Chapter IV: On Piety Between Spouses

Mutual offices. By marriage itself spouses are united by the greatest bond of proximity, so that a spouse is preferred to the children themselves, and, except for extreme necessity, to the parents themselves. Wherefore spouses mutually owe one another love, cohabitation, support.

From the very natural law, confirmed by evangelical law, there belongs of itself to the man a certain authority which is more defined by positive law. Because the man is the head of the wife, she must obey her husband in those things which regard the governance of the house and good morals; yet he must treat the wife not as a servant but as an associate. But in the use of marriage, with the Apostle as witness (1 Cor. 7, 3. 4), spouses are of equal condition (cf. c. 1111). Wherefore each owes to the other the cohabitation necessary for that use, so that without a just cause it is lawful for neither to be absent for a long time. Moreover the wife must adhere to the man and follow him, provided she herself can do this without danger of life or health, and the contrary has not been explicitly or tacitly agreed upon, nor the husband after the nuptials has become wandering.

Those obligations are sanctioned by each law, civil and canonical. This latter also, with special law preserved, makes the wife a participant in the status of the husband (c. 1112). By each law, for certain causes, separation, whether temporary or perpetual, is admitted (cf. c. 1128 ff.). Several civil laws have attacked the firmness of marriage by perfect divorce: which canon law does not admit except in the case of the Pauline privilege, or of a ratified and non-consummated marriage which, for just causes, has been dissolved by the Supreme Pontiff. Cf. more where Marriage is treated, III, 812-822.

The wife can sin gravely by the usurpation itself of domestic power, if the husband is truly and reasonably unwilling. But a husband who, as a prodigal, has dissipated the goods of the family gives the wife a just cause for introducing herself into the administration of the house.

That it may defer to the authority of the husband, canon law assigns the domicile of the husband to a wife who has not been legitimately separated from her husband, permitting to the wife only her own quasi-domicile (c. 93, §2). Yet she herself exercises of herself the right of patronage (c. 1456); chooses burial (c. 1223); if an election is lacking, she participates in the sepulcher of the husband who has his own. Finally, insofar as a diminutive power over the will of the wife probably belongs to him, the husband can render the vows of the wife void (c. 1312, §1).

The modern question concerning the power of the husband. More than paternal power, marital power is attacked today. And, if they merely wished to correct a non-necessary consequence of incapacity for contracting, we can easily consent to that. Nor do we resist that adultery of husband and wife be punished with equal severity, although inequality can be defended by the greater social harm which adultery of the wife brings with it, since it renders the father uncertain.

But it is necessary that the pronouncement by St. Paul: "the head of the woman... the man" (1 Cor. 11, 3), be acknowledged and confirmed by law. The principle of this power is placed in art. 213 of the French Code, declaring that obedience is owed by the wife to the man; which word obedience is absent from the Italian Code (art. 130-137). Yet art. 132 honors the husband as head of the family.

The consequences of marital power in France are these. The wife participates in the nationality (this, however, is not true everywhere), surname, and residence of the husband; besides, in exercising paternal power, the authority of the husband prevails; finally, for various juridical acts she needs the consent of the husband, who has also kept a too broad power over common goods. The laws of Belgium, Spain, Portugal, and Romania agree. The recent law of Italy, July 17, 1919, wholly removed the incapacity of the wife for contracting. The law of England had done the same before, August 13, 1882. In the U.S.A. the wife remains fully capable, although, in certain States, the husband must cooperate in a few acts. In Switzerland and Germany, the wife remains fully capable. Yet if she herself has promised a personal performance, the husband, in Germany, can seek rescission of the act.

By a very strict piety spouses owe one another love, cohabitation, support; so that, except for the extreme necessity of parents, one must prefer the other to all other relations.

They are equal in the use of marriage; in other things there belongs to the husband, from natural and evangelical law itself, a certain authority, to which in the wife there corresponds the office of obedience, so that by usurped domestic power, if the husband is truly and reasonably unwilling, she would sin gravely. Yet she is an associate, not a servant. Of herself she must follow the man. There can be legitimate causes of separation; not, however, of perfect divorce, at least after marriage consummated between baptized persons.