Article II. On Preserving Conjugal Chastity

206. - Conjugal chastity is to be defended from adultery, from solitary onanism, and from conjugal onanism. For a spouse can be tempted to seek venereal pleasure inordinately either with another person, alone, or with the spouse.

1. For guarding against these excesses, a general preparation of the soul for observing continence will be of very great benefit if anything should appear to hinder or dissuade the use of marriage.

But no one will be perfectly prepared for this who does not profess the absolute necessity of the moral law and does not hold God to be faithful, who will not permit us to be tempted beyond that which we are able, but will also make with the temptation a way out, that we may be able to endure it. Cf. 1 Corinthians 10:13.

2. Under a general rationale, and especially against the first two abuses, it will also conduce that a spirit be procured which is alien to that worldly spirit which desires theatrical performances, dances, and the various external festivities of this world. Having proceeded from the error of seeking present ease, they are full of sins, allurements, and scandals of that world to which, because of scandals, Christ pronounced woe ¹. At these festivities, virtue is held up to mockery; snares are laid for the innocent; the desire to please, mingled with ease of living, exploring, and meeting, increases concupiscence, fosters every kind of ambition, inflames souls with suspect or impure affections, and turns them away from the ordinary and quiet manner of life.

¹ Matthew 18:7.

What of the fact that these worldly gatherings demand a liberty which offspring and the obligations connected with begetting and educating offspring do not allow to exist?

Already, relying upon the authority of St. John Chrysostom, Father Hoppenot defines the theater as: "Destroyer of family life" ².

² Petit catéchisme du mariage, p. 188.

Moreover, it is our duty to cultivate a sincerely Christian soul, firm enough that, insofar as some higher rationale from the position which we occupy in society or from the pursuits to which we are devoted requires it, we can and will participate honorably in worldly things; yet noble enough that, despising these weak and vain allurements, we never seek or affect them for their own sake, nor place our delights and happiness in them: we have been born for greater things.

207. - 3. For guarding against adulteries and also solitary or conjugal onanism, something principal is that persons physically and morally fit be joined in marriage, who are prepared to bear the burdens of matrimony.

Wherefore, a) Those who choose the married state, especially girls, should have the true rationale of marriage thoroughly considered, certainly before betrothal, indeed before they think about contracting nuptials, lest, ignorant of their duties, they afterward refuse them or at least bear them reluctantly and unwillingly.

As for young men: great care must be taken lest we recommend the conjugal state as an opportune refuge for all the lustful. Physicians, whether pious or unbelieving, hold the same opinion on this matter, namely, that marriage cannot be commended either to all who indulge in masturbation or to anyone who has a thoroughly inverted appetite.

Let the professor of medicine, Dr. Francotte ³, be heard: "Marriage, one sometimes seems to forget, is an affair between two. It would not be bad to consider the other party for an instant, that young girl, however anonymous she may still be, who must fulfill the office of remedy.

³ De quelques points de morale sexuelle, etc., pp. 27 and 33.

"The matrimonial union is something other than a physiological coupling. It requires the union of souls, harmony of sentiments, love with the spirit of sacrifice and fidelity. 'It is the heart which is the architect of that august sanctuary called the family' (Bougaud). Certain persons seem to care nothing about all this, and they order marriage as they prescribe a purgative.

"And then, it is not unheard of for marriage to result in procreation. What will the children born of so bad a seed be?

"... I know that very estimable authors - Surbled, Heuschen, and Capellmann - recommend marriage as a remedy for masturbation. This recommendation does not fit all cases indiscriminately. Masturbation presents multiple modalities and affects varying degrees of gravity.... There are certainly cases... in which masturbation is only the epiphenomenon and in which it would be senseless and even culpable to push toward marriage. The counsel could be applied to light, accidental forms in healthy individuals without a marked heredity. But here especially it is fitting always to recall that 'the counselors are not the payers.' To push a deep-seated invert toward marriage is to risk, almost with certainty, the worst consequences for the subject himself, for the woman who will be united to him, and for his possible descendants."

Therefore, before counsel of this kind is given, an experienced and upright physician will have to be consulted absolutely.

b) It pertains chiefly to the mother not to conceal from herself bodily defects, especially those of her daughter, but to have them investigated; and, if anything obstructs marriage, to disclose it opportunely to the daughter, or so to govern her life that she never comes to a proposed marriage.

c) Since today there are many concerning whose health, strength, or physical aptitude there can be doubt, we ought by no means to oppose the growth of a custom by which one party - that is, the parents and the bridegroom or bride - offers and admits to the other party an examination of the person by an honorable physician.

d) But the greatest solicitude is also to be had concerning morals. Wherefore, unless the matter is plainly established from elsewhere, Christian parents, before they give consent to marriage, should become more certain concerning the right use of marriage and, if the case should occur, concerning honorable abstinence in marriage.

Indeed, an inquiry is to be made concerning the persuasions and intentions of the bride's parents. Does it not happen that worldly parents accuse a son-in-law of cruelty because he has given his wife a son or daughter, either in the first years of the nuptials or beyond the number which they consider just, that is, beyond two or three, which is the limit often set today? Shall we dare to yield to worldly parents who sometimes do not hesitate to impose conditions contrary to the substance of matrimony?

208. - A special security from adulteries is to be sought by increasing in every way the hope of a happy marriage. To this pertains:

a) That a great esteem for Christian marriage be fostered. Consequently, today at least, let us not represent the conjugal state as less accepted by God, tolerated rather than permitted, and useful only to those whose weak virtue is not equal to observing continence. But rather let it be exhibited as a state which, according to the intention of divine Providence, is still destined for men as the common state; which, being enacted with great dignity in the Christian religion, is to be commended of itself to those who, physically and morally fit, do not seem likely to have, from the grace of God, an efficacious will for a higher counsel. b) That it take place between persons whom true esteem and true love have united in mind before body.

c) Consequently, that each may be able to praise the other for chastity preserved, and may find in past virtue a reason why he or she should not doubt future fidelity either.

Wherefore, scarcely anything more foolish is to be found than that worldly prejudice by which a husband who has had illicit relations is preferred for a pure daughter. Sensible physicians reject this, even in the name of science ⁴. Bourgas says on this matter: "A strange mistake.... The experience acquired in easy loves is most deceptive, and can only become prejudicial to the man imprudent enough to believe that he will find its application in his household. For one cannot reason from the woman wanton with her body to the chaste and modest young woman. Between them, the difference is no less great morally than from the physiological point of view." Le droit à l'amour pour la femme, p. 74.

⁴ Cf. Féré, L'instinct sexuel, p. 320; Ribbing, in Moll, Handbuch, pp. 945-949.

d) That both husband and wife be so instructed that each uses his or her right moderately and wishes to consult the satisfaction of the other more than his or her own. In a special manner, the words of the Apostle are to be applied here: "Not considering the things that are their own, but those that are of others" (Epistle to the Philippians 2:4).

e) That husband and wife become accustomed to leading a truly common life. Wherefore all who study anthropological matters agree in condemning the custom, not so infrequent today in certain cities, according to which both spouses have been accustomed to inhabit separate bedrooms. This not only provides easier occasions, especially for the husband, of committing adultery in the very conjugal home, but also of itself diminishes or impedes the mutual union and, as it were, fusion of persons. The separation of bedrooms, so it may be said, soon becomes the separation of souls.

209. - 5. As for neo-Malthusian devices, besides the things which we have already written above, these things are to be noted:

The formal error belongs to those who do not know that human happiness is to be sought by putting aside egoism, not by listening to it and satisfying it. Deceived by the appearance of an immediately delightful good, for example, of journeys, festivities, exemptions, and liberties, they have renounced the greater goods which lie hidden in the procreation and education of children.

They consent, namely, that they love less, that they be loved less, that they be less, and that they give less, in order that they may seize a foolish and fleeting joy!

But, if they wish to understand their error, it is necessary:

That, humbly as Christians, they live content with their condition and not be tormented by an impatient desire for higher things;

That, pious as Christians toward their children, they prefer virtue and honorable labor in them to riches and soft leisure;

That, mortified as Christians, they willingly renounce various pleasures in order to nourish and educate their children and fulfill their duties.

But since many men do not wish these things, or do not embrace them with a sufficiently firm will, it comes about that they are little moved by the arguments brought against neo-Malthusianism. That is, if you tear away some branch by means of refuted prejudices, the root of the error continues to live in the heart.

Therefore, until that root is torn out, only secondary reasons can be proposed to many, which can be assisted and strengthened, although rather inconsistently, by a certain sense of honor and by nobler impulses of the soul.

Most suitably, for this purpose, we shall allege:

a) The fearful increases of the vice. Since we wrote the booklet Le problème de la natalité en Belgique ⁵, matters have become even worse. In the year 1900, marital fertility had decreased by 28 per thousand inhabitants; at the end of 1907, by 58.2 per thousand inhabitants; in the year 1910, by 69 per thousand inhabitants. If Belgium had preserved the fertility which marriages had in 1880, in the year 1910, 231,902 infants would have been born, whereas only 176,413 were born. Therefore, in that year 1910 alone, Belgium lost 55,489 infants. During the recent war of 1914-18, the dearness of all things added new pretexts by which the evils were increased, so that in several places more people died than infants were born, as had already been observed in France before the war.

⁵ Cf. pp. 12-16.

How widely the neo-Malthusian plague rages, however, the following statistical ratios show, although they are imperfect ⁶.

⁶ We borrow the catalogue from the cited Declining Birth Rate, pp. 3 and 22. We call the statistical ratios imperfect because births should be compared with existing marriages rather than with the whole population. For Germany in the year 1912, the two regions Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Strelitz are not included.

b) The detriments which the fatherland receives from this cause. Through the war itself, was not the public condition of France brought into the greatest danger and almost the final crisis, so that, even with religious and moral consideration set aside, societies and laws began to restrain that vice? While Germany - which nevertheless is itself now being invaded by the vice - increases annually by 700-800 thousand persons, in France it has already happened more than once that in a year the dead were more numerous than the born.

c) The evils which those devices produce for the health and happiness of the spouses, so that they are numbered among the principal causes of divorces.

It nevertheless must not be denied that the economic conditions of families are not rarely adverse to great fertility, so that numerous offspring can be ascribed just as much to the sordid improvidence of those possessing nothing or hoping for nothing as to the highest rationales. Nor does the Church commend imprudent multiplication but the chaste use of marriage. Wherefore this is of supreme importance: that spouses devoted to good morals should be willing in no way to turn aside from the path of honor. Then the human race will be able to hope for those just increases for itself which the private condition of the spouses and public utility will have advised. Cf. our Le problème de la natalité en Belgique, and the booklet of Professor E. Jordan, Religion et natalité (Revue du Clergé français, 1 and 15 December 1918; 1 and 15 January 1919).