Article II: On the Incomplete Use of Marriage

I. On Mutual Acts

Principle. Imperfect venereal acts of themselves contain a certain beginning and preparation of the perfect act, or they are added to this as complements. These beginnings or complements participate in the moral character of the perfect use. Wherefore to those to whom the complete use of marriage is permitted, the incomplete use is of itself honest.

Again, however, since spouses are not obliged to exercise the perfect conjugal act, imperfect acts, even when the complement is lacking, keep their honesty. And as they dispose toward the perfect act and generation, so also they assist, or can assist, the secondary ends of marriage: mutual concord, indeed also the good of calming concupiscence.

Applications. These acts, according to themselves, even without a present relation to the complete act, are truly honest from the object, so that their delight also can be taken honestly. - With attention to the end, those acts are fully to be approved which are assumed so that the conjugal act may be exercised more easily and more perfectly; those also are honest which are employed for testifying love or for giving concupiscence sufficient satisfaction by which the fault of incontinence may more easily be avoided. Nor are spouses to be reproved who wish to draw from these acts moderate solaces and joys, which pertain to the virtue of eutrapelia. - With attention to the mode, the best counsel is that spouses, in their intimate conversation, should strive sweetly to compose personal dignity with tender affection, and should not wish to be delighted by base arts. Yet excluding affection for an unnatural act, or excessive danger of pollution, there is no mode which is forbidden to them under grave sin, or which cannot become honest on account of the end of marriage. - With attention to that efficacy, acts lightly influencing of themselves toward pollution, or which are joined with merely possible pollution, are never to be omitted under grave guilt on account of subsequent pollution: for this will always be accidental, and to be attributed to another non-voluntary cause, for example the excessive warmth of the spouse. These acts are chaste significations of love (kisses, embraces, tender words), and even less chaste ones done in passing, or those which the very experience of the spouses demonstrates to be ineffective for inducing pollution of themselves (in ordinary circumstances). Nor then, on account of imminent pollution, are spouses forced to exercise the conjugal act, provided the danger of consent to pollution is removed. - Acts gravely influencing, or joined with probable pollution, cannot be exercised except in circumstances where, pollution urging, they can and will complete the conjugal act, or unless they are excused by a grave cause: for then either pollution is avoided or, on account of a proportionate cause, it is permitted¹. These acts are, of themselves, impure venereal acts. - Finally, acts so lustful that of themselves they end in pollution as in a proximate term, or which are joined with morally certain pollution, are forbidden under grave sin to the spouses themselves unless in those circumstances where they can and will exercise conjugal copulation. Otherwise, they betray a depraved intention of lust, nor of themselves are they necessary or so useful for the honest ends of signifying love, etc. How pitiable is the wife of a man whom love itself does not suffice to turn away from exacting filthy arts!

N.B. - 1. Acts gravely influencing are not lawful beyond what a grave cause demands for them. Wherefore when they notice that pollution is proximately present, spouses must cease from those acts or interrupt them. Concerning this imminent excitement, one is to be warned by the other, if it can conveniently be done. Unless a grave reason does not permit delay, or unless copulation itself must be avoided for a grave cause, the acts are to be exercised in that place where, by the perfect use of marriage, the spouses can forestall pollution. The graver the danger of pollution has been, the graver the cause required that the acts be exercised elsewhere. Yet take this without anxiety, without troublesome comparisons. It is enough that the matters seem proportionate to a moral view.

2. On account of the very custom of marriage it happens that some acts, for definite persons, do not have that character of begun pollution which they are to be thought to have of themselves or for the most part. Thus there are spouses who know from experience that pollution is not imminent to them because they cease from begun copulation. Therefore, although other spouses generally cannot try that without grave guilt, these, after the circumstances have been prudently weighed, will be able for a grave cause to do it without grave guilt, or even, with attention to the cause and the rarity of pollution, without guilt, although sometimes pollutions happen.

3. Fault is more easily absent when copulation is prohibited by physical necessity than when only the will, even reasonable, of not having children stands in the way. Indeed, unless a truly grave cause underlies that will, such spouses, if pollution otherwise is imminent, must complete the copulation thus begun.

II. On Imperfect Acts Which Are Not Mutual

¹ Grave causes are judged to be the necessity of fostering mutual love which is growing weak; averting suspicion of infidelity or of propensity toward another person; cutting off the beginning of adulterous lust; compensating for the perfect use of marriage when the spouses cannot exercise it, or, for a just cause, do not wish to increase offspring by number; finally, the very petition of the other party made insistently, or so made that denial would be borne with difficulty.

1. Imperfect venereal acts, exercised by a spouse upon his own body, the other being absent, if they induce grave danger of pollution of themselves and for that agent, are for that reason prohibited under grave guilt.

When the spouse with whom the other wishes to have intercourse is present, if they are referred formally to copulation, they will be wholly honest, because of themselves they contain the utility of preparing the perfect act, which is honest and laudable.

2. Excluding grave danger of pollution, solitary imperfect acts, exercised while the spouse is absent, contain of themselves this inordination, that a spouse separately seeks for himself a pleasure which belongs to a common work. Yet that inordination is not indicated as grave by approved authors. There are indeed some who respond more severely, and St. Alphonsus himself, l. 6, n. 936, thinks that severity more probable and to be advised in practice. Yet the more severe opinion is refuted by its very consequences; for they gravely reprehend even the carnal [thing] concerning copulation had with one's wife. This would be full of scruples and dangerous for morals.

Concerning this question, Bucceroni writes these things in his special work De sexto et nono praecepto, art. IX.

"These acts, if they are venial, are venial only on account of the extrinsic disorder of the agent. Wherefore... we say that even these acts exercised by one spouse only, entirely apart from the other, speaking of themselves, or from their intrinsic nature, probably contain not even venial fault. And the reason is: 1. because if these acts are intrinsically culpable, since the matter here is always grave, either they are gravely culpable or in no way; 2. because mutual touch of spouse with spouse is probably licit outside consummated copulation for this reason, that that touch from its intrinsic nature is ordered to copulation. Wherefore, just as it is lawful for spouses in consummated copulation, so it is lawful also in copulation only begun, which is contained in those acts. But any pleasurable touch of a married person of itself is referred to copulation, which is now licit to him. Therefore the light fault which can be present in these acts can also easily be excused by an honest end, because, for example, they are suitable for calming concupiscence, and for avoiding another grave sin."

— Lustful looking, readings, and conversations are gravely culpable in themselves for spouses only when either they foster adulterous desires or they induce grave danger of pollution; and the prohibition of reading books professedly obscene can be understood more benignly for spouses. Yet equally as celibates they must beware of books which pervert the intellect or inculcate false notions concerning moral matters.