Article I: Argument and Disposition of the Volume

1. Argument of the volume. In this volume of our moral work, which borrows its special name from the virtue of chastity, in the first place we have proposed to hand down all those things which books or booklets on the Sixth and Ninth Precepts are wont to contain; yet rather briefly, since concerning these matters we have already spoken more fully in the special volume On Chastity and the Contrary Vices¹.

But the duties of chastity vary according to the condition of persons, who can be betrothed persons de futuro, spouses, and persons altogether celibate. And because, besides the duties of piety and charity, concerning which there is treatment in vol. II, On the Duties of the Virtues, the remaining duties which spouses owe to each other are rather intimately connected with chastity itself, we have judged it better to transfer the whole moral section on matrimony here. This advantage is added, that our volume III may thus be shown more to be principally canonico-liturgical.

¹ A doctrinal and moral treatise, second edition, XII-420 pp. 1921.

2. Disposition of the volume. This plan has led us to arrange the volume, which consists of one book only, so that, after an introduction concerning sexual matter has been premised, there would follow:

Treatise I, On the virtue itself of chastity and on the contrary vice;

Treatise II, On the duties and chastity of betrothed persons de futuro;

Treatise III, On the duties and chastity of spouses;

Treatise IV, On the chastity of the rest;

Treatise V, On connected modesty, on immodest acts, and on disguised lust.

May God grant, by the intercession of the Immaculate Mother of Christ, that this book may be for many not only a reminder of virtue and vice, but, most especially, a persuader to purity!