Chapter — Vermeersch, Theologia Moralis
Chapter IV: Duties of Matrimonial Chastity
Before you read this chapter
This chapter sets out plainly what the moral law permits and forbids to husband and wife. The authors wrote these pages for two readers only: for priests and those preparing for the confessional; and for those engaged to be married, or married, who have true need to understand the nature and obligations of marital relations. It is not reading for anyone else, and it is not reading for curiosity — the authors say so themselves, gravely and with one voice.
St. Alphonsus begged even his own students not to read this matter except for its one lawful end, “casting away every curiosity whatsoever”, and to commend themselves to God while they read, lest in learning to help other souls they harm their own (Wouters, Admonition). If you have no true need of these pages, the safe and virtuous course is to go back: what is written here is for a state of life, not for wondering about.
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Usefulness. The necessity of this chapter is too manifest to be demonstrated. But day by day there increase in number cases concerning lawful and unlawful things between spouses, and concerning the material cooperation of spouses in the sins of the other.