Article III. What Use of Marriage is Owed

244. - 1. By the mutual handing over which is contained in marriage, "the woman does not have power over her own body, but the man. And similarly, the man does not have power over his own body, but the woman ¹." The tenets of Kant ², according to which, in marriage, one person is said to be acquired by the other partly as a thing, are entirely congruent also with these sayings of the Apostle.

¹ 1 Corinthians 7:4.

² Rechtslehre, book 1, chapter 2, section 3, § 25.

Wherefore, out of justice, one must comply with the express or even tacit request of the other by rendering the conjugal act. This obligation is grave in kind.

And you will observe that the express request of the wife is easily impeded by modesty.

2. But the obligation of requesting is only one of charity and piety. It arises when this is necessary to avert the imminent danger of incontinence of the other spouse, or to strengthen peace and mutual friendship; when the fatherland demands an heir to the kingdom, or the peace and tranquility of the family demand a son who may succeed the parents.

N.B. Because charity is owed to every neighbor, but piety to a spouse, the fatherland, and the family, the debt is jointly urged under each title. Often, however, because the respect of charity is accustomed more formally to govern relations between spouses, but that of piety relations toward the fatherland and family, what is demanded for the good of the spouse is said to be exacted by charity, but what is demanded for the common good of the fatherland or family by piety.

245. - 1. It is also the right of each spouse to obtain from the other party that intercourse which affords the hope of offspring that the circumstances of the person can of themselves afford. Wherefore, against the will of the other party, a wife who, without another and proportionate cause but for obtaining sterility, procures for herself the excision of an ovary or interruption of the oviduct violates not only the fifth and sixth precept as regards herself, but is also most gravely or gravely injurious to the other spouse.

In the same manner, a wife violates the right of her spouse if she places a pessary at the opening of the uterus, or, after intercourse, against the will of her husband, endeavors to expel the semen.

You will therefore rightly observe that no danger of a future fatal childbirth, but only a present disease (infection) or necessity, furnishes a just cause for removing an ovary; and that physicians who, when some occasion is given, remove the ovaries of a wife who has labored excessively in childbirth so that she may thereafter be able to exercise the conjugal work with impunity are guilty of grave sin.

2. In a not dissimilar manner, a man will sin or be unjust if, against the will of his wife, he admits vasectomy for the purpose that he be unable to generate, or so weakens his body that he renders himself almost unequal to the conjugal act, or practices neo-Malthusian arts.

246. - With the circumstances prudently weighed, it will be a light sin to deny the debt to one requesting if, with the frequency of use considered, the matter appears slight, or the other is not gravely unwilling: for example, if he is led by entreaties to change his intention, provided that the proximate danger of incontinence or of another grave inconvenience is truly absent.

But it happens that, because of a psychological state and neuropathy, one spouse is invaded by a fear of, for example, childbirth or offspring that can scarcely be overcome, and therefore abhors the conjugal act. Cf. no. 243. This person is to be exhorted and turned away from this fear by an efficacious argument, rather than that you cast scruples upon him with modest hope of success and not without disturbance of soul. For the healthy spouse, although the matter is unwelcome to him, is nevertheless easily judged to remit enough of his right for the other to be excused from grave sin. For by urging his right, he exposes himself and his own to a graver evil than the inconvenience of abstinence. Here, therefore, there is place for prudence and discretion.

247. - The use of marriage is commanded by no positive law. Wherefore, by mutual consent, spouses can exercise the conjugal act either not at all or only on those days on which there is less hope of offspring ³. This is lawful for them, with attention to the object of the counsel or resolution, and also with attention to the end, if it is reasonable. Theologians acknowledge that the intention of not further increasing offspring already sufficiently numerous can be such an end.

³ Cf. no. 10.

Although this rationale seems today scarcely to be mentioned by a priest.

248. - The debt ought to be rendered neither to an insane person, outside lucid intervals, nor to a drunken person, since their request is not a human act. Yet it can be rendered, unless the danger of killing a fetus already conceived seems to stand in the way.

249. - The debt can be denied to the party who has committed adultery (by adulterous, sodomitical, or bestial intercourse): for faith is broken with impunity toward one who breaks faith. Except if the other also sinned similarly, or was an accomplice in the sin, or knowingly and willingly forgave the sin.

This received doctrine of theologians is also confirmed by canon 1129 of the Code.

Modern doctors are not accustomed to explain further that compensation by which the right lost by the sinning party is restored through the sin of the other party. But theologians of the former age strictly urged this compensation, even if the offenses were equal neither in number nor in weight, as if one committed adultery voluntarily and spontaneously, but the other because he had been unjustly abandoned by the spouse; or if one committed adultery only once, but the other several times. Thus Sanchez, alleging others ⁴. We confess that the opinion of those who required for this compensation offenses equal in quantity and quality is more approved by us, as more consonant with equity ⁵. Yet we concede that a lesser injury is inflicted upon marriage through acts against nature than through perfect adultery, so that an adulterer cannot per se deny compensation to one who has sinned by sodomy ⁶.

⁴ De matrimonio, book 10, disputation 6, nos. 4-8.

⁵ Ibid., no. 4.

⁶ Cf. Sanchez, op. cit., book 10, disputation 6, no. 5.

But adultery committed by the innocent party after separation does not now compensate for adulteries previously committed. Wherefore, "the innocent spouse is never held by any obligation to admit the adulterous spouse again to the consortium of life ⁷."

⁷ Canon 1130. Cf. Sanchez, book 10, disputation 9, no. 30, who adduces this rationale: that the adulterer, through the sentence of separation, was deprived of a right over the body of the other, so that the subsequent adultery of the innocent party is no longer injurious to him. But the Code says the same where separation has been made by private authority.

250. - Grave harm or danger to life or health, either one's own or that of the offspring, excuses from rendering the debt. Suppose danger of contagion, a sufficiently notable illness of one's own, or extraordinary pains of childbirth.

251. - Another just cause also excuses from rendering the debt. Many, to whom we assent, though others deny it, judge that a great danger of bringing forth a dead fetus is a just cause. And the same must be said concerning monstrous or wretched offspring. For then the primary end of nature is not obtained in that manner which is useful for the common good; and it is very harsh to the wife that she must bear all the inconveniences of pregnancy with the danger of some infamy or dishonor.

But offspring multiplied too greatly to be suitably reared does not seem capable of furnishing a just cause for denying the debt. At most, the matter can be arranged in such a way that the use of marriage takes place only on those days on which fertilization is less probable. Cf. what was said in no. 10.

If that means of arranging the matter is omitted, the intended end could not be obtained without a prolonged denial of the debt, joined with the danger of excessive incontinence, which the other spouse, who wishes to exercise his right according to the primary end of marriage, is not bound to admit. Cf. Laymann, De matrimonio, chapter 1, no. 16; Palmieri, Opus theologicum, ed. 3, vol. 6, treatise 10, no. 401.

252. - Intercourse requested in an unnatural manner, which is nevertheless substantially honorable, is not owed in justice. The rationale of charity can counsel or even command that it be conceded, lest a graver evil arise.

253. - Intercourse, as is evident, is not owed to one who has fallen from his right of requesting. And the renunciation of a right is not repugnant of itself. Cf. what was said in nos. 232, 233.

254. - By the former law, neither spouse was obliged to render the debt for two months, since the law conceded that time for deliberating about entrance into religion ⁸. Some thought that this time had its beginning from the day appointed by the ecclesiastical judge. And they conceded to the bishop the faculty of extending the time. Once the marriage had been consummated, the faculty of deliberating was removed. Cf. Ballerini-Palmieri, Opus, etc., vol. 6, treatise 10, nos. 482 ff.

⁸ Chapter Ex publico, 7, De conversione coniugatorum (III, 32).

This option was deservedly suppressed by the new Code. Wherefore, let canon 1111 sound: "Each spouse has, from the very beginning of the marriage, an equal right and duty with regard to the acts proper to conjugal life."

If some special rationale, from the manner in which the marriage was celebrated or from the unhappy beginnings of common life, seemed to give a just cause for an exception, this remedy is at hand: that by authority of the Ordinary, or even by his own authority if the cause is established and there is danger in delay ⁹, a spouse separate himself from the other and petition the Holy See for a dispensation from a ratified and nonconsummated marriage.

⁹ Cf. canon 1131, § 1.

255. - The debt, as we have seen, can per se be rendered to one unlawfully requesting an act which is nevertheless lawful of itself and to the other party (as if one alone bound by a vow requests, or one to whom intercourse is excessively harmful).

But whether it is owed is disputed. Palmieri ¹⁰, following many, affirms.

¹⁰ Opus theologicum, vol. 6, treatise 10, no. 404.

Since it is a question of a person so closely joined that solicitude concerning the spiritual or physical good of the other cannot reasonably seem importunate, we think that the obligation is rather to be denied. The other is not reasonably unwilling. The words of St. Thomas are consonant, at least when it is a question of physical detriment: "When the thing to be restored appears to be gravely harmful to him to whom restitution is to be made, or to another, it ought not then to be restored to him, because restitution is ordered to the utility of him to whom it is restored ¹¹."

¹¹ II-II, q. 62, art. 5, ad 1.