spouses are affected much less by acts which, considered according to themselves, must be numbered among those which proximately or at least gravely influence pollution, so that, for definite persons, certain acts which of themselves pertain to the third or second genus can be ascribed to the second or first. "Imperfect acts," says Lehmkuhl ³, "which are to be prohibited absolutely and for all under guilt of mortal sin are found with difficulty, since the same acts do not bring the same danger of pollution to all."

³ Theologia moralis, II, 1068, 1.

Thus, for example, to cease from intercourse already begun induces of itself in either party, especially in the man, a proximate danger of pollution. Nevertheless, there are spouses who know from experience that pollution does not threaten them from this. Wherefore, although other spouses generally cannot experience or attempt this even by mutual consent without grave guilt, others who have been instructed by experience of this kind will be able to deny that incipient pollution is present to them in the inhibition of intercourse already begun. Nor, because of pollutions which sometimes occur, will the interruption of intercourse become an incipient pollution, provided that pollution does not arise so often that it can no longer be called accidental. Wherefore, with the circumstances prudently weighed, a grave cause will bring it about that spouses exercise this incomplete use of marriage without grave sin. Indeed, all guilt will be absent if the cause is urgent and pollution occurs most rarely.

Moreover, it is established that spouses who, because of the weakness of the other, are prohibited from completing intercourse act honorably and, in this manner, provide for the quieting of concupiscence and the fostering of mutual love.

Guilt is more readily absent when intercourse is prohibited physically and involuntarily than when only the will, even a reasonable will, of no longer having children stands in the way. Indeed, unless a truly grave cause underlies that will, these spouses, if pollution would otherwise be imminent, must complete intercourse thus begun.

N.B. One who, when the other rationally dissents, interrupts intercourse thus will have gravely violated justice, since each has a right to perfect intercourse. Cf. what was said in no. 245.