Chapter III: Preparation for Matrimony and Its Right Constitution

Usefulness. This chapter must contain not a few things by which priests will be able opportunely to perform their office of counselors. At the same time it vindicates the rights of parents, which today are too much neglected.

I. Compared parts of the confessor and pastor. To the pastor and confessor, in apt preparation for matrimony, parts sufficiently similar are incumbent. The former, however, more from justice, the latter more from charity, must give labor so that marriages are contracted only under favorable auspices. The part of neither is to act as if procurators of marriages, a thing which abounds in envies and dangers; but each must be a prudent counselor both of parents and of betrothed persons. The pastor, however, will give responses and suggest counsels more from his own investigation and knowledge; the confessor, more from the indications supplied to him. The inquiry concerning impediments to be foreseen pertains rather to the proper province of the pastor. Nevertheless, opportune interrogation by the confessor cannot be neglected, if the things said in confession introduce suspicion of some occult impediment. Reckless marriages are more prudently and effectively cut off by general counsels before a definite occasion has offered itself than when excited desires and ambitions have begun to blind parents and children, and an easy revelation of the counsel given can render the priest who dissuades odious. Therefore:

II. Among parents these things are to be procured:. a) that a strong and generous formation render sons and daughters apt for the burdens of matrimony; b) that they turn away from matrimony those little apt, for example from weakness of body; c) that, within the limits of congruent unions, they permit to their children, especially females, a conscious and free option of a person truly loved¹. And that the option may be conscious, it is necessary that the daughter who seems about to live a secular life has seasonably drawn a sufficient notion concerning sexual matters, concerning the mutual rights and duties of spouses, and that this instruction to be done not be committed to the husband after nuptials; d) that they yield to no destructive ambition by which they seek splendid rather than happy nuptials for their children; e) that they desire and strive to prepare for their children only such nuptials in which an intimate conjunction of souls ennobles and strengthens bodily conjunction.

But at no price should the pastor and confessor make themselves accomplices of illustrious or rich parents who pursue for a son corrupt in abandoned morals an angelic bride, ignorant of evil and deceived in the qualities of the bridegroom.

¹ Nevertheless parents are by no means prohibited from fostering commerce and joining acquaintance with those families in which desirable nuptials offer themselves almost spontaneously to their children. Indeed this is greatly to be advised, so that children may be preserved from reckless counsels and loves.

III. 1. Especially upon young men there must be inculcated what Augustine himself already admonished, that by human dignity and equity itself it is demanded that they preserve themselves pure for the bride whom they require pure for themselves¹; nor is any dispensation had in matrimony itself from the strong command by which reason must hold the passions subjected, since more and more frequently the necessity of continence in every state is imposed by civil culture itself; furthermore, that an undefiled approach to matrimony contributes very much to the happiness itself of marriage, and a human, not brutal, use of the rights of matrimony.

2. A daughter must be admonished that she be mindful of her own worth, that she not hand herself over as cheap merchandise to the first buyer, but defer much to the authority of good parents, who are solicitous only concerning her true utility. Let her consider how worthy of confidence the young man must be to whom she hands herself over wholly to be possessed!

¹ Cf. Serm. 132, P.L. 38, 735: "Such as you wish those wives to come to you, such ought they also to find you."

IV. Illicit marriages, marriages to be dissuaded, marriages to be desired. 1. From c. 1060 itself, we know that by divine law also those marriages are forbidden which bring a grave danger of perversion, such as frequently are not only those which are joined between a Catholic and a non-Catholic party, but also, and no less, those which are contracted with a person alien to Catholic piety, or, what is worse, hostile to religion. Besides perversion of the intellect, today moral perversion is to be feared, from the too famous abuse of matrimony through neo-Malthusian arts, which are to be imputed either to one or the other of the betrothed persons or especially even to the parents of the wife. Wherefore Christian prudence obliges the Catholic and pious party to render himself more certain concerning the very faculty and facility of an honorable life. Nor indeed can the conjugal life be happy or safe which morally forces one of the betrothed persons to perpetual complicity, at least material, with the sins of the other.

2. Marriages are also to be dissuaded where concord of souls cannot be perfect; nor can the betrothed truly become intimate, one to the other.

3. But marriages are to be desired which join persons physically apt, of the same or similar civil culture, agreeing concerning true religion and right morals, so that they may mutually aid and perfect each other, and give to the earthly fatherland, as also to the Church militant, children who will someday be citizens of the heavenly fatherland.

Sufficient instruction in mutual duties. is to be procured. 1. The things which must be known are nearly these: a) that among spouses all acts are lawful which of themselves are necessary or useful for generating offspring, although, from the side of the extrinsic end, a venial disorder can occur; b) that equal is, as regards those acts, the right of each one to ask them, and equal also the grave obligation of not denying them, unless they are excused by grave inconvenience (cf. 1 Cor. 7, 3-5); c) that acts will be mortal which of themselves would impede this end of the propagation of the human race. And let those about to marry be raised up into confidence in divine Providence; d) that consummated acts against nature are mortal, or acts which of themselves are, as it were, begun pollution, when they are done in those circumstances in which copulation will not immediately be had; e) that other things among spouses are free from grave fault, or even from every fault, if there was a just cause.

2. These things will more aptly be handed down through a book or through upright married persons. Nevertheless to a pious bridegroom, if there is need, something, more, can be said cautiously by a priest. But to a man little religious, the confessor will often more prudently demonstrate merely in general the sanctity of that state, the dignity of the wife, the reverence due to her, and how much more humane morals, a happy matrimonial life, and especially the perseverance of mutual fidelity and love, demand that the spouse not be taken up as an instrument of pleasures.

3. With the bride a briefer conversation will have to be had. If she is conscious of the use of matrimony, the things said above should be explained to her in a more general manner; but if she is ignorant of the matter, she should be sent, for instruction, to a pious mother, a religious matron. And if it is at hand, let a little book be supplied by which the mutual duties and rights are explained clearly and honorably at the same time.

It will also be good counsel that she not defer confession long after matrimony, in which she may obtain the solution of fuller doubts.

I. Honorable ends of the contracting parties. The primary end of the institution is not to be obtained or pursued in individual marriages. For the fitting propagation of the human race does not require this, provided there is no action against the primary end, but, in the proper action of marriage, the order to that end is substantially preserved.

Therefore matrimony is contracted honorably: 1. For the end of generating and educating offspring, who may be useful to the state and to the Church, or who at least may be heir of the heavenly kingdom; 2. As a remedy of concupiscence, intending nothing else, according to that saying of St. Paul: "For it is better to marry than to burn" (1 Cor. 7, 9); 3. For mutual help or conjugal society, and therefore even with a pact of preserving continence, provided nothing is done against the primary end of matrimony; 4. For honorable ends extrinsic to matrimony, not contrary to the intrinsic ends, for example for composing peace between kingdoms or families, for preserving the splendor of the family.

Concerning him who in matrimony merely seeks the pleasure of the flesh or the satisfaction of the appetite of excellence, from the noble place or opulence which he thence enjoys, concerning him, I say, who seeks these things, with the mode of temperance nevertheless preserved, there returns the controversy concerning one acting for the sake of delight, which we examined in the general part n. 117. Nevertheless, considering the gravity of the matter, it is scarcely conceived how a reasonable choice of state can be commanded by the pursuit of delight alone.

II. An honorable manner of contracting. demands: 1. That the contracting parties be in the state of grace if and when they receive the sacrament. Yet because they are not consecrated ministers, those who contract in mortal sin are guilty of one grave sacrilege only, and this insofar as they receive the sacrament, not insofar as they minister the sacrament. But the material cooperation which one betrothed person gives to the other contracting in the state of mortal sin is for the most part excused by a proportionate reason.

2. That the ecclesiastical prescriptions concerning the celebration of matrimony be observed.

3. That they then give properly matrimonial consent when the substantial form is observed. Wherefore Catholics are to be admonished that they reserve it for the moment when they appear before their competent priest and two witnesses for entering matrimony. Before the civil magistrate it is lawful for them to have only this intention truly, of admitting the civil sanctions and obligations to the matrimony which they have already contracted or are about to contract in the face of the Church. Nor therefore do they have anything to fear for the civil validity of their act, since, in this cause, the very reason of liberty of conscience and religion demands that the civil magistrate be content with consent so expressed. Otherwise, recent patrons of free love could never celebrate valid civil nuptials.

I. 1. Both the pastor and the confessor must be, not procurators of marriages, but prudent counselors of parents and betrothed persons. The pastor more from justice and his own inquiry; the confessor more from indications supplied to him, which nevertheless must be completed by opportune interrogation. Moreover souls are more prudently and effectively turned away from reckless counsels generally than recalled from recklessness already begun.

2. Let parents procure that their children be physically and morally apt; that they dissuade nuptials from the little apt; that they allow their children a sufficiently free option; that they put happy nuptials before splendid ones.

3. Let young men preserve themselves pure for the chaste matrimonial covenant; let the daughter be mindful of her own dignity and worth.

4. Illicit are marriages which induce grave moral danger; to be dissuaded are those from which perfect concord cannot be hoped; to be desired are those which are contracted between persons physically apt, of similar civil culture, agreeing concerning true religion and right morals.

5. Sufficient instruction in mutual duties is to be procured; nevertheless let this be done prudently and cautiously by a priest, who therefore will send the bride rather to a person of her sex or to a well-written little book.

II. 1. Ends of the contracting parties. Matrimony is contracted honorably for the generation of men, as a remedy of concupiscence, for mutual help, even with a pact of preserving continence, and for other honorable ends not contrary to the intrinsic ends. Delight itself is not forbidden to be sought moderately. Nevertheless an exclusive pursuit of delight does not seem able to be composed with the gravity of the state undertaken.

2. The betrothed, when they receive the sacrament, must be in the state of grace; otherwise, as receiving, but not as conferring the sacrament, they would be sacrilegious. The material cooperation of the other betrothed is for the most part excused by a proportionate cause. Ecclesiastical prescriptions concerning the celebration of matrimony must be observed; and consent must be given when the substantial form is employed, i.e. before the pastor and witnesses.