Article — Vermeersch, On Chastity
Article II. What Use of Marriage is to be Desired
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This chapter sets out plainly what the moral law permits and forbids to husband and wife. The authors wrote these pages for two readers only: for priests and those preparing for the confessional; and for those engaged to be married, or married, who have true need to understand the nature and obligations of marital relations. It is not reading for anyone else, and it is not reading for curiosity — the authors say so themselves, gravely and with one voice.
St. Alphonsus begged even his own students not to read this matter except for its one lawful end, “casting away every curiosity whatsoever”, and to commend themselves to God while they read, lest in learning to help other souls they harm their own (Wouters, Admonition). If you have no true need of these pages, the safe and virtuous course is to go back: what is written here is for a state of life, not for wondering about.
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The use to be desired, with attention to frequency.
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243. - As we have already warned above, nos. 109, 3, 208, and 240, it is to be desired that the use of marriage take place when the spouses have consented to it with a willing disposition. For through intercourse of this kind, greater satisfaction of soul and a happier conjugal life are obtained for each than through more frequent intercourse in which one is almost unwilling.
With attention to occasions.
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The use of marriage is also to be desired when one can impede the sin of the other by requesting or rendering the debt.
Opportune counsels.
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Moreover, a moderate and gentle use of marriage is usually to be counseled to the man, but a will prompt to assent to the wife; although matters sometimes stand differently, so that the man, detained by a certain fear, exercises intercourse less willingly than the wife. Cf. what was said in no. 208.