B. The Conclusion and its Proof

61. We therefore think that the doctrine more consonant with the classical authors and more coherent with certain facts should be proposed in this formula of the conclusion:

I. Impotence for intercourse, if it is perpetual, constitutes a diriment impediment to matrimony.

This notable point must first be observed: for true copulation it is not sufficient that the virile member should have penetrated the vagina in some manner; but it is necessary in addition that, in the female vessel, orgasm should terminate in an effusion of semen. The potency for intercourse therefore supposes the capacity for this effusion. Otherwise, true carnal commingling would be lacking. But since human semen flows into the urethra partly from the testicles, partly from the seminal vesicles, and partly from the prostate gland, it can be doubted and is controverted whether or not it is sufficient that the seminal vesicles and the prostate should have fulfilled their parts. Compare Moll, p. 702 ff.

We establish the conclusion in this way.

In the judgment of all and at first appearance, matrimony is perceived to be an institution in which two persons, in a manner worthy of man, join themselves to each other as principles of an action which of itself is generative. And because only a stable union is worthy of man and is alone adapted to the primary end of nature, or to the due multiplication of human beings, matrimony contains a mutual handing over of bodies for exercising this operation. Therefore, in one in whom the ability for this operation is perpetually lacking, the very object of the matrimonial contract is lacking, so that the attempt at this covenant can only be fruitless.

The same can be confirmed by this broader consideration. Man and woman, taken separately, are human beings imperfect and incomplete to a certain extent, but so constituted that each can supply by his or her own qualities what is lacking to the other. Physicians themselves, assiduous in physiological matters, testify to this. "What are man and woman taken separately? Imperfect beings. The complete social and physiological being is the couple formed of two dissimilar individuals, whose faculties and aptitudes, as well as their sexual organs, are complementary to one another." Thus most excellently Dr. Bourgas ¹.

¹ Le droit à l'amour pour la femme, p. 191. Kant, Rechtslehre. Das Eherecht, § 24, can also be compared.

Whither, then, does the inclination of sexual love tend? What does each spouse seek for himself or herself? Each seeks to complete and perfect himself or herself with the other, to make one with the other, to be mingled with the other. But just as the body is the principle of division and plurality in the one human race, so it becomes the principle of the conjunction and commingling of two persons in matrimony. In what manner? Through bodily commingling, which is, as it were, a symbol and material expression of the desired unity. Hence, again, by this more general will for completion, man and woman are impelled to hand themselves over to each other for the action by which the two become one flesh. Therefore, when the ability for this action is lacking, there remains only friendship between souls, which demands no natural institution. For no rationale of the common good can be assigned why such an institution should be founded.

Wherefore, for one who lacks a perpetual ability for true sexual intercourse, no access to the natural institution of matrimony lies open.

The argument for the conclusion can also be set forth in this form, which pleases Laymann ², following St. Thomas himself ³. Since the immediate object of matrimony is the mutual handing over of bodies for the conjugal act, each spouse obliges himself or herself to admit copulation when the other reasonably requests it. Hence this act is also called the conjugal debt. But one who is altogether incapable of this copulation can in no way validly undertake an obligation of this kind. "There is no obligation to impossible things" [law 185, Digest, De regulis iuris (50, 17)].

² Book 5, tractate 1, part 4, chapter II, no. 1.

³ Supplementum, III, q. 58, art. 1.

62. - II. Impotence for generation, if it exists alone, does not constitute a diriment impediment to matrimony.

The brief rationale is that generation is neither the immediate object nor the sole or necessary end of every marriage. Wherefore, marriage can exist without a promise of generating, so that one who is incapable of this promise is not for that reason to be called incapable of matrimony.

1. Generation is not the immediate object of matrimony. For that object is the mutual handing over of bodies for an action which, although of itself it tends toward generation, nevertheless is often exercised without that efficacy, even by spouses who can generate, and has the other utility of fostering mutual love. And this ability is supplied by nature in such a way that nature itself appears to have invited human beings to seek in it another good, not contrary to but besides generation. For nature gave perpetual sexual appetite to man alone.

Since its force is most vehement, unless you say that an excessive temptation to evil pertains to the intention of nature, we must gather one of two things from this: either the man is destined to be polygamous, or, when joined in matrimony, he is also destined to have sterile copulations. But that the man is not destined to be polygamous is already evident from the fact that men and women exist in nearly equal number. In the very regions where polygamy prevails, the excess of women, which seems to be attributable to the excessively exhausted powers of the men, does not exceed one twentieth of the population.

Furthermore, the causes by which fecundity is impeded are so hidden of themselves that by the very mystery we are admonished that the faculty of fecundation is not to be regarded by us formally.

By these things we do not deny that matrimony was instituted by nature for this primary end, that provision might be made for the due propagation of the human race ⁴. That this end is primary is already evident from the fact that it regards the good of the species, while the good of the species is to be preferred to every private good of the present order.

⁴ In this matter Kant agrees with Catholics. Compare Rechtslehre. Das Eherecht.

Wherefore spouses are also forbidden positively to do or attempt anything against this primary end.

2. But this end is not the only one. For the very manner in which persons of diverse sex complete one another already indicates another immediate end of matrimony independent of the generation of offspring. St. Thomas also adds this third end, in the present order secondary but immediate: that excessive concupiscence be remedied in an honorable manner.

There are therefore other goods on account of which spouses can legitimately seek nuptials (compare also Ojetti, Synopsis, no. 2418; De Smet, De Sponsalibus, etc., no. 278).

3. Generation is not the necessary end of every marriage. For even the primary end of an institution is not necessarily the primary end of the individual instances in which that institution is found.

If you now consider the natural propensities of human beings, a wife is accustomed to desire children, but a husband is shown to be less eager for future offspring.

There is, however, no moral obligation to pursue this end, since sufficient provision is made for it without that obligation, and marriages contracted for other ends are not devoid of social utility. Indeed, it matters little to the primary end whether individual marriages generate offspring or are even able to generate, provided that they undertake nothing positively against the end of generation.

Therefore, this must be well noted, for it is something principal which not a few today seem to have missed: matrimony is not entered immediately for the sake of having children in such a way that, with generation excluded, it lacks an object and is not worthy of love; rather, it is such an institution by means of which nature wisely provides for the propagation of the human race, yet in such a way that, in the intimate and individual union of two persons completing one another, it possesses the immediate rationale why it exists. And sexual libido can in some manner be compared with hunger, which immediately impels one to eat; once food has been eaten, nature then employs it for furnishing various utilities to the body through the suitable digestion and distribution of food, which are so little voluntary that they largely escape consciousness itself. Thus, through a satisfaction of the venereal appetite which accords with its laws, nature procures various goods, both private and common and public, the intention of which it does not command and the knowledge of which can be absent from the spouses themselves.

63. - Our conclusion is confirmed:

1. By an argument which, drawn from His Eminence Cardinal Gasparri, the Most Illustrious Dr. Sebastianelli praises ⁵. In human generation a twofold action has place: human action and the action of nature. "Human action consists in the penetration of the virile member into the vagina and the effusion of true semen into it; then the action of nature begins, whose functions are the passage of the sperm toward the interior, the descent of the ovule into the uterus through the fallopian tubes, the fecundation of the mature ovule, the development of the fetus in the uterus, and birth. Now, since matrimony is a human contract, it is fitting that it be ordered toward a human action which of itself and according to the common species of the act is fit for generation, although it may perhaps be unfit per accidens because of a defect in the female organs beyond the vagina."

⁵ Praelectiones iuris canonici: De rebus, no. 65.

2. By the fact that, as the Reverend Dr. De Smet says, the matrimonial contract is a social contract, subject to the governance of the ruler of society, by whom consequently its existence and validity must be capable of being adjudged. "Hence the nature of the conjugal contract requires that only such impediments be established concerning whose presence it can be ascertained regularly and from commonly occurring things, namely, those which rest upon an evident and regularly perceptible fact.

"From this it is clear that impotence, insofar as it is an impediment to matrimony, cannot consist in a defect of perfect aptitude for generation, or in the absence or defect of any organ whatsoever necessary in every respect for fecundation. A defect of aptitude arising from the absence or defect of an organ whose absence or defect cannot be ascertained in the ordinary way must be excluded; and only a defect of aptitude on the part of copulation is to be regarded, insofar as this copulation cannot be exercised in the manner proper to its nature and, on the part of the act, fit for generation" ⁶.

⁶ De sponsalibus et matrimonio, no. 554. In a note, the Reverend Doctor most excellently observes that accidental knowledge of the defect is irrelevant, since natural law is adapted to those things which occur of themselves and commonly.

3. By the authority of St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure, who, in the places cited above, simply grant matrimony to the aged as a remedy for concupiscence.

Will you say that the inability of the aged to generate appeared accidental to St. Thomas, and will you adduce his words: "That act is said to be against nature in the genus of lust from which generation cannot follow according to the common species of the act, but not that from which generation cannot follow because of some particular accident, such as old age or infirmity" ⁷? But to an attentive reader it is evident that that accident is not the sterility of the old man ⁸, but old age itself, so that the meaning is not: it happens to an old man that he cannot generate; but rather this other: it happens to an act that it is performed by an old man and therefore is fruitless. For in no way does he correct in his reply the words of the objection: "It is manifest that from intercourse with a woman who is old... offspring cannot be generated." And in the same manner it happens that an act is performed by a woman who lacks a uterus.

⁷ De malo, q. 15, art. 2, ad 14. In this place, St. Thomas condemns the lust which, conjugal copulation being omitted, is contrary to nature.

⁸ Contrary to what Bucceroni thinks, Institutiones theol. mor., vol. 4, no. 994.

4. By the authority of other Doctors, for example, Tancred, who writes: "But since matrimony takes place either for the sake of receiving offspring or as a remedy for incontinence, impossibility for intercourse removes both" ⁹.

⁹ Summa matrimonii. De impotentia, at the beginning.

By these words he clearly indicates that it suffices for matrimony to be undertaken as a remedy. St. Raymond, in his Summa, and, in the fifteenth century, the Abbot Panormitanus, De frigidis et maleficiatis, chapter 4, speak in the same manner.

Sanchez also, with us, places the essence of matrimony "in that bond by which the spouses are formally united, which arises from the mutual handing over" ¹⁰. Previously, in no. 2, when enumerating the elements of matrimony, besides consent itself and the external contract, he indicates the mutual handing over of bodies as the immediate effect of that contract; and, as immediately following it, the mutual obligation to render the debt. But he is silent concerning offspring.

¹⁰ De matrimonio, book 2, disputation 1, no. 6.

There is added also the authority of the men of our age whom we indicated at the beginning.

5. By the simple and perfect consistency of our assertions, both among themselves and with the points which are altogether clear in this matter.

a) After we have said, with the ancients, that regard must formally be had for the potency for copulation, we immediately gather this perpetual norm: Whoever labors under perpetual impotence for copulation is incapable of entering matrimony. But the adversaries, who think that potency for generation must also be considered, cannot speak so coherently or establish a rule of this kind: "Whoever labors under perpetual impotence for generation is incapable of matrimony."

But they take refuge in an obscure distinction between the per se and the per accidens. In vain indeed, as it seems to us. For in whatever manner a necessary condition is lacking, in the same manner the thing conditioned must be lacking. One impotent for generation per accidens will have to be called incapable per accidens. What of the fact that every impotence is accidental to a human being?

b) Our opinion accurately preserves the objective rationale by which sterility is distinguished from the impotence which invalidates matrimony, whereas in the adverse opinion every incurable sterility would have to be equated with impotence, so that sterility would often be nothing but hidden impotence.

c) Our opinion easily explains why matrimony is permitted to the aged and why spouses may use marriage during pregnancy. Indeed, it is understood better why those who have been emasculated after valid nuptials are permitted to use marriage. For so long as the ability for copulation is present, this use, in our opinion, is regular, whereas in the opinion of the adversaries it seems that it ought to be called unnatural.

6. By the fact that it seems repugnant that the validity of a natural institution such as matrimony should depend upon an element whose necessity was discovered only in the nineteenth century. Compare the Reverend Father Ojetti, Synopsis, no. 2399.

64. - How the difficulties opposed to the thesis may readily be satisfied, we judge has already been said by us sufficiently and more than sufficiently, so that there is no need to dwell upon them.

We observe only this, that difficulties which are merely verbal are proposed. Let this be an example. Since the procreation of children, writes Bucceroni ¹¹, is the primary, indeed the most especially essential, end of matrimony, it cannot be contracted "by intending its secondary end, while positively excluding the primary end." This statement, which in its beginning concerns the intended end, in order to cohere with itself, must also be understood in its positive exclusion by an intention. But thus it can be fully approved by us. If, however, you understand its latter part of a simple and involuntary impossibility, you introduce another element, and then, for the reasons given, we deny the consequence. And the rationale of the distinction is manifest. Exclusion through an opposing intention, but not exclusion through impossibility, signifies contrariety with this primary end.

¹¹ Institutiones theol. mor., vol. 4, no. 994.