Chapter I: Notion and Ends of Matrimony

Usefulness. It is something principal to know accurately what matrimony is, or that state on account of which the virtue of chastity can be said to exist, and in which alone the appetite that is ruled by chastity finds its legitimate satisfaction.

I. Ends of matrimony. 1. The sexual conjunction to which man is borne with such great force must have its lawful use. But it will have it in the state or condition in which, in the manner which human nature requires, provision is made for the birth of men, or for the multiplication of the human race: for this is the manifest end why the faculty of generating and the appetite itself exist. Moreover that state is matrimony. In it, by a moral and loving mingling of two persons, one principle not only of generation but also of long-lasting education and perpetual vigilance is prepared for offspring, if any is to be. This unity is strengthened by a perpetual bond which, by the persuasive unitive force of mutual love, has been freely contracted, and, for the baptized, is supernaturally consecrated by the sacrament itself. Nor, without that necessity of human offspring, would the perpetual and indissoluble firmness of matrimony be well explained; although love itself inclines toward a perpetual and complete donation or communication of itself.

Wherefore the very generation of offspring is demonstrated to be the primary end of the institution of matrimony, although this destination is less immediate and less manifest than when there is question of the sexual function itself.

This is corroborated by the oracles of ancient wisdom. St. Thomas proves this said by the Philosopher: "Male and female are joined in human beings not only on account of the necessity of generation, as in the other living beings, but also on account of domestic life, in which there are certain works of man and woman"¹. And this other definition: "Matrimony is the consortium of common life and the communication of divine and human law"². With this agrees the definition of Roman law: "The conjunction of man and woman, containing an undivided custom of life": concerning which definition interpreters observe this, that the end of generation is attached by no express words. Nor have there been lacking, in the earlier age, those who thought that a certain matrimony could take place between a man and a woman without the handing over of bodies for generative acts.

To the point Palmieri³: "Offspring is the primary end of matrimonial copulation, although not the only one, I concede. It is the end of the matrimonial bond itself, distinguish: immediate, I deny; mediate, I subdistinguish: it is the only end or essential to the essence of matrimony, I deny; it is some end, indeed also primary, I concede."

2. For indeed, through the satisfaction which it offers to insolent concupiscence, matrimony provides for the honorable life of both spouses. For this reason it is said to be as a remedy of concupiscence.

3. At the same time, on account of the proper qualities of each sex, both spouses mutually complete and perfect each other. Hence a third, secondary end of matrimony is added: mutual help.

These three ends can be called the ends of the work. The first end can be called generic, or of the genus, insofar as it is immediately related to the good of the species; the second and third ends are immediately individual or personal.

4. Love, by which persons are as it were mingled, the proper qualities and inclinations by which one sex completes the other, the necessity or usefulness of instituting offspring, which unity demands the powers of each parent, all these things impel spouses to live together in a stable and more universal manner. Hence a conjugal society is spontaneously entered, from which a domestic society flowers, so that both can be called most natural. Cultivated nations, especially of the West, obeying that invitation and impulse of nature, already before Christ was born understood that a certain more general friendship and communion of life pertained to the perfect nature of matrimony, and accommodated the civil regime to this. Since this domestic society prepares the way for political society, and increases it with very many goods, it adds to matrimony an end formally social.

¹ Summa theologica, 3 p. q. 41, art. 1, c.

² Ibid. q. 44, art. 3, 4°.

³ De matrimonio, thesis III.

II. Twofold nature. Therefore matrimony can be taken more strictly and more broadly. Matrimony strictly taken, in fieri, or as a contract, can be described: "A contract and sacrament among the baptized, by which a man and woman mutually and legitimately hand over their bodies to acts by which provision is made of itself for the multiplication of the human race." In facto esse, or as a state, matrimony designates the very conjunction or bond induced by the contract. Matrimony taken more widely is defined by Roman law: "The conjunction of man and woman, containing an undivided custom of life" (Inst. L. 1, t. 9).

— The order of relations, to be preserved between spouses, is adapted to the requirements of the primary end. And this observance of order also serves the second and third end wonderfully.

Nevertheless, in weighing the obligations of spouses, the broader nature by which matrimony is conceived among us, beyond the manner in which it always and everywhere ought to have existed, is not to be passed over.

1. The venereal appetite, which exists on account of the propagation of the human race, obtains its legitimate satisfaction in the state in which provision is made for the due birth of men, that is, in matrimony.

Therefore the primary end of matrimony, but not the immediate or only end, is the due propagation of the human race. There are added the end of calming concupiscence; of mutual help; and, especially among cultivated nations, the formally social end of constituting domestic society.

2. Matrimony accepted more strictly in fieri, or as a contract, and among the baptized as a sacrament, has as its object the handing over of bodies for acts by which provision is made of itself for the due propagation of the human race; in facto esse, or as a state, it denotes the bond induced by that contract, and which obtains a special firmness from the sacrament.

Taken more broadly, it is the conjunction of man and woman, containing an undivided custom of life (Inst. L. I, t. 9).

Relations between spouses must be required according to the primary end, with any contrariety excluded. In weighing mutual obligations, the broader nature of matrimony cannot be neglected.