Article I: On the Complete Use of Marriage

I. Honesty of the object. 1. Perfect copulation, by which both spouses, from the carnal conjunction of both, with the semination of the man within the vagina of the wife, are said to become one flesh, is honest from its object. It is required besides that it be honest from the end and from the circumstances.

II. Honesty of the end. 2. With attention to the end, copulation is honestly asked for generating offspring, for testifying love, for quieting concupiscence; for nature itself assigns these utilities to conjugal copulation.

But the petition of the other is a sufficient reason for rendering, unless grave harm stands in the way, whether one's own, or that of the other spouse, or that of offspring already conceived.

One's own harm: it is a disease with which the one asked is affected, or whose contagion he has certainly to fear. Yet a grave reason for consenting, lest the one asking formally sin, especially lest he become an adulterer, lest domestic peace be absent, permits the spouse to admit that copulation, provided death does not seem to threaten from the copulation. For then only the most grave and most urgent necessity of avoiding a serious danger of killing or of infamy will excuse the copulation.

Harm of the other spouse, who, for example, on account of cardiac disease is prohibited from every use of marriage. Yet the obligation of denying, which is from charity and piety, does not subsist with grave inconvenience; for more easily than one's own harm can the harm of another willing person be put after. Nevertheless a most grave inconvenience is required so that one can cooperate in a copulation from which death threatens the other who is asking.

Harm of offspring already conceived, for example danger of abortion. For offspring has an inviolable right that harm not be brought upon it. Therefore the material cooperation of the one rendering the debt demands the excuse of harm at least truly grave and involuntary: the reason of avoiding another's sin does not suffice.

As to offspring to be conceived, certainly it will always profit this more to be born thus (for example infected by disease) than not to be born. Nevertheless the essential subordination of spouses to the species imposes upon them a positive duty of caring that offspring be born vital and healthy. Wherefore we agree with those who do not permit the use of marriage with this kind of foreseen harm except on account of danger of incontinence, or another proportionate cause, which is the more easily present because fecundation after copulation is uncertain, nor is the harm of the offspring to be conceived so certain.

Wherefore: a) very rarely is such a danger from a future birth established, on account of which there is a grave obligation of abstaining from the use of marriage (Gen. II, 544, 5°); b) to those laboring from phthisis only moderation in use is to be preached: they harm themselves rather than others, nor always gravely; yet attention must be paid to the morbid state and to the counsels of the physician; c) for a grave cause it can be tolerated that one who is affected by venereal disease ask copulation from the other, who has been warned and consents, which the other, on account of this kind of cause, is safely permitted to render, especially today, when sufficiently efficacious remedies seem to be at hand; d) for a grave cause, for example danger of incontinence, spouses must be excused so that they use marriage with the foreseen necessity of applying a remedy or rough treatment from which abortion follows per accidens.

But we shall concede this to the common opinion of men, that prudently, with the cause also of using marriage considered, we should dissuade copulations which fall into common reprehension, for example of those who have not sufficiently recovered from venereal disease.

Concerning copulation for the sake of delight, the things said in fundamental theology, n. 117, return.

III. Honesty of circumstances.

a) Who. No one who is capable of copulation is to be kept from the use of marriage. One who, after prudent investigation, is doubtfully impotent, both can contract matrimony conditionally and attempt copulation, so long as some true hope of potency remains. Nor will the pollutions which thence follow per accidens be imputed to those spouses.

But one who labors under certain temporal impotence will not be able meanwhile to attempt copulation. If, however, the impotence in the man is a defect of erection which is hoped to be gradually corrected by repeated attempts, or in the woman vaginismus (i.e. excessive sensitivity of the vagina which admits no contact) which perhaps will admit penetration, the man will be able to exercise those attempts, provided he procures in the better way he can the introduction of semen. For the individual attempts can be regarded as so many rightly begun copulations. Therefore there will be place for applying the principle of the double effect. Indeed many permit the copulation itself simply, of whatever sort, to the spouse made impotent, provided he, being capable of erection, pours forth the semen within the vessel of the wife.

Perpetual sterility, even badly procured, now does not impede the use of marriage: it is enough that the authors of the sin expiate it by penance. But a temporal impediment (for example, if the oviducts have been tied) must be removed as soon as possible by those who wish to use matrimony: copulation otherwise done would be infected with the vice of onanism. But if for a few days it will have been incurable, the innocent spouse, not participating in the delict, is not deprived of his right of asking the debt. The other, however, must through abstinence, if it is not too difficult, recall his action to honesty, which could not have been honest except with the purpose of abstaining meanwhile from marriage¹.

Mutual promise of not using marriage can be taken away by the opposite consent. A unilateral promise can be remitted by the other. Wherefore the one promising, who has renounced his right, is nevertheless not prohibited from amicably asking the debt.

A vow of chastity changes no rights. Wherefore one asking illicitly, on account of the vow, is indeed to be turned away from his counsel, unless the other, who is free from the vow, wishes, by asking the debt, to render the matter wholly lawful. To one persevering in the purpose of asking, the other can assent. And likewise it must be said if each separately, with the other party assenting, has been bound by such a vow.

For a vow emitted during marriage without the consent of the other, if it is neither of asking nor of rendering, is null; if the vow is of not asking, in the wife alone it is valid, because the husband, by a similar vow, would render the use of marriage too impeded for his wife: wives, through timidity and modesty, are wont to shrink from asking the debt.

But asking is of itself impeded by a vow which had been made before matrimony. For a valid vow, as far as can be done, must be observed. Yet he renders rather than asks, and therefore acts licitly, the husband who asks the debt when he observes that the wife, not daring to ask, is in danger of incontinence. The same is also licit to him if within matrimony, with the wife assenting, he has emitted the vow. Moreover, for a wife who, ignorant of the matter, married a man who was bound by a vow, it can be too hard that she herself, by asking the conjugal act, should be forced to do violence to her own modesty. In these circumstances the husband also can and must, as if acting for the wife, ask the conjugal debt, as he understands it to be desired by the wife. But it is better to obtain a dispensation from the vow (Cf. Lehmkuhl, Theol. mor., II, 1080).

But a simultaneous vow of chastity emitted by both with mutual consent, of itself contains an agreement by which each renounces his own right of asking (at least as to the exercise or use). Wherefore of itself neither can then either ask or render the debt, since the one asking asks without right. Yet the husband is not prohibited from using his probable power of irritating the vows of the wife and rendering her free. She can then remit the agreement and indirectly irritate the vow of the husband, so that she may recover an unimpeded use of marriage.

But sins done against the vow are opposed to religion alone. It is clear, moreover, that such vows are not to be made except seriously and prudently, and that spouses must be turned away from inconstancy of mind in a good purpose.

¹ Nevertheless this obligation of recalling a past action to honesty is not perceived by all. Wherefore there will be one who will permit copulation to both simply, or with consideration of the difficulty of continence omitted.

b) When. Copulation is not prohibited either while the spouse is pregnant or while she is giving the breasts. Moderate diligence will have to be used, in the former case, to avert the danger of abortion if any should be present, especially in the first weeks.

During the time of menstrual flow, no positive prohibition now exists, but copulation then is to be dissuaded, lest harm be done to mutual esteem and love by an insolent and unbecoming petition of this kind, unless, for obtaining fecundation of a sterile wife, physicians advise that this time is to be chosen.

After birth, abstinence for one week, indeed for two weeks, is to be prescribed, because copulation then would be dangerous for the wife. But a sensible man will abstain from the use of marriage until the organs have been fully quieted, i.e. for about six weeks.

Nothing serious can be objected to copulation which takes place after a meal, after a bath.

When the wife is sick, the things said concerning copulation perhaps harmful return.

By no positive law is the use of marriage forbidden on the night before Holy Communion. Nor is the spouse to be held back from more frequent approach to the holy table on account of the conjugal debt. That sometimes, before more solemn days, spouses abstain by mutual consent, St. Paul himself seems to advise (1 Cor. 7, 5).

Those spouses also are to be praised who, imitating Tobias, have wished voluntarily to dedicate to God the first-fruits of their matrimony by a three-day abstinence.

c) How. 1. The natural mode is that the man, lying above, know the wife lying beneath and turned toward him. But no change of position will be mortal, so long as it permits sufficient semination within the vessel, so that the copulation of itself (other circumstances being omitted which can exclude that hope) brings a truly probable hope of fecundation. It matters little that part of the semen is lost beyond intention.

2. Application of the semen to the opening of the vagina does not bring a truly probable hope. And the very notion of true congress seems to be lacking, so that I would say rather that two simultaneous pollutions are being exercised. Wherefore we judge that this mode is never lawful. Nevertheless there are approved authors who concede it, when the other mode is here and now impassable, for example on account of the excessive heat of the man, who immediately experiences pollution, or on account of nervous incapacity of erection, or vaginismus. Wherefore, until the Holy See has decided the matter, with attention to that extrinsic probability of the opinion permitting it, we will not then condemn that use. But no Catholic author permits that this mode be employed with the counsel that offspring be avoided, or that, with the hope of fecundation diminished, a childbirth dangerous to the wife be forestalled.

But a modest penetration of the vagina already preserves the notion of true copulation. Wherefore that mode chosen studiously does not exceed venial fault.

It is consonant with nature, and is also to be commended for the sake of health itself, that both spouses experience the heat of pleasure at the same time. Yet because it seems sufficient for the law of union that the heats of both be morally joined, this is not grave, and, with some cause acceding, it will be without fault that, whether during copulation or immediately after copulation, the wife is brought by her own touch or by the touch of the husband to enjoy perfect pleasure. A just cause will be present if, on account of lesser heat, the wife could not be moved in the congress itself, or if the man himself is scarcely excited otherwise than by seeing the excitement of the wife and could complete the copulation. But the same cannot be permitted to the man after the wife has withdrawn herself: it would be delayed pollution.

d) Why. By intention contrary to the end of generation, spouses are altogether and under grave sin prohibited from doing anything positive by which conception is impeded or made less probable, at least if they have thought that they would effect a serious or notable difficulty. Thus the man could not, content with partial semination, withdraw himself and deliberately waste the remaining semen outside the vessel¹. But to abstain from the better mode, which nevertheless was at hand, and to employ that mode which in itself is honest or only lightly sinful; to abstain, I say, lest offspring be generated, will not be gravely culpable.

Indeed, for the causes which explain it, the intention itself will be able to be good in itself (Cf. De Smet, De sponsal., n. 209; Noldin, De sexto, n. 68).

¹ It must be said otherwise if, by reason of the mode employed, part of the semen is poured forth per accidens or beyond intention.

e) With what aids. The Holy Office has rejected artificial fecundation whenever the semen to be infused must be obtained by previous pollution. - But if, for begetting offspring, it seems conducive that the semen, after it has been received in the natural way (not therefore in a condom), is then extracted so that it may be cast more deeply into the vagina, that matter seems to fall under no reprehension. It will also be lawful by some manner of puncture to take semen from the epididymis of the husband so that it may be infused into the vessel of the wife: for, without any venereal abuse, the end of matrimony will be obtained in this way.

If the man, in order to excite himself, has need of obscene images, their looking upon before copulation will be made honest by that utility and end. Yet desire of another person will have to be excluded. For it would be wicked to complete copulation with an adulterous mind. But he is not an adulterer who, as it were, clothes his own wife with another's beauty, so that thus he may increase affection toward his own spouse.

f) Where. A secret place is demanded by the very sense of modesty. Wherefore those who perchance are discovered in the act of marriage can break off the copulation, even with certain foresight of pollution (short of consent to the pollution).

From the reverence owed to a sacred place, it is evident that one must not there indulge the work of marriage. Yet those who have been shut up for a long time (for several weeks or for a month) in a sacred building, or are in danger of incontinence, are excused by necessity itself.

What if the marriage is of doubtful validity? 1. Before serious investigation of the matter, or before the marriage has been made certain by dispensation, the one doubting, for his part, must abstain from every active use, perfect or imperfect, of marriage; yet to the other party, living in good faith, he can and must render the debt. The case was authentically solved by Innocent III in c. 44 De sent. excomm. (V, 39). Nor is he forced to disturb that good faith by an admonition which would often be full of inconveniences. For possession of good faith gives to the asking spouse a certain right, which also, according to the opinion of Sanchez, prevails over the right of a prior spouse, which he says is uncertain because it is of an uncertain subject, i.e. perhaps of one not living (Matr., l. 2, d. 42, n. 6; cf. c. 2 De secundis nuptiis, IV, 21). If the doubt is common, each must suspend every use of matrimony before investigation of the doubt or an obtained dispensation.

2. If inquiry is shown from the beginning to be going to be fruitless, or if the doubt, from inquiry made, has turned out invincible, most, on account of the right of possession, permit to those who contracted in good faith every use, even active and spontaneous, of marriage. And St. Alphonsus thinks sufficiently probable the opinion which contends that the right of possession suffices for this, even if no other probable reason can be alleged for the value of the marriage.

3. If the marriage was contracted in bad faith, i.e. with doubt concerning an impediment, a probable opinion even then concedes the use of marriage to persons thus married, on account of the principle: in doubt one must stand for the value of matrimony.

If, however, it is a question of doubt concerning the impediment of ligamen, many deny active use to either one doubting, or every use of marriage to both doubting. For the possession of the prior marriage, which the doubting spouse unjustly violated, can stand in the way. Thus St. Alphonsus, l. 6, n. 906, alleging c. Dominus, 2, De secundis nuptiis (IV, 21). "But in reality the Pontiff does not say there that abstaining from asking is necessary, even when after diligence the doubt remains. Besides, in the same place St. Alphonsus admits that the opposite opinion is more common, which can be confirmed from those things which St. Alphonsus discusses at the end of n. 904, contending that the sentences of law regard those who by a reflex judgment have not yet put away the doubt; and indeed he affirms this there also concerning the case of the doubtful death of a spouse" (Ball.-Palm. VI, 424).

But when litigation concerning the value of the marriage has been moved, the spouses preserve the right of asking and rendering which they had before the suit, and this until a twofold sentence for nullity has been passed.

What if, after a marriage of uncertain value but whose two parties certainly live, another marriage is contracted in good or bad faith, whose value depends altogether on the nullity of the prior one? For example, Caia deserts Titius, with whom she had celebrated marriage some weeks before, alleging this cause, that the intention of marrying had been lacking to her. Titius contracts other nuptials with Sempronia. Observe how this case differs formally from a case in which only the life of the prior spouse is uncertain. For the title or right of the latter was certain, but the possession, or fact, was uncertain; while in the present case the possession of the prior marriage is certain, but the right uncertain. Wherefore of itself the prior marriage is to be preferred. If, however, the person with whom he married second was ignorant of the matter and contracted in good faith, possession also supports this person, on account of which she can ask the debt. And the other marriage can also be preferred, if it is valid by a much greater probability. But one who in infidelity contracted doubtfully can, after baptism, make new nuptials with a Christian party on account of the privilege of faith.

You ask by what use matrimony is consummated. The common opinion is that matrimony is consummated by perfect copulation (cf. n. 52) (Wernz, Ius Decr., IV, 432).

For then there has been a commingling of the seeds such as the ancients understood to suffice that the spouses become "one flesh"; and all admit that this is required and suffices for consummation (Cf. St. Thomas, Suppl. 3 P., q. 55, art. 4, ad 2). Lehmkuhl, however (II, 998), theoretically postulates that the woman has supplied a mature ovum in the usual way. Wherefore, concerning the consummation of marriage with a wife whose ovaries have been perfectly excised, doubt can be had (Cf. Wernz, IV, 432, note 51). This commingling of seeds is presumed in both fora if on the part of the man the act has been completed.

Formerly there were, for example, Ledesma¹, who, distinguishing the requisites for affinity and for the consummation of matrimony, said that not indeed for affinity but for consummation there sufficed a copulation through which the barrier of the woman is opened, even without semination: and this on account of the injury itself done to the woman.

Finally, what if conception has happened without copulation? Sanchez² affirms that the matrimony has been consummated, whom Lehmkuhl, l.c., favors, because in the conceived offspring the spouses have especially been made one flesh. Yet not a few today deny this, with C. Gasparri (De matrimonio, II, 1302).

Indeed, according to the opinion of Sanchez, l.c., by any internal reception of male semen into the vessel of the woman, even if it has happened without any copulation, matrimony is consummated. This opinion, formerly common, today seems to be less received in the Curia.

II. - What Use of Marriage Is Owed

¹ Tractatus de magno matrimonii sacramento, q. 58, art. 1.

² De Matrimonio, l. 7, d. 61, n. 15 (on account of those things which he says concerning simple internal reception of semen).

1. From justice the conjugal act must be rendered to the other spouse who asks it expressly or tacitly, yet reasonably and seriously. And this obligation is grave in its genus.

He does not ask reasonably who asks copulation in an unnatural manner (even if it is substantially honest), or too frequently, for example several times in the same night. Nor does he who asks in a state of madness or drunkenness, since the act is not human. And he who by prayers is led to change his counsel withdraws from the petition. That party asks tacitly who complains of the rarity of use or of offspring.

If, after the frequency of use has been considered, the matter appears light, to deny the debt sometimes will be able to be a light sin, if danger of incontinence is absent.

A just cause will excuse from rendering the debt, for example a harm to be feared, one's own rather notable sickness, and, as seems to us with many, the danger of bringing forth a dead fetus or monstrous or miserable offspring.

But offspring multiplied too greatly is not a just cause for denying the debt. For the intention of avoiding offspring could not be obtained without long abstinence, joined with too great danger of incontinence, which the other spouse is not bound to admit. At most, the matter could be arranged so that the use of matrimony is reserved for those days on which there is less hope of fecundation (i.e., according to Capellmann, after 14 days from menstruation until 4 days before the new menstruation).

It also happens that, from a psychological state and neuropathy, one spouse is invaded by an almost insuperable fear, for example, of birth or of offspring. Such a one is efficaciously to be exhorted to put away that fear; yet scruples are not to be cast upon him with slight hope of success, since the healthy spouse, in order to avoid graver evils, will easily remit enough from his own right, although the matter is unpleasant to him, so that the other may be excused from grave sin.

To the party who has fallen from his right by adultery (to which sodomitical or bestial copulation is assimilated), or by a valid abdication, for example that of a professed religious, the act will not have to be conceded from justice. To him who illicitly asks an act which the other can licitly do (as if the one who alone is bound by vow asks it), assent does not seem to be owed: the one asking, if he is repelled, is not reasonably unwilling.

— From charity and piety toward the spouse, the family, and the fatherland, copulation must be asked when it is necessary for averting an imminent danger of incontinence in the other spouse; or for strengthening peace and mutual friendship; or when the fatherland demands an heir of the kingdom, and the peace and tranquility of the family demand a son who may succeed the parents.

III. What Use of Marriage Is to Be Desired

— That use of marriage is to be desired which is made by mutual consent, willingly, and with moderate frequency. After the fervor of the first weeks, many hand down this norm for the stronger age, which is said to flourish between 25 and 40 years, that congresses be had twice or three times in the week. But since powers vary, others more prudently counsel that, artificial excitations having been removed, spouses rather obey desire arisen spontaneously.

Moreover the wife is to be reproved who has accused herself because she deliberately restrains excitement, whether under the false pretext of religion, or, what would be worse, because she is impelled by some anger or aversion of mind. But she is to be exhorted that in rendering the debt she show herself prompt and easy.

The man, on the contrary, who has accused excess is to be exhorted to a tempered, human, and becoming use of his right, without those sordid arts which, together with mutual esteem, lessen the happiness of marriage.

For the rest, the use of marriage is commanded to spouses by no positive law.