Article III: On the Lust of Spouses

I. - On Conjugal Onanism

The Gravity of the Sin. 1. Complete pleasure sought by spouses, even in their mutual relation, in that mode by which at the same time they positively impede generation, i.e., the onanistic use of marriage, is intrinsically and gravely evil.

Catholic tradition, proceeding from the Holy Fathers and contained in the unanimous opinion of theologians and in the ordinary magisterium of the Church, testifies to this; and reason confirms it: for spouses exercise as individuals and in their own name an act which by its primary character is an act of the species, to be exercised by spouses representing the human species and acting for it. Therefore that act contains a substantial violation of the essential order, since it is against the order of the whole generative faculty.

2. The chief neo-Malthusian arts¹ are: a) interrupted coitus; b) mechanical arts of preventing the male semen from being able to penetrate the uterus. (The instrument which, for this end, the man uses is called a condom; while the plug applied to the uterus is called a pessary.) To this can be recalled the placing, within the vagina, of a sufficiently thin membrane in the manner of a pseudo-vagina, into which the semen is emitted. This is then drawn out with the semen; c) internal vaginal washing, by which, after copulation, the vagina having been washed, the semen is expelled. Washing done for the end of sterility is generally made more efficacious by antiseptic substances, by which the semen is killed; d) the sprinkling through the vagina of a chemical substance by which the sperm may be killed.

Concerning these arts the following things are to be observed: copulation is rightly begun by a man who abuses matrimony by mere withdrawal, and an act wholly licit is exercised up to that moment, while it is vitiated from the beginning if the man uses a "condom" - by the pessary which the woman uses copulation itself is not impeded - washing of the vagina takes place after perfect copulation. These things must be attended to for complicity. For:

3. When the man abuses matrimony by mere withdrawal, the whole malice of the act proceeds from the malice of the man; the wife lends her work to a licit matter. Wherefore, considering only cooperation, no special cause is required why she renders the debt; nor, if it is grave for her to be deprived of copulation, is she prohibited from asking copulation. Yet if by the repulse of the wife the husband can be brought sufficiently quickly to using marriage rightly, charity will oblige the wife to procure the amendment of the husband by a denial which is not grave for the wife herself. Likewise a husband whose wife, against the husband's will, wishes to use a pessary or to wash the vagina, must prudently use marital authority to correct the wife.

4. But lest he seem to consent to sin, and so that he may exercise fraternal correction, the other spouse must by warnings and prayers, repeated several times according to hope of fruit, turn the other away from this crime. That is, he must act in such a way: a) that it be clear to the other spouse concerning his persevering repugnance to that sin; b) that, if there is hope of fruit, he may recall the other to conjugal duties.

Gravely, on the contrary, will the spouse sin who, directly or indirectly, by complaints concerning numerous offspring, etc., draws the other into the onanistic use of marriage or confirms the other in it. And he must revoke his evil counsels.

5. The wife can in no way permit the husband to place a pessary in her, or to approach with the male member covered. She can yield only to prevailing force, almost as an unmarried woman who is oppressed. Cf. response of the Sacred Penitentiary, April 3 and June 3, 1916 (De Castitate, n. 263).

Wherefore threats of adultery cannot suffice that the wife passively tolerate the approach of the husband. This grave reason is added. If because of a cause of this sort we permit cooperation, which with difficulty will now be distinguished from formal cooperation, in the intrinsically illicit act of the husband, a convenient means is supplied to husbands for obtaining from pious wives whatever they wish. This notice will soon be spread: "Your pious wife resists you! Allege the will of committing adultery and she will concede to you what you seek." Yet by this general rule we do not wish to comprehend the altogether special case in which, because of concurrent circumstances, a most grave moral fear is inflicted. Then it will belong to confessors to weigh all things prudently: both the things which the husband seeks, and what sort of fear is inflicted.

N.B. - The very full fruition of the woman must be morally joined with the use of marriage, perfect on the part of the man, lest the wife be able fraudulently and perpetually to seek for herself the full use of the venereal faculty outside the operation which of itself bespeaks an order to generation. Yet when copulation is broken off by the will of the man alone, they permit the wife, during the copulation or before it has been begun, to experience and admit perfect delight. (Cf., for example, Lehmkuhl, Theol. mor., I, 1095.) But if from the beginning both have wished only imperfect copulation (with the man withdrawing himself without pollution), the studied procuring of complete pleasure can be conceded to neither, at any moment. But when copulation has been broken off, the wife can neither excite herself nor consent to full delight which has arisen. For that excitation can no longer be added as a complement to the conjugal act which remained imperfect.

¹ Malthus, in the celebrated work Essay on the Principle of Population (London, 1798), preached honest abstinence, "moral restraint," lest the propagation of the human race flourish excessively. Wherefore he was praised by Joseph de Maistre, and also recently by other Catholic writers. Cf., for example, P. Bureau, L'indiscipline des moeurs, P. 3, c. 10. The neo-Malthusians, however, teach and inculcate the same moderation by an artificial manner which deprives spouses of no delight.

Duties of the Confessor and the Preacher. Concerning a matter which is treated so openly, in the newspapers themselves, good faith can scarcely exist in penitents. Those who, while they frequent the sacraments, err in this matter are easily harmful to others by imprudent words or counsels; and because of a light indication, they think the matter is permitted or at least tolerated by the confessor. It is a question of a most grave evil which everywhere, on account of the common good, must be fought. These things having been weighed:

1. Confessor: a) unless by a positive indication it appears that suspicion of this vice does not fall upon the penitent, he will question unknown spouses by a general interrogation whether all things are well in matrimony, whether they are troubled by some scruple; b) those whom he has found to be onanists, he will regularly warn concerning their crime; c) if the spouse, with attention to the mode by which the excess is committed, can begin copulation well or admit it when begun, he will instruct that spouse concerning this faculty, lest he begin or continue to commit formal sins; d) in some rare case, where good faith has been surrounded by extraordinary circumstances, and the danger of scandal has disappeared together with the danger of excessive abuse, he will press down the fault in silence. Good faith will more easily be present in a wife who, having denied assent, thinks that she can cast all fault upon the husband, and does not distinguish among the modes by which the abuse is committed; or also in grave sickness. Nor then are excessive abuses to be feared of themselves.

2. Preacher: The preacher, especially the habitual one, or he to whom, as pastor, it belongs to provide for the salvation and good morals of the faithful, must hand on to the people the whole evangelical truth.

And these things are to be performed regularly and prudently. We say regularly, on account of accidental exceptions; prudently, with attention to the quality and authority of the sacred minister, with consideration of the people, who can be firm or weak in faith, at least in part immune from the contagion of the vice or already morally wholly indulging the vice, and long accustomed already to have silent pastors; also with attention to the mode, which is not necessarily a vehement rebuke or increpation, but can also retain the sweetness of a calm exposition.

Come now, that we may define something more exactly, according to our powers, concerning a matter so grave and so daily:

a) negatively: never can a sacred minister, whether preaching or hearing confessions, so act, speak, or be silent that he deservedly seems to connive at onanism.

Nor can he foster by counsel, nor simply approve, sterility sought by imperfect penetration of the vagina (Holy Office, November 22-23, 1921, Per. XII), since he cannot be the author or approver even of a venial sin.

Never, even in the most miserable parish, can a pastor, conscious of general abuse, tolerate such a condition with a resigned mind in such a way that he no longer applies any attempt to eradicating it prudently.

Never, as confessor, can he absolve a penitent who at the time, certainly on account of his subjective ignorance, cannot be judged at least probably disposed.

b) Positively, however: in a parish in which the vice is not yet established or general, preachers and confessors must by open preaching and opportune warning in the tribunal of penance take care that there be no departure from right moral principles.

But in a parish where the abuse has already generally prevailed and by the long silence of confessors has been as it were strengthened, a new pastor can, before he denounces the grave obligation or openly condemns the abuse, prepare minds to receive the truth with ears well docile or at least patient, with the negative requisites just listed always meanwhile preserved.

A missionary preacher will be able to abstain from an untimely warning. And you should observe that, more than in secret confession, in public preaching of the divine word, obedience is to be given to the pastor who invited him, and much more to the Ordinary.

Moreover, effort must be made that by common counsels the deliberate action be more uniform and therefore efficacious. Nor is the duty to ask the local Ordinary in more difficult matters to be passed over, whose commands can also induce more uniform action.

Corollary. No washing of the vagina for expelling semen and impeding generation is licit, but it contains the guilt of attempted (usually vainly) onanism, just as the wife sins by intention who, by an ineffective manner (a vain remedy, restraining her own distillation, rising to urinate), has wished to render copulation sterile. Nor will she be able to obey a husband commanding such things, unless she first has warned him concerning his error.

Yet it is lawful from the vagina and from the uterus itself to expel non-fecundated semen which a woman, having suffered force, has received unwillingly: it is a mode of repelling an unjust aggressor.

Vaginal washing done for another end seems lawful already after an hour from copulation, since then it no longer morally impedes generation. Those who require an interval of six hours tacitly suppose that no loss of semen, not even partial, can be permitted.

II. - On Other Excesses

I. He who has completed the conjugal act outside the due vessel must declare this character of the sin, even if sodomitical affection was absent. For it contains a special violation of the sanctity of marriage, of the duty of mutual piety, and, if the wife was not formally an accomplice, injustice. But in what abominable part the thing was done does not regard the species.

He also is injurious who, when the other reasonably dissents, has interrupted copulation, even short of pollution, since each has a right to perfect copulation.

Pollutions excited by mutual touches are gravely opposed to the sanctity of marriage and to the duties of conjugal piety, so that the circumstance of marriage is to be indicated.

II. Complete pleasure sought or admitted separately by either spouse adds to the malice of pollution a grave malice against justice or the sanctity of marriage. For since, from the mutual handing over of bodies, one spouse possesses the body of the other for complete venereal use, if he has done it against the will of the other, he sins by the sin of imperfect adultery; but if the other spouse assents, he nevertheless without doubt has violated the sanctity of marriage, in which God wills that that faculty be reserved for the common use of both.

III. Exterior perfect or imperfect venereal acts exercised with other persons add to the malice of lust the malice of complete or incomplete adultery.

By the assent of the other spouse, the peculiar character of injustice is removed, on account of the universal principle: no injury is done to one consenting; yet there remains the special malice of violated sanctity of marriage, so that the sin does not become simple fornication, as proposition 50, condemned by Innocent XI, March 2, 1679, as at least scandalous and pernicious in practice, asserted.

Thus adultery committed against the will of the spouse and adultery committed with the assent of the spouse are specifically distinguished. Some deny this, because the right of the spouse is inalienable; but the consent by which injury is removed is not necessarily the consent of one alienating a right: the consent of one not opposing his right suffices. But it pertains to the very essence of a right that it always be in the power of the one having it to oppose or not to oppose the right.

Double adultery, which is committed by a sinning spouse with the spouse of another, must be accused as such, because, besides his own principal act, he must declare the complicity with the other's principal act; nor can he positively deceive the confessor, who without that declaration would understand adultery with one not married.

Shameful conversations are not judged to be terminated to the persons conversing in such a way that, from their quality, they put on a new species as such.

IV. Interior acts are to be judged from the object, which, when it is a question of a spouse, can be honest, or befouled by an adulterous or sacrilegious affection.

V. By marriage attempted with another person, the spouse sins most gravely against the sanctity of marriage, piety, and justice toward the other spouse. He also is unjust who illicitly separates himself from the other spouse, or asks for civil divorce.

I. 1. Lawful Copulation. Copulation, honest in object between spouses, by which, according to the opinion more received today, marriage is consummated, is lawfully asked for begetting offspring, for testifying love, for calming concupiscence, indeed for seeking delight temperately. But the petition of the other is a sufficient reason for the other to render, unless grave harm stands in the way, whether one's own, or that of the other spouse, or of offspring already conceived.

Very rarely will there be certainty of such harm from a future birth as would prohibit copulation under grave sin.

As to circumstances, one doubtfully impotent can attempt copulation; but not one certainly impotent, unless in the very attempt there is a probable remedy and the introduction of semen is procured according to his powers.

Even sterility badly procured, at least if it is going to be perpetual or long-lasting or if abstinence is too difficult, does not prohibit the use of marriage.

In weighing promises and vows, attention is to be given to the efficacy of a new mutual consent, and to the power of invalidating vows, whether indirect in each spouse, or probably direct in the husband. Vows, however, do not remove rights, but induce an obligation of religion.

Copulation is prohibited at no time, with the general laws of prudence and mutual friendship preserved.

No mode of copulation is prohibited, at least under grave sin, which permits sufficient semination within the vessel. Application to the mouth of the vagina does not of itself give sufficient probability of fecundation for that mode to be chosen, at least when another is possible. Besides, the very character of copulation seems to be lacking here.

To abstain from copulation on certain days, lest offspring be generated, is not grave; indeed it can be honest; but with direct intention it is not lawful in the act of copulation to squander even part of the semen outside the vessel.

By previous pollution, semen cannot be procured even for artificial fecundation. But useful means (even by images) for provoking the necessary excitation of copulation are not to be disapproved.

A secret place is required for copulation, so that spouses, if by chance discovered, can break off copulation.

One doubting concerning the value of matrimony is forbidden at least to ask copulation before investigation. If the doubt has been insoluble, the use of matrimony is not to be prohibited. Nor is it certain that the case of doubt concerning the impediment of ligamen must be excepted, at least if then a probable reason, independent of the possession of marriage, counsels the value of the new covenant. Nor does a suit having been moved concerning the value of marriage alter the faculty of copulation.

2. Copulation Owed. Copulation must be rendered from justice to the one reasonably and seriously asking it. Yet a just cause excuses from rendering the debt. Too greatly multiplied offspring is not such a cause.

Assent does not seem to be owed to one illicitly asking. The very right of demanding is lost by adultery or a similar abuse, as also by valid abdication of the right. Charity and piety themselves can impose the duty of asking.

3. The Use of Marriage to Be Desired is that which is done by mutual consent, willingly and with moderate frequency (the appetite itself having been considered). And it is to be commended that spouses experience the heat of pleasure at the same time. Yet for honesty it suffices that, the man's pollution outside the vessel being avoided, the heats be morally joined.

II. The incomplete use of marriage is permitted also to spouses, since it is referred to the complete honest act and assists at least the secondary ends of matrimony.

Wherefore, excluding affection for an unnatural act or excessive danger of pollution, no mode of imperfect act is forbidden to them under grave sin. Indeed, on account of the end of marriage, there is none which cannot become honest. Yet acts gravely influencing of themselves toward pollution cannot be exercised by spouses unless in circumstances where, pollution urging, they can and will complete the conjugal act, or unless a grave cause otherwise demands them. But acts joined with morally certain pollution (the direct effecting of pollution always excluded) are forbidden to them under grave sin unless in circumstances where spouses can and will complete copulation. Perhaps, on account of a most grave cause, a certain material cooperation of the spouse can be tolerated. But custom brings it about that certain acts for them no longer have the character of begun pollution.

The best counsel is that spouses, in their intimate conversation, strive to compose personal dignity with tender affection.

III. Excluding grave danger of pollution, solitary imperfect acts will be honest if they are formally referred to copulation; nor even when exercised separately do they seem able to be blamed under grave sin, since the order to copulation is never entirely removed.

IV. Lust of Spouses. The onanistic use of marriage is intrinsically and gravely to be blamed: since spouses then exercise, as individuals, with the order to the species violently dissolved, an act which belongs to the species and is for the sake of the species.

Yet if copulation is rightly begun or rightly done, the spouse who strives sufficiently to turn the other away from the deadly counsel can cooperate with that copulation materially and even actively, yet taking care not to procure for himself a separate venereal satiety. And because it is a question of a public and spreading evil, the preacher or confessor cannot by his silence connive at this profanation of marriage, but both, and especially the pastor, must take care lest the community be infected by this vice; and if it has been infected, they cannot refuse or interrupt work for its healing, with effort at once prudent and constant.

Special malice in spouses is had by: a) conjugal acts completed outside the due vessel, pollutions procured by mutual touches or separately;

b) perfect or imperfect venereal acts done with other persons (except conversations of themselves, since they are not judged to be terminated to the other person). These add to the malice of lust the malice of complete or incomplete adultery. The assent of the other removes the note of injury, but not the specific malice of violated sanctity of marriage, from adultery.

Interior acts are to be judged from the object.

By marriage itself attempted with another person, or by civil divorce, or by illicit separation from bed and board, one sins against the sanctity of marriage, piety, and justice.