Obligations of Husband and Wife

BESIDES the obligations which are treated of under Marriage, and the rights and obligations arising out of property belonging to married people, which are discussed under the Seventh Commandment, there are certain obligations arising from marriage inasmuch as it places the husband in a position of authority and the wife in one of subjection. A word must here be said concerning their mutual obligations in this respect.

The wife becomes by marriage subject to her husband, and owes him love, reverence, and obedience, as to a superior. ““ Let women be subject to their husbands as to the Lord,” says St Paul. ‘‘ Because the husband is the head of the wife: as Christ is the head of the Church. ... Therefore as the Church is subject to Christ, so also let wives be to their husbands in all things.”¹ However, a wife is not the slave or servant of her husband, but rather his companion, and so, though subject and bound to obey in all that relates to family life and conduct, yet she should be treated with love, consideration, and deference, and consulted in what concerns the family affairs.

¹ Eph. v 22-24.

The wife will commit grave sin if she shows great contempt for her husband, habitually neglects his commands, and arrogates his authority to herself without just cause.

The husband is bound to support his wife and family according to English law, who therefore have a claim in justice upon him as well as in piety. The husband sins grievously by treating his wife with habitual harshness and neglect, and by not providing for her necessities and those of her children. In this latter case the wife would not be guilty of sin if she took from her husband without his knowledge what was necessary for the decent support of the family.

VII. The effect of irritation is that the vow is entirely extinguished, so that in no case does the obligation afterward revive (can. 1312, § 1).

Corollary. The following can irritate vows:

1. A father can irritate vows emitted by prepubescent children, provided that when they become pubescent they have not confirmed them while aware of the infirmity of the prior vow. If, unaware of the infirmity, they confirm them, strictly speaking they only renew the vow as it was; but it was infirm or irritatable. The aforesaid power also belongs to him who, either by law (as a tutor), or by the father's disposition, is substituted in his place. The reason is that, because of the weakness of prepubescents, power over their will, that is, dominative power, must be judged to belong to the father and to the others enumerated. But dominative power, by can. 1312, § 1, has annexed to it the power of irritating vows (St. Alphonsus, III, 229, 238; cf. St. Thomas, II-II, q. 88, a. 9).

It is disputed whether a father can irritate vows emitted by pubescent minors. Now the matter seems wholly doubtful, because the father's dominative power over pubescent minors is not proved. Nor is can. 89, which declares: "A minor person remains subject to the power of parents or guardians in the exercise of his rights, except in those things in which the law holds minors exempt from power"; nor is the cited canon, I say, judged to settle the question or theoretical controversy whether or not the father enjoys dominative power over pubescent minors.

Corollary. In doubt whether a vow was emitted before or after puberty, the power of irritating is doubtful, because it is doubtful whether the vow was emitted at a time when it was certainly subject to irritation.

2. The mother seems able to do the same as the father, provided he does not contradict, or with dependence on the father. The reason is that dominative power seems to belong to the mother as much as to the father, because she is the principle of the child no less than the father. Once dominative power is admitted, the power of irritating vows also must be admitted (St. Thomas, opusc. 17, cap. 13, vers. Decimo; St. Alphonsus, Homo Apostolicus, tr. 5, n. 36).

3. The husband seems to have the power of irritating the vows of the wife, because he seems to enjoy dominative power over her; for such power of itself is very expedient for the good of conjugal society, that is, for fostering dependence and intense love, for restraining the wife's impulses of mind, and for favoring the peace of the family. But dominative power carries with it the power of irritating vows (cf. St. Thomas, II-II, q. 88, a. 8, ad 3; St. Alphonsus, III, 324).¹

4. Superiors of religious, both exempt and non-exempt, both solemnly and simply professed, and likewise Superioresses, can directly irritate vows emitted by subjects during the time in which they were subject to themselves or to other Superiors, for example to a predecessor (can. 501, § 1). The power does not extend: 1. to substantial religious vows, for since these are constitutive of subjection, they are emitted independently of this subjection, and therefore cannot be called infirm or irritatable; 2. to vows annexed to the substantial vows, because since they are emitted together with the substantial vows, they likewise are judged to have been made independently of subjection. They also except the vow of passing to a stricter Religion² (St. Alphonsus, III, 233; IV, 53, 54).

What has been said about Superiors of religious should also be applied: 1. to the Pope with respect to professed male and female religious (cf. can. 499, § 1); 2. to Chapters of religious according to the norm of the constitutions and common law (cf. can. 501, § 1); 3. to the Bishop, if it is a question of a religion of diocesan right.

A Superior cannot irritate the vows of novices unless, according to the things said under I, he truly supplies the place of a parent, and it is a question of a vow which a parent could irritate (St. Alphonsus, IV, 55). Nor does the faculty of irritating the vows of novices or other faithful belong to the Supreme Pontiff, because he lacks dominative power over them.

Question. Whether the Church supplies probable power of irritating vows.

Response. We judge that it must be denied. For the power of irritating vows supposes dominative power; if this is present, the Church certainly completes it; if it is not present, it cannot be completed.

Corollary. Those who enjoy the power of irritating vows can also in advance render subjects incapable of vowing, either in some matter or universally, so that vows from that time are null from the beginning (St. Alphonsus, III, 228).

¹ Cf. Num. 30:7-13; Eph. 5:24.

² Cap. 18, de Reg.

V. The effect of suspension is relaxation for a time of the obligation of the vow; namely, when the right of the one suspending ceases, it revives, unless in the meantime it has ceased from another cause (can. 1312, § 2).

Corollary. The following can suspend vows - besides those who can irritate them:

1. A father or the one acting in his place in administering the goods of children can suspend the real vows of pubescent children as long as they lack the right of administering their own goods; likewise their personal vows, insofar as they prejudice domestic governance. The same power belongs to the mother as to personal vows; likewise as to real vows, if she herself is tutor or curatrix (St. Alphonsus, III, 229, 230).

2. A husband can suspend the vows of the wife insofar as they prejudice the use of marriage, the education of offspring, or domestic governance; likewise the wife can suspend the vows of the husband which prejudice her rights (St. Alphonsus, III, 234, 235).

Corollary. If spouses by mutual consent have emitted a vow of chastity, and in such a way that each has ceded his or her own right, the husband can directly irritate the vow of the wife; but the wife, once freed from the vow, can indirectly irritate the vow of the husband (cf. St. Alphonsus, III, 239).

4. The Pope can suspend the vows of all the faithful, and the Bishop the vows of diocesan subjects, insofar as they are adverse to the ecclesiastical governance belonging to him.

5. Religious Superiors and Superioresses can suspend the vows of novices which prejudice probation and religious discipline (St. Alphonsus, IV, 55).

Note. Vows emitted before religious profession are suspended for as long as the one vowing remains in religion (can. 1315).

II. Duties of spouses. 1. Spouses owe one another love, affective and effective,¹ conjugal fidelity,² and living together.³

2. The husband is bound: 1. diligently to administer family affairs; 2. rightly to govern the wife and the whole family. Yet let the husband be mindful of the condition of the wife, who is a companion, not a handmaid. Hence let him treat her honorably; if there is need, let him correct her, but it scarcely happens that it is lawful to strike her (St. Alphonsus, III, 351).

3. The wife is bound: 1. to reverence her husband;⁴ 2. to obey her husband;⁵ 3. together with the husband to govern the family; 4. to perform domestic duties. As to obedience, however, note that of herself she is not held to those things which the husband would irrationally impose, for example if he required from a woman of more honorable condition that she sweep the house, unless poverty excused it (St. Alphonsus, III, 351, 352, question 2). Besides, disobedience as such is not easily gravely evil, because she ought to obey as a companion, not as a handmaid.

Spouses sin gravely by provoking one another with hatreds, grave curses, or quarrels.

The husband sins gravely: 1. "if he hinders [his wife] concerning the precepts of God or of the Church... but if he hinders her, even without cause, concerning those good things which are only of counsel, as confession, communion, etc., he commonly sins only venially; 2. if he beats her gravely; yet sometimes he can moderately chastise by words, or even from a grave cause by moderate blows, with account taken of condition and state;... 3. if he neglects the governance of the house and the family property; 4. if he does not cohabit with his wife or is absent for a long time without just cause; 5. if, when he can, he does not procure food, unless however the wife has departed from the company of the husband by her own fault, or unless she has committed adultery" (St. Alphonsus, III, 356).

The wife sins gravely: 1. "if she provokes her husband by quarrels or otherwise by words to grave anger or blasphemy;... 2. if, despising her husband, she claims authority for herself; 3.... if she inserts herself into the administration of the house without just cause; such as if, for example, the husband, being prodigal, squanders the goods of the family" (St. Alphonsus, III, 351).

¹ Cf. Eph. 5:25, 28, 29; Titus 2:4.

² Cf. our little work De virtute castitatis, n. 34.

³ Cf. cited work, n. 103.

⁴ Eph. 5:33.

⁵ Eph. 5:22, 23.

I. Moderns distinguish a threefold emancipation of women: physiological, economic, and social: physiological, insofar as women wish, by their own free will, to be freed or to be free from the burdens of a wife, whether conjugal or maternal; economic, by which women wish, even without the husband knowing and with him objecting, to be freely able to have, conduct, and administer their own affairs for themselves, with children, husband, and the whole family set aside; social, insofar as they remove domestic cares, whether of children or of the family, from the wife, so that, with these neglected, she may be able to indulge her own talent and be devoted to affairs and offices, even public ones.¹

II. The threefold emancipation set forth is altogether to be rejected. And indeed the physiological is manifestly a wicked deed, because it entirely neglects the rights and burdens intrinsically joined to marriage. The economic is opposed to the subjection owed to the husband. As to the social, however, we note these things.

1. Social emancipation is not true emancipation of woman, that is, it by no means procures for woman that liberty which is owed to the office of a Christian woman and wife; rather, it is a denial of the feminine character, a corruption of maternal dignity, and a perversion of the whole family. It is said:

a) A corruption of the feminine character; for that equality of rights which is so greatly exaggerated and claimed must indeed be acknowledged in those things which are proper to the human person and dignity, and which follow the nuptial compact and are inherent in marriage; in these indeed each spouse enjoys altogether the same right and is held by the same debt; but in other matters, the natural character of the female sex itself, both lesser aptitude for public affairs and offices, and the natural disposition suggest a certain inequality.

b) A corruption of maternal dignity; since through the said emancipation woman descends from that royal seat to which she was raised within the domestic walls through the Gospel, and in a short time will be reduced to the old servitude (if not in appearance, yet in very truth), and it will come about that, as among the pagans, she will be a mere instrument of man.

c) A perversion of the whole family, because through that emancipation the husband is deprived of a wife, the offspring of a mother, the house and the whole family of an ever-watchful guardian.²

2. "Yet if anywhere the social and economic conditions of the married woman, on account of changed modes and usages of human intercourse, must in some way be changed, it belongs to public authority to adapt the civil rights of the wife to the necessities and needs of this time, with account indeed taken of those things which the diverse natural character of the female sex, honorable morals, and the common good of the family require, provided also that the essential order of domestic society remain unharmed, which has been founded by an authority and wisdom higher than human, that is, divine, and cannot be changed either by public laws or by private good pleasure" (cited encyclical).

¹ Encyclical of Pius XI Casti connubii, December 31, 1930.

² Cf. cited encyclical.

The goods of spouses are distinguished into common and proper, according as they belong to both or to either one. It depends on the law what kind the goods of spouses are: whether common, or proper, or partly common and partly proper. In many kingdoms legal community is in force; in other words, the goods of spouses are common unless before marriage something else is agreed. Now:

I. As regards common goods, ownership of them belongs to both; the right of administration is in the husband's hands; the right of the fruits falls to both. It is said:

1. Ownership of them belongs to both; this is the same as asserting co-ownership, as it is called.

A twofold co-ownership of spouses can be distinguished: one by which spouses are not distinct subjects of right but one owner; according to many, though undeservedly as it seems, co-ownership of this kind is constituted by Dutch law. The other co-ownership is that by which the spouses are two distinct subjects of rights. And this co-ownership is again twofold, Roman and Germanic. Moreover, the chief difference between them consists in this, that the Romans divided common goods mentally, and then considered the undivided part of the thing as a separated whole, which any co-owner could alienate or burden. But the Germans did not divide common goods mentally, but continued to consider them as one whole, and therefore left to all co-owners the right of disposing of the common goods.

2. The right of administration is in the husband's hands; the right of the fruits falls to both.

Corollary I. Spouses who seize common goods for themselves alone or squander them sin against commutative justice if, with the law considered, the co-ownership is Roman or Germanic. The reason is that they violate the strict right of the other spouse. The contrary is to be said with sufficient probability if the co-ownership is of the former kind explained above, because deservedly it is doubted whether the alterity required for commutative justice is present if one person, although one is not the same as two, with another becomes one subject of rights or one owner. In a word: the matter depends on whether the two are to be regarded as a moral person or not; if the former, the required alterity is certainly had. For the rest, not only the husband, but also the wife, can subtract those things which otherwise will be squandered by the husband. This is clear if Roman or Germanic co-ownership is had, because squandering is opposed to strict justice, as we have said; and the wife can certainly forestall that injustice. If co-ownership is of the former kind explained above, the squandering to be feared is a sufficient reason for withdrawing common goods from the husband's disposition and acquiring for herself the administration of those goods (St. Alphonsus, III, 541).

Corollary II. If the husband refuses necessities or grants them with great difficulty, the wife can, even if Roman or Germanic co-ownership is had, from the common goods:

1. Give out what is necessary for suitable support of herself and the offspring, for decent adornment and suitable recreation, for alms to be given according to condition; likewise for guarding herself in the future and procuring a suitable state for the offspring, or for averting grave spiritual or temporal damage from the family. The reason is that the intimate conjunction between wife and husband, between children and parents, brings it about that common goods, if the proper good or the good of the offspring demands it, can be treated as proper goods (St. Alphonsus, III, 540, 541).

2. Spend those things by which she may consult the necessary support of her parents or of offspring received from another marriage; for what is lawful for her in order to her own advantage also seems lawful in order to the good of those who are in some way one with her; all the more because in the case the husband is also bound from piety to consult the parents and offspring of his wife (St. Alphonsus, III, 542).

II. As regards proper goods, each spouse has direct and useful ownership of them, that is, of proper goods; but to whom administration belongs is to be drawn from the law.

Corollary I. Those about to marry sin against justice, and in themselves are bound to restitution, by deceiving the other party, for example by exaggerating goods, lessening debts, and thus bringing it about that a nuptial agreement is omitted by which community of goods would be excluded wholly or in part.

Corollary II. A wife can freely dispose of those things which she has gathered by extraordinary labor or parsimony, or has saved from what was granted for food or pleasure (St. Alphonsus, III, 541).

Corollary III. If the husband refuses, or grants with great difficulty, the things which are necessary for suitable support of the wife or offspring, for decent adornment and suitable recreation, for alms to be given according to condition, for guarding the wife in the future and procuring a suitable state for the offspring, or for averting grave damage from the family, if, I say, the husband refuses these things or grants them with great difficulty, the wife, in defect of proper and common goods, can also use the husband's proper goods, because the intimate conjunction between wife and husband, between children and parents, brings it about that the proper goods of one are in some way also those of the other, so that things owed to the other spouse or to the children, if they are denied, can be seized (St. Alphonsus, III, 540-541).

In general, however, the confessor should not easily indulge the complaints of wives, lest the reins be loosened too much.

The Duties of Husbands and Wives.—Conjugal obligations may be classed under three heads according to the three ends of marriage.

(a) Thus, the first blessing of marriage is offspring, and this imposes upon parents the obligation of providing for their children and of training them in mind and will (see 2630 sqq.).

(b) The second blessing of marriage is fidelity to the engagement made by husband and wife to deliver to each other exclusive power over their bodies for procreation (conjugal debt) and to love each other with a special but pure affection: “The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband; and in like manner the husband hath not power of his own body but the wife” (I Cor., vii. 4); “Husbands, love your wives as Christ also loved the Church” (Eph., v. 25). Conjugal love admits no rivals; the husband must prefer his wife to every other woman, and the wife likewise must think more of her husband than of any other man (see 1179).

(c) The third blessing of marriage is the Sacrament or the unbreakable bond of marriage: “The Lord commanded that the wife depart not from the husband, and if she depart that she remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband. And let not the husband put away his wife” (I Cor., vii. 10). This imposes the duties of a permanent domestic society in which the spouses dwell together permanently and each has certain special functions of assistance to the other.

88. The obligations of spouses are derived from marriage.

Therefore it is necessary first to inspect the final cause to which marriage is ordained of itself. For in any thing whatever the final cause is the first and fundamental rule of all the other things which are in it. But the consideration of the moral honesty of any thing depends especially on it. Moreover, "through marriage some are ordained to one generation and education of offspring, and again to one domestic life." Hence marriage is the legitimate conjunction of man and woman for one generation and education of offspring and for one domestic life; and "according to this conjunction they are called husband and wife." St. Thomas, 4 D. 27, q. 1, a. 1, sol. 1. Husband and wife constitute one adequate principle of human generation. Therefore the first and fundamental end of marriage, the principal, the more principal end according to St. Thomas, is the legitimate procreation and education of human offspring. St. Thomas, 4 D. 26, q. 1, a. 1; D. 33, q. 1, a. 2. From this flows the other secondary end of marriage, mutual help, which both presupposes that one undivided principle of human offspring constituted, and is ordained to the suitable receiving and education of human offspring. Whence St. Thomas, from St. Augustine, says in the cited place, sol. 2, that marriage is so called "from this, that the woman ought not marry for another reason, except that she be a mother."

89. Hence between man and woman there is a true society, conjugal society. Aptly St. Thomas, Suppl. q. 41, a. 1: "The secondary end of marriage is the mutual service furnished to each other by the spouses in domestic matters. For just as natural reason dictates that men dwell together, because one is not sufficient for himself in all things which pertain to life itself, by reason of which man is said to be naturally political; so also, of those things which are needed for human life, certain works are fitting to men, certain works to women. Whence nature moves that there be a certain association of man with woman."

90. But this partnership of common life on account of the communication of works, as is clear, cannot be the principal end of marriage, since it presupposes that end, namely offspring. Let the Angelic Doctor be heard, Suppl. q. 49, a. 2, ad 1: "In offspring there is understood not only the procreation of offspring, but also its education, to which, as to an end, is ordained the whole communication of works which is between man and wife, insofar as they are joined in marriage, because fathers naturally store up for children, as is clear from 2 Cor. 12; and thus in offspring, as in the principal end, another as secondary is included."

91. "Marriage has for its principal end the procreation and education of offspring... for its secondary end the communication of works which are necessary in life, and according to this they owe fidelity to each other... It has further another end, insofar as it is among the faithful, namely the signification of Christ and the Church; and thus the good of marriage is called sacrament... The remedy of concupiscence is its secondary end... According as marriage is ordained to its principal end, which is the good of offspring, the wife is joined to the husband by an indissoluble conjunction, or at least a lasting one... But as regards the second end, which is the management of the family and the communication of works, the wife is joined to the husband as an associate." St. Thomas, Suppl. q. 45, a. 1, c. ad 7; a. 5, c.

92. "Moreover, marriage from the intention of nature is ordained to the education of offspring not only for some time, but through the whole life of the offspring. Whence it is of the law of nature that parents store up for children, and that children be the heirs of parents." St. Thomas, 4 D. 33, q. 2, a. 1. "For the inseparability of marriage is not ordained to the good of offspring, which is the principal end of marriage, except insofar as provision must be made for children by parents through their whole life by due preparation of those things which are necessary in life." St. Thomas, l. c., qc. 4, sol. 1.

93. Therefore, since in marriage there is mutually acquired dominion of one over the body of the other, by which man and woman enjoy each other in order to human generation, there arises a mutual strict obligation of the spouses from justice of preserving conjugal fidelity. And, since from the very nature of marriage the conjugal bond is born, even with the other party consenting, the nefarious crime of adultery can never be absent if a spouse breaks the pledged fidelity. There also arises another mutual obligation of cohabitation from the aforesaid dominion and right of possession which one has over the body of the other. Likewise there is had the obligation of mutual love, and the friendship of husband and wife, since they are as it were one thing. Finally, the obligation of parents in the education of children flows from the same source. For it belongs to parents both to give first existence to their own children, and consequently to lead them to due perfection physically and morally, by physical and moral education. For children are something of the father, as the Philosopher says, and as it were one and the same thing with their own parents; and thus parents, in exercising this office of education imposed by nature itself, have a true right, of which they can be deprived only by injury. For as one naturally loves himself, and by this same natural love is inclined by the very force of nature to acquire the perfection due to himself, so also by the same natural love he pursues what is intimately joined to him and pertains to him, and consequently is stirred to promote its perfection. But children are nearest to parents, and naturally joined to them, as is confirmed by natural instinct itself.

94. Against the fidelity of marriage to be preserved, a difficulty can arise from the fact that perhaps the woman is sterile, and marriage is for procreating offspring. - The response which is brought forward by St. Thomas against the inseparability of marriage from the same head has force. - "Marriage is principally ordained to the common good by reason of the principal end, which is the good of offspring, although also by reason of the secondary end it is ordained to the good of the one contracting marriage, insofar as of itself it is a remedy of concupiscence. And therefore in the laws of marriage what is expedient for all is attended to more than what may be fitting for one. Therefore although the inseparability of marriage impedes the good of offspring in some man, nevertheless it is suitable to the good of offspring simply, and on account of this the reason objected does not follow," namely that the inseparability of marriage is contrary to the good of offspring because some man, from a certain accidental cause, cannot receive offspring from some woman, who nevertheless could conceive from another, and who also could be impregnated by another man. St. Thomas, 4 D. 33, q. 2, a. 1, ad 4. Moreover, as is clear, even simple adultery would yield to the gravest detriment of the conjugal state and of offspring. Whence among all peoples it is a detestable crime.

95. Hence marriage is defined in C. 11, de Praesumptionibus and Inst. l. 1, t. 9, sect. 1: The conjunction of male and female retaining an undivided habit of life. It brings an undivided habit of life, "that is, not temporary, but of itself to endure until death. The habit of life signifies both in the first place a mutual right with a relative obligation over the body of the other in order to generating and educating offspring, or the right of coition, as they say; and then the communion of bed, table, and dwelling in union of souls through mutual love and in some union of goods. Hence marriage brings to each party both an exclusive and perpetual right with a relative obligation over the body of the other in order to generating and educating offspring, from 1 Cor. 7:4; and the communion of bed, table, and dwelling in union of wills and goods." Gasparri, de Matrim., n. 205, vol. 1, Paris ed. 1891, p. 119.

And Austrian Code, art. 44: "Family relations are established by the contract of marriage. In the contract of marriage two persons of different sex declare, in the manner willed by law, the will to live in an inseparable partnership, to procreate children and educate them, and to furnish reciprocal assistance." - C. L. 1054.

96. These things having been laid down, the obligations of spouses now appear sufficiently and more than sufficiently. These, generally, are some as regards persons, others as regards goods, others as regards the body. Here we shall speak only of the obligations as regards persons, which properly pertain here, and as regards goods, which rather look to the Treatise on justice, passing over those as regards the body, of which there is treatment in the Commentary on the sixth and ninth Precepts of the Decalogue.

97. The obligations as regards persons are some mutual, others proper to only one or the other. The mutual obligations are: mutual love, mutual help as to body and as to soul, the conjugal debt, and consequently common dwelling, common table, common bed. To the husband belongs marital power over the wife, and the chief paternal power over the children; and he himself is bound to feed the wife according to his own condition. To the wife, as mother, belongs educating the offspring, although dependently on the husband, and having care of the family matter, also dependently on the husband, from whom she has the right of receiving suitable sustenance. - The head of the wife is the man, and thus the wife is under the power of the man in those things which pertain to marriage, that is, which pertain to the undivided habit of life. Eph. 5:22 seqq.; C. A. 91. Wherefore the wife, without the consent of the husband, cannot be obligated by vow, St. Thomas, 2.2, q. 88, a. 8, ad 3; L. l. 3, n. 234; regularly cannot be obligated by contract; cannot travel without the consent of the husband, and regularly ought to follow the domicile of the husband, C. I. 131, 134, 135; C. G. 214, 217, 220, 221, 222; C. H. 58; C. A. 91, 92; C. B. 1554; although the husband changes domicile without cause; provided the wife can follow him without grave detriment either of soul or of body, and, from C. L. 1186, not into a foreign nation. By the same C. L. 1187, the wife cannot publish a writing without the consent of the husband. - C. Pervenit 1, de Coni. lepr.; Sanchez, de Matr. l. 1, d. 41, n. 2, 4; L. 251, l. 6, n. 977; Suppl. q. 64, a. 6, ad 1; Quodl. 4, a. 11.

98. The wife has the administration of the goods of the house; but she must furnish reverence, service, and obedience to the husband in those things which regard the governance of the house and good morals. Nevertheless she is his associate, not his maidservant. Wherefore, if she herself is rich or noble, she is not forced to furnish to the husband those things which are not of her dignity, for example to cook food, sweep the house, etc. Yet if she does not obey the husband in a grave matter, she sins gravely, and a certain moderate coercion is permitted to the husband. 1 Peter 3:5 seqq.; L. 351, 352, 356, l. 6, n. 972; Sanchez, de Matr. l. 6, d. 6, n. 14; C. I. 131; C. G. 313; C. H. 57; C. B. 1354, 1356, 1357; C. L. 1185, 1189; Leo XIII, Enc. Arcanum, Feb. 10, 1886.

99. The man in turn must love and protect the wife, according to Eph. 5:25; C. I. 132; C. H. 57; C. G. 213; C. L. 1185; feed her, dwell with her; and thus it is not lawful for him to be absent from her for a long time, except from a grave cause, Gen. 2:24; C. 1, de Coni. lepr.; C. I. 130, 132; C. G. 212, 214; and not even to enter upon a long pilgrimage, against the woman's will, C. 8, de Voto. Yet for the most part the husband is not bound to lead the wife with him, with great inconvenience and expenses, when it happens that he must travel about for the sake of business. C. 9, sect. In tanta, de Voto. But the husband sins gravely if he afflicts the wife with contumelious or defamatory words; if he impedes her concerning the precepts of God or of the Church without just cause; if he gravely beats the wife; if he neglects the governance of the house and the family matter. Col. 3:18, 19; L. 356. - Sanchez, de Matr. l. 9, d. 5, n. 17; St. Thomas, 2.2, q. 26, a. 11.

100. In those things which pertain to the mutual help of life, man and wife are of equal right, since marriage is entered for the sake of mutual help. Hence they mutually owe to each other love, fidelity, assistance, aid, according to Eph. 5:25; Tit. 2:4; Matt. 19:5; 1 Cor. 7:3 seqq.; C. I. 130; C. G. 212; C. H. 56; C. A. 90; C. L. 1184; and if anything adverse happens to one, the other ought to be a participant. Wherefore a woman must follow the man migrating elsewhere for the sake of health, or as a punishment, and the man must follow the woman, L. 353, l. 6, n. 957, 977; and to the other who is in need, even driven into exile by his own fault, or enclosed in prison, indeed even separated from him, provided it was not by his own fault, if the other has means, he must furnish support; and the man must feed the wife, even if he married her without a dowry, or the dowry perished by chance. C. I. 132, 133, 142; C. G. 214; C. B. 1360, 1361; Sanchez, de Matr. l. 9, d. 4, n. 20; d. 5, n. 8, 14.

It is lawful for neither, against the will of the other, to enter religion, C. un. Extr. de Voto; and one who passes, against the spouse's will, to religion can be recalled, C. 3, 12, de Conv. coni.; nor is it lawful for the man, against the wife's will, to receive orders, indeed not even tonsure, C. 4, de Temp. ord. in 6, except if he has justly and by law departed from her as regards habitation. L. l. 6, n. 969.

101. Note. Children and the wife can receive support from one burdened with debts, who is not solvent, since he is held to feeding them from strict piety, and also from legal justice; nor is he less bound to feed them than to pay other debts. Indeed they can do this even if the father of the family contracts other debts, provided nevertheless they do not have sustenance from elsewhere. Nor indeed after the father's death is a son bound to pay these debts of the father, if the father left no goods to the son: for that obligation was altogether personal to the father. - "Yet the wife cannot use for the sustenance of the family monies given by the husband for paying debts, except in the case in which the family is gravely in need; for then the man is first bound to assist this family, and therefore the wife then uses her own right. Thus Laymann, who adds that wages of workers for the necessary uses of the debtor are to be preferred even to hypothecary creditors." L. 695, 354.

102. Can spouses sometimes depart without the consent of the other? - R. 1. "It is certain that spouses are held from an obligation of justice to cohabit in the same house, table, and bed." St. Alphonsus, l. c., n. 938. Hence it is inferred that one spouse cannot, with the other spouse unwilling, depart elsewhere for a long time, unless just causes are present, namely on account of the public good, for feeding and protecting the family, for avoiding harm to be inflicted by enemies, etc., and unless he cannot bring the other spouse to another place, so that the other may cohabit with him, without grave inconvenience. C. Pervenit 1, De Coniugio Leprosorum; C. Quod super 8, De Voto, in fine. - 2. "The man can undertake a brief pilgrimage for the sake of devotion, even with the wife unwilling; yet the wife cannot do this without the consent of the husband, since she herself is subject to his will, and it does not befit the state of women to go on pilgrimage." St. Alphonsus, l. c. - 3. "By mutual consent spouses can indeed be separated from each other, provided that danger of incontinence and harm to the offspring to be educated are absent, from that saying of the Apostle, 1 Cor. 7: Do not defraud one another, except perhaps by consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to prayer, and return again to the same thing, lest Satan tempt you." St. Alphonsus, l. c. - It is confirmed from the clear doctrine of St. Thomas, Quodl. 4, art. 11, where he moves the question: "Whether a man can take the cross, with his wife unwilling, if there is fear concerning her continence." The Holy Doctor responds: "It must be said that those things which are of necessity are not to be omitted on account of those things which are of one's own will; whence also the Lord, Matt. 15, reproved the Pharisees, who taught that the commandment concerning honoring parents was to be omitted, so that certain voluntary offerings might be offered to God. But from necessity it is incumbent on the man that he bear care for the wife, because the head of the woman is the man, as is said in 1 Cor. 11:3. But that he take the cross for crossing the sea is subject to his own will. Whence if the wife is such that she cannot follow, on account of some legitimate impediment, and there is fear concerning her incontinence, it is not to be counseled to him that he take the cross and dismiss the wife. But it is otherwise if the wife voluntarily proposes to contain, or wills and is able to follow her husband."

103. "The obligation of these acts, by which spouses are bound, is founded in the very conjunction of bodies and the contract of marriage, which by natural and divine law ought to be perpetual and ordained to an undivided society of life and to offspring procreated, fed, and educated. Whence this obligation is grave, and pertains to the virtue of piety, since it is founded in the conjunction of bodies, seed, and blood." Strugll 20. - C. I. 130-133; C. G. 212-214.

104. If Natural Law is inspected, marital society does not impede both the husband and the wife from retaining the property, usufruct, and administration even of the goods which they had before marriage and which they acquire during marriage. Nevertheless they must concur in the expenses necessarily to be borne on account of common burdens. But it is fitting that the husband either have all administration of goods, or at least aid the wife as much as is necessary for supplying her weakness. - But if positive Law is inspected, in this matter the power of the husband is broader. Hence, by positive Law, various goods of the wife are distinguished. - St. Thomas, 2.2, q. 57, a. 4.

105. The goods of the wife are some dotal, the fruits of which the man enjoys for sustaining the burdens of marriage; others are paraphernal, namely besides the dowry, which the wife has besides the dowry, and which she specially reserves to herself; others common, which by the agreements of the spouses or the determination of law are brought into a certain society. - Before entering marriage spouses can determine under what conditions their goods are to be subject, with certain statutes of law observed. If they have omitted to do these things, the law will supply.

106. Of dotal goods, generally and speaking per se, direct ownership remains in the power of the wife. But the husband has their administration and usufruct. Dotal goods, during marriage, cannot be alienated, nevertheless speaking regularly or ordinarily; for they can be alienated from a grave cause of necessity or utility of the family, and with the consent of each spouse. If the dowry during marriage is increased or perishes, it is increased or perishes for the wife; when marriage has been dissolved, it is to be restored.

Extra-dotal goods are the wife's by full right. Common goods belong by equal right to each; nevertheless the husband has their administration, and receives their fruits for the necessities of the family. - Finally the wife has no ownership of the goods of the husband.

107. From Roman Law. The wife has direct ownership of her own dowry, but the husband has the usufruct and administration. When the man dies, she is preferred to all personal creditors of the husband, and even in life she can juridically seek back the dowry if she fears lest the man become unable to restore it. If the dowry consists in money, or in other things consumable by use, or in appraised things handed over, indeed full ownership of the dowry is assigned to the man, but with the obligation of restoring the value, ownership being transferred in favor of the wife into all the goods of the husband pro rata or according to the quota of her dowry. - The wife has full ownership and administration of paraphernal goods, so that concerning these the husband, when she is unwilling, can dispose of nothing. Hence as regards them the wife in no way depends on the husband. - The property and utility of common goods belong to each spouse; but the administration of the same belongs to the husband alone. But this community of goods can admit various conditions or restrictions, and therefore attention must be paid to the various dispositions of places. - Gury 549; Elbel 69; L. 489; Troplong, della Prescrizione, c. 3, n. 483 seqq.

108. From More Recent Law. We can distinguish first the goods of the wife, the goods of the husband, and common goods.

As regards the goods of the wife, these likewise are either dotal, or extra-dotal, or paraphernal. - Dowry is the goods brought to the husband for sustaining the burdens of marriage. But any goods whatever of the wife not constituted as dowry are held as paraphernal. C. I. 1388, 1425; C. G. 1540, 1575; C. A. 1218. - That there be a dowry it is necessary: 1. that it has been constituted expressly under this name, C. I. 1388; C. H. 1336. Wherefore those things are not dotal which are given to the woman by contract of marriage, unless something else has expressly been provided. But it is otherwise from C. G. 1541. The dowry, however, can comprehend all goods, even future goods, C. I. 1389; C. G. 1542; C. A. 1218, 1227; C. H. 1336, 1337. - 2. That the instrument be drawn up by a notary and, if the dowry is constituted by the spouses themselves, before marriage, C. I. 1382, 1391; C. G. 1394; for after marriage the dowry can neither be constituted nor increased by them. C. I. 1341; C. H. 1338; and from C. G. 1543, neither by others. Cf. C. A. 1225; C. H. 1344. - 3. That the nuptials have been entered from Civil Law. L. 3, de Iure dot.; C. I. 93; C. G. 165; C. A. 44; C. H. 42.

109. He who constituted the dowry must furnish it from his own goods, even if proper goods are not lacking to the woman, C. I. 1392, 1393, 1394, 1395; C. G. 1544, 1545, 1546; C. A. 1224; cf. C. H. 1540, 1341; and he furnishes warranty against eviction, C. I. 1396; C. G. 1547. But the man is not bound to caution for the dowry, unless he is obligated to it by a convention made, or is compelled by sentence of a judge, if the dowry is exposed to danger and the dowry was constituted by him who, the dowried woman lacking it, would be compelled to furnish support. C. I. 1400; C. G. 1550, 1563; C. A. 1245. Cf. C. H. 1345, 1349, 1358.

110. Of those things which are given for the sake of dowry, some pass into the full ownership of the man, others do not, and constitute a permanent dowry. - Into the full ownership of the man pass things which are consumed by use, C. A. 1227; things whether movable or immovable which are given to him in payment, C. I. 1403; C. G. 1553; movable things, if they have been given after being appraised, C. I. 1401; C. G. 1551; but not likewise immovable things, unless this has been openly expressed, C. I. 1402; C. G. 1551; C. A. 1228. From C. H. 1346, if nothing is determined in the contract of marriage, the wife preserves ownership of all her dotal goods. Cf. C. B. 1227, 1228. - Of those goods which constitute a permanent dowry, natural and direct ownership remains in the power of the wife; civil and useful ownership passes to the husband. C. A. 1227, 1228, 1230. Wherefore, by force of the natural and direct ownership of the wife, the increase or loss of the dowry will belong to the wife. By force of the civil and useful ownership of the husband, the man has the administration and usufruct of dotal goods; whence he administers dotal goods as his own, he acts in court for them, C. I. 1339; C. G. 1549; C. H. 1357, 1360, and all things contained under the name of fruits are his from the beginning of marriage, C. I. 1399; C. G. 1549; C. A. 1227; and if counted money was promised, interest is owed to him by the law itself, although delay was stipulated for payment, C. I. 1397; C. G. 1548. But the husband must furnish that diligence in administering dotal things which he furnishes in his own things, and he must fulfill all obligations of a usufructuary, C. I. 1408; C. G. 1562; but he is bound to apply the fruits to feeding the family, for the fruits are assigned to him for this reason, namely for bearing matrimonial burdens. - The woman can obtain by office of the judge the separation of dotal goods, if the dowry is in danger, or the affairs of the man tend toward evil, or she has been judicially separated from him, C. I. 1418; C. G. 1563; this having been obtained, she herself, in place of the husband, administers the dotal goods, C. I. 1424; C. G. 1449; C. H. 225, 1365; but she must provide together with the husband for domestic necessities and the instruction of the children, C. I. 1423; C. G. 1448. Cf. C. A. 1241, 1263. - It can be established in the contract of marriage: 1. that the wife receive each year a part of the fruits for small expenses, C. I. 1399; C. G. 1549; 2. that the surviving spouse receive some gain over the dowry, the legitimate share of the children being saved, C. I. 1398. - L. l. 3, n. 539.

111. Dotal goods regularly, while marriage continues, cannot be alienated, and an alienation made can be revoked even by the very husband who consented to the alienation, C. I. 1407; C. G. 1560. - Dotal goods, namely all from C. I. 1405, only immovable from C. G. 1554. - Regularly, for they can be alienated from a grave cause of necessity or utility, by decree of the tribunal and the consent of each spouse, C. I. 1405; C. G. 1558; C. H. 1358 seqq.; or if alienation has been permitted in the contract of marriage itself, C. I. 1404; C. G. 1557. - They cannot be alienated for any cause whatever from C. I. 1405, which distinguishes nothing; except the cause of establishing some son, from C. G. 1556. But alienation comprehends also exchanges, servitudes, mortgages, C. I. 1404, 1405; cf. C. G. 1554, 1559. - While marriage continues; wherefore also after separation from C. I. 1405; cf. C. G. 1449. But if, while marriage continues, the woman legitimately contracted a debt or any obligation, after marriage has been dissolved even dotal goods are bound to the creditors from C. I. 1407, but otherwise from C. G. 1558, 1560. Cf. C. A. 1260.

112. Marriage having been dissolved, the dowry ceases, and is to be restored. - The dowry is to be restored to the wife, or to her heirs. C. A. 1229; C. H. 1365. Things of which only the civil and useful ownership was in the power of the husband are to be restored immediately in their own species, as they then are, C. I. 1409, 1411, 1412; C. G. 1564, 1566, 1567; C. H. 1367; and if by fault of the husband they have become worse, the detriment is reckoned to him, C. I. 1408; C. G. 1562; C. H. 1360, 1375. - But of things of which the husband had full ownership, only the price is to be restored within a year, C. I. 1401, 1410; C. G. 1551, 1565; C. H. 1347, 1366, 1370. From these the woman can retain for herself linens and the things which are necessary for her ordinary use, their actual price being deducted, if, after an appraisal of the same had been made, they were first given, C. I. 1411; C. G. 1566. Cf. C. H. 1374. - Besides, the fruits of the last year of marriage must be restored, in proportion to the time. The year is computed from the anniversary day of the marriage celebrated. But the widow can, according to her judgment, either demand these fruits, or support for the whole year of mourning. Besides, in this year dwelling and mourning garments are owed to her, C. I. 1415, 1416; C. G. 1570, 1571; only mourning garments, C. H. 1379. Cf. C. A. 1242, 1243. - Finally, when marriage has been dissolved, gains also or dotal increases are owed to the surviving spouse from the goods of the deceased, if there was an agreement concerning them in the contract of marriage. C. I. 1398.

113. Paraphernal or extra-dotal goods are those which outside the dowry the wife reserves to herself. C. H. 1381. - These are by full right the wife's, and thus she administers them and enjoys their usufruct, C. I. 1427; C. G. 1576; C. H. 1382. Yet she cannot alienate immovables, nor appear in court for them, without the express consent of the husband, or, if the husband resists, without the sentence of the tribunal. C. I. 134, 136; C. G. 215, 217, 1576, 1538; C. H. 1387; cf. C. A. 91. The same must be said from C. G. 1536, if the wife is wholly separate in goods. - But if the husband administers these goods by express or tacit mandate of the wife and receives the fruits, he must restore only the fruits which then exist, when the woman asks, or dies; but he must restore all the fruits which he received if a condition was added to the mandate that he render accounts of the fruits, or if the woman at least by an extrajudicial act opposed him. C. I. 1427 seqq.; C. G. 1576 seqq. But from C. H. 1384, 1389 seqq., if paraphernal goods are handed over by the wife to the husband to be administered, they are then equated with dotal goods, whose ownership remains in the power of the wife. From C. A. 1238, 1239, unless the wife opposes, by a presumption of law the administration of the free patrimony of the wife is deemed entrusted to the husband as legitimate procurator. But he is responsible only for the substance of the thing, or for the capital; but he is not bound to give an account of fruits received, unless this has been expressly agreed upon. - To paraphernal goods belong, and are the wife's, those goods which, during marriage, she acquires from her own goods, or from her singular industry, or from her extraordinary labor, especially if she exercises trade in her own name, or also something by subtracting from those things granted to her for food, clothing, recreation, etc.; then also those things which have been given to her with the express condition that they not yield to the husband. C. A. 1237. - L. l. 3, n. 541.

114. As regards the goods of the husband. - The wife has no ownership of the goods of the husband. But, since the wife is the associate of the man, and the man must feed the wife according to his condition, the wife by her own right can take for herself those things which are necessary to herself on this account. Lugo, de Iust. et Iur., d. 16, n. 72; Lessius, de Iust. et Iur., l. 2, c. 12, n. 85; and if it has been received from the custom of the region that the wife spend something from the goods of the husband, she can also do this, Lugo, l. c. Wherefore the wife can take not only those things which are necessary for the body, but also those which pertain to lightening the soul and to the decency of her state. Lugo, l. c., n. 68, 70. Nor indeed can she do this only for herself, but also for the children received from that marriage, for the utility of the family, or for removing some damage from it, and this even with the husband unwilling. Wherefore she can subtract things from a prodigal husband, in order to reserve them for the family for the future, or from an avaricious husband for making moderate alms. Lugo, l. c., n. 65; Lessius, l. c., n. 85. - From the very nature of conjugal society the wife has administration of domestic things, of provisions, furniture, etc., Lugo, l. c., n. 64; Lessius, l. c., n. 85. - From C. I. 1432, if the wife administered the goods of the husband, she is subject to the same law to which he is subject in the administration of the paraphernal goods of the wife. But when the man is absent or furious, the wife administers his goods, and can spend them, according to the powers of the patrimony, for the sustenance and preserving the dignity of the family, although perhaps the man, if present or composed of mind, would not have spent them. - From C. H. 1442, 1444, the wife administering all the goods of the marriage has the same faculties and obligations as when the husband administers them. Yet she cannot alienate and burden immovables. - Lugo, l. c., n. 16, 70; Lessius, n. 12, 86; L. 541.

115. As regards common goods. - From C. I. 1433, 1435, 1436, 1438, 1439, 1441, in the matrimonial contract itself, although a dowry has been constituted, the spouses can enter together into universal society, not indeed of goods, but of the fruits proceeding from those goods themselves, whether movable or immovable, whether present or future. Yet this society cannot comprehend debts and credits existing before the marriage, nor those which are later deferred by title of succession or donation while the communion itself endures. - The effect of this communion is to render common and divisible those things which are acquired by the spouses together or separately, during the communion, whether by common industry or by parsimony made from the fruits or incomes of the spouses, with the debts of the communion itself always deducted. - Goods placed in common are administered by the husband, who cannot alienate them except by onerous title, or subject them to mortgage; and if he leases them, he must observe the laws established for leasing which is done by a usufructuary. - But the society ceases by the death of either spouse, by the declared absence of one, by definitive separation of persons, by judicial separation of goods.

116. From C. H., when a contract concerning goods is lacking, by which they can also establish among themselves a separation of goods, the marriage is deemed entered under the regime of legal society of gains, 1315, 1432. But if this society is excluded without the rules by which goods are governed being expressed, then the dotal regime is observed, and nevertheless the husband receives all the fruits of the society of gains, just as if it existed, 1364.

Now, by the society of gains, husband and wife make their own, by half part, once marriage is dissolved, the gains and benefits indistinctly obtained by either spouse during marriage, 1392. - By the law itself are determined the proper goods of each spouse and the common gains, 1396 seqq., 1401 seqq., and also the burdens and obligations of this society, 1408 seqq. - The husband administers the society according to the established laws, 59, 1412 seqq.; he can make moderate donations for the sake of piety and beneficence, but cannot reserve the usufruct to himself, 1415. - The society is dissolved by the dissolution of marriage, by the absence of the other spouse, by separation of persons or goods, 1417, 1433. - The society having been dissolved, after an inventory has been made, and after dotal and paraphernal goods have been restored, and the other burdens of the society satisfied, what remains is divided equally between husband and wife, or their respective heirs, 1418 seqq. Cf. ibid. 1435, 1436.

117. From C. G. 1393, even if spouses do not establish that certain goods will be common, nevertheless, if any other agreement is lacking, legal Communion has place by force of law. For the agreements which can be entered by spouses before marriage constitute three classes, or a threefold regime, namely the dotal regime, concerning which it has already been spoken, the regime of community, and the regime excluding community. - Moreover, Community is either legal or conventional, according as it is constituted by law or by a special agreement of the contracting parties. - 1391, 1460 seqq., 1497 seqq., 1540 seqq.

118. Legal community coalesces: 1. from all movable goods which the spouses possessed on the very day of the marriage entered, or which then come to them by title of succession or donation; 2. from all fruits and any revenues whatever of immovable goods possessed by the betrothed before marriage, or coming to them during marriage; 3. from all immovable goods which were acquired from common goods during the time of marriage. - Conventional community consists in other agreements of the betrothed, by which legal statutes can be restricted or relaxed. These lacking, the community is governed by the disposition of law alone. - Under the regime of community, the husband alone has the administration of common goods. Indeed he can sell, exchange, and hand them over into mortgage even without the consent of the wife. Yet he cannot give immovables by gratuitous title, nor movables by universal title, or as regards their universality, or quota, or half, third, or fourth part. He can dispose of some movable thing by gratuitous title, provided he does not reserve the usufruct to himself. - But when the community has been dissolved, goods and burdens are divided into two parts, unless the wife or her heirs prefer to renounce the goods, and thus exempt themselves from the burdens. Debts are to be paid by each spouse, or by their heirs. - The husband also has the administration of the proper or personal goods of the wife. 1400, 1401, 1409, 1422, 1428, 1441, 1453, 1467 seqq., 1497 seqq.

119. The regime excluding community can be constituted by the spouses in two ways, namely 1. by declaring that they enter marriage without community; 2. by establishing that each shall be altogether separate as regards his own goods. In the former case the man receives all revenues of the goods of the wife and alone administers all things. But if they are consumed by use, he is bound to render their value. But in the latter case the woman has the administration and usufruct of all her goods. Each spouse, however, concurs toward the burdens of marriage by special agreement; but if no convention exists, the wife must concur up to the third part of her revenues. Wherefore in this third regime, just as also in the second, some dowry is to be supplied by the wife, by which she may partly assist the burdens of marriage; but a dowry of this kind can be alienated by the man. 1530 seqq., 1536 seqq.

120. From C. A. 1233, 1234, for a community of goods between spouses a special contract is required. But it is understood only for the case of death, and gives to the spouse a right to half part of the goods constituted in community which remain after the death of the other spouse. Cf. art. 1262, 1266.

121. From C. B. there is a twofold regime of goods, legal and conventional. The legal matrimonial regime of goods. By the contract of marriage the goods of the wife, even those which she herself acquires during marriage, are administered by the husband, who has the usufruct of the same, but must sustain the expenses of marriage. Excepted are goods reserved to the wife either by law, namely garments, precious jewels, and instruments of labor, and goods acquired by labor or by personal exercise of a lucrative profession; or by contract, namely those which were declared such by the contract of marriage; by succession, legacy, donation made with that reservation. The wife has administration and usufruct of these reserved goods. - The administration and usufruct of the husband having ceased, the husband is bound to restore the goods to the wife, and also to render an account of the administration. The wife can demand this cessation if her goods are in danger. - C. B. 1363 seqq.

How many kinds of rights and obligations are there between spouses? - Marriage is the union of man and woman, containing an undivided sharing of life. Inst. 1, l. 1, t. 9, § 1; C. B. 1353; C. A. 44. Hence from marriage there flows a threefold kind of rights and obligations: as to persons, as to goods, as to the body. The rights and obligations of each spouse as to the body will have to be discussed in the treatise on Marriage. Therefore here we shall speak only of the others. C. A. 89.

Obligations as to persons: some are mutual, others of only one or the other. The mutual ones are mutual love, mutual help as to the body, as to the soul, as to the conjugal debt, and common habitation, common table and bed. To the husband belongs marital power over the wife, and the principal paternal power over the children. But he is bound to feed the wife according to her proper condition. To the wife as mother belongs the education of the offspring, although dependently upon the husband, and to have care of the family estate, likewise dependently upon the husband. C. He. 163; C. H. 62.

What are the rights and obligations of spouses as to persons? - The head of the wife is the husband, and therefore the wife is under the power of the husband in those things which pertain to marriage, that is, which pertain to the undivided sharing of life. Eph. 5:22 seqq.; C. A. 91. Therefore the wife, without the consent of the husband, cannot be obligated by vow, S. Th. 2. 2, q. 88, a. 8 ad 3; L. l. 3, n. 234; regularly she cannot be obligated by contract; she cannot make a pilgrimage without the consent of the husband, and regularly must follow the domicile of the husband. C. I. 131, 134, 135; C. G. 214, 217, 220, 221, 222; C. H. 58, 61; C. A. 91, 92; C. B. 1354; C. He. 160, 170; C. L. 1193, even if the husband changes domicile without cause, provided the wife can follow him without grave detriment either of soul or of body, and, from C. H. 58 and C. L. 1186, not into a foreign nation. By the same C. L. 1189, a wife can publish a writing without the consent of the husband. C. Pervenit 1, de Coni. lepr.; Sanch., de Matr., l. 1, d. 41, nn. 2, 4; L. 351, l. 6, n. 977; S. Th. S., q. 64, a. 6 ad 1; Quodl. 4, a. 11. Cf. v. 2, n. 1052.

Without the consent of the husband, and except for cases excepted by law, the wife cannot act in judgment. C. I. 134; C. H. 60; C. L. 1192. From C. He. 168, whatever the regime of goods has been, a wife can stand in judgment. But in cases with third parties, as to goods brought in, she is represented by the husband.

The wife indeed must furnish reverence, obedience, and compliance to the husband in those things which regard the governance of the house and good morals; but she is his companion, not his maidservant. Therefore if she is rich or noble she is not compelled to furnish to the husband things which are not of her dignity, for example, to cook foods, sweep the house, etc. Yet if she does not obey the husband in a grave matter, she sins gravely, and a certain moderate coercion is permitted to the husband. 1 Pet. 3:5 seqq.; L. 351, 352, 356; l. 6, n. 972; Sanch., de Matr., l. 6, d. 6, n. 14; C. I. 131; C. G. 313; C. H. 57; C. B. 1354, 1356, 1357; C. L. 1185, 1189; Leo XIII, Enc. Arcanum, 10 Feb. 1886.

The husband in turn must love and protect the wife, Eph. 5:25; C. I. 132; C. H. 57; C. G. 213; C. L. 185; feed her, and dwell with her; and therefore it is not licit for him to be absent from her for a long time unless from a grave cause. Gen. 2:24; C. I, de Coni. lepr.; C. I. 130, 132; C. G. 212, 214; nor even to undertake a long pilgrimage with the woman unwilling. C. 8, de Voto. Yet the husband is not usually bound to take the wife with him at great inconvenience and expense, when it happens that he must travel around because of business. C. 9, § In tanta, de Voto. But the husband sins gravely if he affects the wife with contumelious or defamatory words; if he impedes her concerning the precepts of God or of the Church without just cause; if he gravely beats the wife; if he neglects the governance of the house and the family estate. Col. 3:18, 19; L. 356; Sanch., de Matr., l. 9, d. 5, n. 17; S. Th. 2. 2, q. 26, a. 11.

In those things which pertain to mutual help of life, man and wife are of equal right, since marriage is entered for the sake of mutual help. Hence they mutually owe each other love, fidelity, assistance, and support. Eph. 5:25; Matt. 19:5; 1 Cor. 7:3 seqq.; C. I. 130; C. G. 212; C. H. 56; C. A. 90; C. L. 1184; and if anything adverse happens to one, the other must be a participant. Therefore a woman must follow a husband migrating elsewhere for the sake of health or as a punishment, and a man must follow a woman. L. 353, l. 6, nn. 957, 977. And one must furnish support to the other in need, even if driven into exile by his or her own fault, or shut in prison, indeed even when separated from the other, provided it is not by his or her own fault, if he or she has resources; and the husband must feed the wife even if he married her without dowry, or the dowry perished by chance. C. I. 132, 133, 142; C. G. 214; C. B. 1360, 1361; C. He. 159, 160, 161; Sanch., de Matr., l. 9, d. 4, n. 20; d. 5, nn. 8, 14.

It is lawful for neither, with the other unwilling, to enter religion, C. un., Extr., de Voto; and he who passes to religion with the spouse unwilling can be recalled. C. 3, 12, de Conv. coni. Nor is it lawful for a man, with the wife unwilling, to receive orders, indeed not even tonsure, C. 4, de Temp. ord., in 6, except if he has justly and by law separated from her as to habitation. L. l. 1, n. 969. Cf. 1 Tim. 2:8-15; 5:9-14; Eph. 5:22-33.

Note: Children and a wife can receive support from one burdened by debts who is not solvent, since he is bound to feed them from strict piety, and also from legal justice; nor is he less bound to feed them than to pay other debts. Indeed they can do this even if the father of the family contracts other debts, provided however they do not have sustenance from elsewhere. Nor indeed after the death of the father is the son bound to pay those debts of the father, if the father left no goods to the son, for that obligation was altogether personal to the father. "Yet the wife cannot use for the sustenance of the family money given by the husband for paying debts, except in the case in which the family would be gravely in need; for then the husband is bound to help this first, and therefore the wife then uses her own right. Thus Laymann, who adds that the wages of workers for the necessary uses of the debtor are to be preferred even to hypothecary creditors." L. 695, 354.

What are the rights and obligations of spouses concerning goods? - If Natural Law is considered, marital society does not prevent both husband and wife from retaining ownership, usufruct, and administration even of goods which they had before marriage, and which they acquire during marriage. Yet they must concur for expenses necessarily to be sustained on account of common burdens. Moreover, it is fitting that the husband either have the whole administration of goods, or certainly assist the wife as much as is necessary for supplying her weakness.

But if positive Law is considered, the husband's power in this matter is broader. Hence by positive Law various goods of the wife are distinguished. S. Th. 2. 2, q. 57, a. 4.

Some goods of the wife are dotal, whose fruits the husband enjoys for sustaining the burdens of marriage; others are paraphernal, namely beyond the dowry, which the wife has beyond the dowry, and which she specially reserves to herself; others are common, which by pacts of the spouses or by determination of law are brought into a certain society. Before entering marriage, spouses can determine under what conditions their goods are to be subjected, with certain statutes of the law observed. If they have omitted to do this, the law will supply.

From Roman Law: The wife has direct dominion of her dowry, but the husband has usufruct and administration. When the husband has died, she is preferred to all personal creditors of the husband, and even during life she can juridically seek the dowry again if she fears lest the husband become unable to restore it. If the dowry consists in money, or in other things consumable by use, or in appraised things handed over, full dominion of the dowry is indeed attributed to the husband, but with the obligation of restoring the value, dominion being transferred for the wife into all goods of the husband according to the rate or quota of her dowry. The wife has full dominion and administration of paraphernal goods, so that concerning these the husband, with her unwilling, can dispose of nothing. Hence as to these she in no way depends upon the husband.

The ownership and utility of common goods pertain to each spouse; but administration of the same pertains to the husband alone. But this community of goods can admit various conditions or restrictions, and therefore attention must be given to the various dispositions of places. Gury 549; Elbel 69; L. 489; Troplong, della Prescrizione, c. 3, n. 483 seqq.

From More Recent Law: In the first place we can distinguish goods of the wife, goods of the husband, and common goods. As to goods of the wife, these likewise are either dotal or extradotal, or paraphernal. Dowry is goods brought to the husband for sustaining the burdens of marriage. But any goods whatever of the wife not constituted as dowry are held as paraphernal. C. I. 1388, 1425; C. G. 1540, 1575; C. A. 1218.

That there be dowry it is necessary: 1. that it was expressly constituted by this name, C. I. 1388; C. H. 1336. Therefore those things which are donated to the woman by contract of marriage are not dotal, unless something else has expressly been provided. But it is otherwise from C. G. 1541. Moreover, dowry can comprehend all goods, even future goods. C. I. 1389; C. G. 1542; C. A. 1218, 1227; C. H. 1336, 1337. 2. That an instrument be drawn up by a notary, and, if the dowry is constituted by the spouses themselves, before marriage. C. I. 1382, 1391; C. G. 1394. For after marriage dowry can neither be constituted nor increased by them. C. I. 1341; C. H. 1338; and from C. G. 1543, not by others either. Cf. C. A. 1225; C. H. 1344. 3. That nuptials have been entered from Civil Law. L. 3, de Iure dot.; C. I. 93; C. G. 165; C. A. 44; C. H. 42.

He who constitutes a dowry must furnish it from his own goods, even if the woman does not lack her own goods. C. I. 1392, 1393, 1394, 1395; C. G. 1544, 1545, 1546; C. A. 1224. Cf. C. H. 1340, 1341; and he furnishes security against eviction. C. I. 1396; C. G. 1547. But the husband is not bound to surety for the dowry unless he is obligated to it by agreement made, or is driven to it by sentence of the judge, if the dowry is exposed to danger, and the dowry was constituted by him who, if it were lacking, would be compelled to furnish support to the dowered woman. C. I. 1400; C. G. 1550, 1563; C. A. 1245. Cf. C. H. 1345, 1349, 1358.

Of those things which are given by reason of dowry, some pass into the full dominion of the husband, others do not, and constitute a permanent dowry. Things which are consumed by use pass into the full dominion of the husband, C. A. 1227; things, whether movable or immovable, which are given to him in payment, C. I. 1403; C. G. 1553; movable things, if they were given appraised, C. I. 1401; C. G. 1551; not likewise immovable things, unless this was openly expressed. C. I. 1402; C. G. 1551; C. A. 1228. From C. H. 1346, if nothing is determined in the marriage contract, the wife preserves dominion of all her dotal goods. Cf. C. B. 1227, 1228.

Of those goods which constitute a permanent dowry, natural and direct dominion remains with the wife; civil and useful dominion passes to the husband. C. A. 1227, 1228, 1230. Therefore, by force of the natural and direct dominion of the wife, the increase or damage of the dowry will belong to the wife. By force of the civil and useful dominion of the husband, the husband has administration and usufruct of dotal goods; whence he administers dotal goods as his own, acts in judgment for them, C. I. 1339; C. G. 1549; C. H. 1357, 1360, and all things which are contained under the name of fruits are his from the marriage entered, C. I. 1399; C. G. 1549; C. A. 1227; and if counted money was promised, interest by the law itself is owed to him, although delay for payment had been stipulated. C. I. 1397; C. G. 1548. But the husband must furnish that diligence in administering dotal things which he furnishes in his own things, and he must fulfill all obligations of a usufructuary, C. I. 1408; C. G. 1562. But he is bound to use the fruits for feeding the family, for this is why the fruits are assigned to him, namely for bearing matrimonial burdens.

A woman can obtain separation of dotal goods by the office of the judge if the dowry is in danger, or the affairs of the husband are turning to evil, or she has been judicially separated from him. C. I. 1418; C. G. 1563. When this has been obtained, she herself, in place of the husband, administers the dotal goods, C. I. 1424; C. G. 1449; C. H. 225, 1365; but together with the husband she must provide for domestic necessities and for the instruction of the children. C. I. 1423; C. G. 1448. Cf. C. A. 1241, 1263. It can be established in the marriage contract: 1. that the wife receive each year a part of the fruits for small expenses, C. I. 1399; C. G. 1549; 2. that the surviving spouse receive some gain beyond the dowry, with the legitimate portion of the children preserved. C. I. 1398; L. l. 3, n. 539.

Dotal goods regularly, while marriage remains, cannot be alienated, and an alienation made can be revoked even by the husband himself who consented to the alienation. C. I. 1407; C. G. 1560. Dotal goods, namely all from C. I. 1405, but only immovables from C. G. 1554. Regularly; for they can be alienated from a grave cause of necessity or utility, by decree of the tribunal and consent of each spouse, C. I. 1405; C. G. 1558; C. H. 1358 seqq.; or if alienation was permitted in the marriage contract itself. C. I. 1404; C. G. 1557. They cannot be alienated for any cause whatever from C. I. 1405, which distinguishes nothing, except the cause of placing some child from C. G. 1556. Alienation, moreover, also comprehends exchanges, servitudes, and mortgages. C. I. 1404, 1405; cf. C. G. 1554, 1559. While marriage remains; therefore also after separation from C. I. 1405; cf. C. G. 1449. But if, while marriage remains, a woman has legitimately contracted debt, or any obligation whatever, after the marriage has been dissolved even dotal goods are bound to creditors from C. I. 1407; but otherwise from C. G. 1558, 1560. Cf. C. A. 1260.

When the marriage has been dissolved, the dowry ceases and must be restored. The dowry must be restored to the wife, or to her heirs. C. A. 1229; C. H. 1365. Things whose civil and useful dominion only was in the hands of the husband must be restored immediately in their own species, as they then are. C. I. 1409, 1411, 1412; C. G. 1564, 1566, 1567; C. H. 1367; and if by the fault of the husband they have become worse, the loss is charged to him. C. I. 1408; C. G. 1562; C. H. 1360, 1375. But of things of which the husband had full dominion, only the price must be restored within a year. C. I. 1401, 1410; C. G. 1551, 1565; C. H. 1347, 1366, 1370. From these the woman can retain for herself linens and those things necessary for her ordinary use, with their actual price deducted, if, after an appraisal of the same had been made, they were first given. C. I. 1411; C. G. 1566. Cf. C. H. 1384.

Besides this, the fruits of the last year of marriage are to be restored, according to the proportion of time. The year is computed from the anniversary day of the marriage celebrated. But the widow can according to her judgment either demand these fruits, or support for the whole year of mourning. Besides, during this year housing and mourning clothes are owed to her. C. I. 1415, 1416; C. G. 1570, 1571; only mourning clothes, C. H. 1879. Cf. C. A. 1242, 1243. Finally, when the marriage has been dissolved, gains also or dotal increases are owed to the surviving spouse from the goods of the deceased, if a pact concerning them was present in the marriage contract. C. I. 1398.

Paraphernal or extradotal goods are those which the wife reserves to herself outside the dowry. C. H. 1381. These are the wife's by full right, and therefore she administers them and enjoys their usufruct. C. I. 1427; C. G. 1576; C. H. 1382. Yet she cannot alienate immovables, nor stand in judgment for them without the express consent of the husband, or, with the husband resisting, without sentence of the tribunal. C. I. 134, 136; C. G. 215, 217, 1576, 1538; C. H. 1387; cf. C. A. 91. The same must be said from C. G. 1536, if the wife is altogether separated in goods. But if the husband administers them from the express or tacit mandate of the wife and receives the fruits, he must restore only the fruits which then exist when the woman asks, or dies; but he must restore all the fruits which he received if the condition was added to the mandate that he render accounts of the fruits, or if the woman opposed herself at least by an extrajudicial act. C. I. 1427 seqq.; C. G. 1576 seqq. But from C. H. 1384, 1389 seqq., if paraphernal goods are handed over by the wife to the husband to be administered, they are then equated with dotal goods, whose dominion remains in the hands of the wife. From C. A. 1238, 1239, unless the wife opposes herself, by presumption of law the administration of the wife's free patrimony is judged to have been entrusted to the husband as legitimate procurator. But he is responsible only for the substance of the thing, or for the capital; he is not bound to give an account of the fruits received, unless this was expressly agreed.

To paraphernal goods belong, and they are the wife's, those goods which, during marriage, she acquires from her own goods, or from singular industry, or from her own extraordinary labor, especially if she exercises commerce in her own name, or also by subtracting something from what has been conceded to her for food, clothing, recreation, etc.; and also those things which were given to her with the express condition that they not fall to the husband. C. A. 1237; L. l. 3, n. 541.

As to the goods of the husband. The wife has no dominion over the goods of the husband. But since the wife is the companion of the husband, and the husband must feed the wife according to her condition, the wife can by her own right take for herself those things which are necessary to her for this reason. Lugo, de Iust. et Iur., d. 16, n. 72; Lessius, de Iust. et Iur., l. 2, c. 12, n. 85. And if by received custom of the region it is accepted that the wife spend something from the goods of the husband, she can also do this. Lugo, l. c. Therefore the wife can take not only those things which are necessary for the body, but also those things which pertain to relieving the mind and to the decency of her state. Lugo, l. c., nn. 68, 70. Nor indeed can she do this for herself only, but also for the children received from that marriage, for the utility of the family, or for removing some harm to it, and this even against the will of the husband. Therefore she can withdraw things from a prodigal husband in order to reserve them for the family in the future, or from an avaricious husband for making moderate alms. Lugo, l. c., n. 65; Lessius, l. c., n. 85. From the very nature of conjugal society the wife has administration of domestic things, the pantry, furniture, etc. C. He. 163; Lugo, l. c., n. 65; Lessius, l. c., n. 85. From C. I. 1432, if the wife administered the goods of the husband, she is subject to the same law to which he himself is subject in the administration of the wife's paraphernal goods.

But when the husband is absent or insane, the wife administers his goods, and she can spend them, according to the strength of the patrimony, for the sustenance and preservation of the dignity of the family, although perhaps the husband, if he were present or in control of himself, would not have spent them. From C. H. 1442, 1444, the wife administering all the goods of the marriage has the same faculties and obligations as when the husband administers them. Yet she cannot alienate or burden immovables. Lugo, l. c., nn. 16, 70; Lessius, nn. 12, 86; L. 541.

As to common goods. From C. I. 1433, 1435, 1436, 1438, 1439, 1441, in the marriage contract itself, although a dowry has been constituted, the spouses can enter together into a universal society, not indeed of goods, but of fruits coming from the goods themselves, whether movable or immovable, whether present or future. Yet this society cannot comprehend debts and credits existing before marriage, nor those which are later deferred by title of succession or donation while the communion itself lasts. The effect of this communion is to render common and divisible those things which are acquired by the spouses together or separately during the communion, whether by common industry, or by thrift made upon the fruits or incomes of the spouses, the debts of the communion itself always being deducted. Goods placed in common are administered by the husband, who cannot alienate them or subject them to mortgage except by onerous title, and if he leases them, he must observe the laws established for leasing which is done by a usufructuary. But the society ceases by the death of either spouse, by the declared absence of one, by definitive separation of persons, and by judicial separation of goods.

From C. H., when a contract concerning goods is lacking, by which they can also establish separation of goods between themselves, the marriage is judged to have been entered under the regime of legal society of gains, 1315, 1432. But if this society is excluded, without the rules by which the goods are governed being expressed, then the dotal regime is observed, and nevertheless the husband receives all the fruits of the society of gains just as if it existed, 1364.

Now by society of gains husband and wife make their own, by half, when the marriage has been dissolved, the gains and benefits indistinctly obtained by either spouse during marriage, 1392. By the law itself the proper goods of each spouse and the common gains are determined, 1396 seqq., 1401 seqq., and also the burdens and obligations of this society, 1408 seqq. The husband administers the society according to the established laws, 1412 seqq.; he can make moderate donations for the sake of piety and beneficence, but cannot reserve usufruct for himself, 1415.

The society is dissolved by dissolution of marriage, by the absence of either spouse, by separation of persons or goods, 1417, 1433. When the society has been dissolved, after an inventory has been made, and dotal and paraphernal goods have been restored, and the other burdens of the society have been satisfied, what remains is divided equally between husband and wife, or their respective heirs, 1418 seqq. Cf. ibid. 1435, 1436.

From C. G. 1393, even if spouses do not establish that certain goods will be common, nevertheless if any other pact is lacking, legal Community has place by force of law. For the pacts which can be entered by spouses before marriage constitute three classes, or a threefold regime, namely the dotal regime, concerning which we have already spoken, the regime of community, and the regime excluding community. Moreover, Community is either legal or conventional, according as it is constituted by law or by a special pact of the contracting parties. 1391, 1400 seqq., 1497 seqq., 1540 seqq. Legal Community coalesces: 1. from all movable goods which the spouses possessed on the very day of the marriage entered, or which afterwards come to them by title of succession or donation; 2. from all fruits and any revenues whatever of immovable goods possessed by the spouses before marriage, or coming to them during marriage; 3. from all immovable goods which were acquired from common goods during the time of marriage. Conventional Community consists in other pacts of the spouses, by which legal statutes can be restricted or relaxed. When these are lacking, the community is governed by the disposition of the law alone.

Under the regime of community the husband alone has administration of common goods. Indeed he can sell them, exchange them, and hand them over into mortgage, even without the consent of the wife. Yet he cannot donate immovables by gratuitous title, nor movables by universal title, or as to their universality or quota, that is, a half, third, or fourth part. He can dispose of some movable thing by gratuitous title, provided he does not reserve usufruct for himself. But when the community has been dissolved, goods and burdens are divided into two parts, unless the wife or her heirs prefer to renounce the goods, and thus to exempt themselves from the burdens. Debts are to be paid by each spouse, or by their heirs. The husband also has administration of the proper or personal goods of the wife. 1400, 1401, 1409, 1422, 1428, 1441, 1453, 1467 seqq., 1497 seqq.

A regime excluding community can be constituted by the spouses in two ways, namely: 1. by declaring that they enter marriage without community; 2. by establishing that each will be altogether separate as to goods. In the former case the man receives all revenues of the wife's goods and alone administers all things. But if they are consumed by use, he is bound to return their value. But in the latter case the woman has administration and usufruct of all her own goods. Each spouse concurs for the burdens of marriage by special pact; but if no agreement exists, the wife must concur up to a third part of her revenues. Therefore in this third regime, as also in the second, some dowry must be contributed by the wife, by which she may in part aid the burdens of marriage; but a dowry of this sort can be alienated by the husband. 1530 seqq., 1536 seqq. Cf. here 868, 1237.

From C. A. 1233, 1234. For communion of goods between spouses a special contract is required. But it is understood only for the case of death, and gives to the spouse a right to the half part of the goods constituted in communion which remain after the death of the other spouse. Cf. art. 1262, 1266.

From C. B. the regime of goods is twofold, legal and conventional. Legal matrimonial regime of goods. By the marriage contract the goods of the wife, even those which she herself acquires during marriage, are administered by the husband, who has their usufruct, but must sustain the expenses of marriage. The goods reserved to the wife are excepted, whether by law, namely clothes, precious gems, and instruments of labor, and goods acquired by labor or the personal exercise of a gainful profession; or by contract, namely those which were declared such by the marriage contract; by succession, legacy, or donation made with that reservation. The wife has administration and usufruct of these reserved goods. When administration and usufruct of the husband have ceased, the husband is bound to restore the goods to the wife and also to render an account of administration. But the wife can demand this cessation if her goods are placed in danger. C. B. 1363 seqq.

Conventional regime of matrimonial goods. Spouses can establish an agreement concerning goods both before marriage and after marriage has been contracted, and they can dissolve or modify the regime of goods. If by the marriage contract the administration and usufruct of the husband is excluded, or if the community of goods is dissolved, then separation of goods is had. But community can be either universal of goods, or particular, or particular of acquisitions, or particular of movables and acquisitions. The husband administers the community and sustains the burdens of marriage from the goods of the community. When the community has been dissolved, the debts having first been paid, those things which remain are divided into two equal parts between the two spouses, or the descendants of either and the widowed spouse. C. B. 1432 seqq.

Besides these things, which are constituted by various laws, all those pacts must be observed both by the husband and by the wife which in the marriage contract either were tacitly entered, according to the proper laws of the region, or expressly constituted by private will, provided however that these agreed pacts do not oppose good morals or the laws. C. I. 1378; C. A. 1217; C. G. 1387; C. H. 1315.

From C. L. It is licit for spouses before marriage to make a contract concerning goods, within the limits of the law, 1096. Agreements of this sort will not be valid unless they have been made by public writing, 1097. If no agreement is made, the marriage is judged to have been contracted according to the custom of the kingdom, 1098. A woman can reserve to herself the right of receiving part of the fruits of her goods, provided it does not exceed a third part, 1104. An agreement can be made of marriage according to the custom of the kingdom, of community of acquisitions, of separation of goods, of the dotal regime, 1099 seqq. Agreement according to the custom of the kingdom imports community of all present and future goods not excepted by law, 1108 seqq. Dominion and possession of these goods is with each spouse; administration is in the hands of the husband, 1117 seqq. When the Community has ended, its goods are divided between the spouses and their heirs, due equality being observed. But satisfaction must be made first to the woman, then to the man, 1123, 1124. Agreement of community of acquisitions does not comprehend goods which are had at the time of marriage, or which afterwards are had by succession or another gratuitous title, 1130 seqq. Agreement of separation of goods does not exclude from community goods acquired without express declaration, 1125. Each spouse preserves dominion of his or her own goods, and their free disposition, with however that restriction for the woman which is made by law, 1127, 1128. Under the dotal regime the husband can alienate movable goods, but is bound concerning their value, 1148. Immovable goods are inalienable except for cases permitted by law, 1149 seqq., nor can they be prescribed during marriage, 1152. When the marriage has been dissolved, dotal goods must be restored to the woman and her heirs, 1156 seqq.

C. He. has the regime of union of goods, communion of goods, and separation of goods. Unless otherwise disposed, spouses are subject to the regime of union, 178. By union of goods all goods which the spouses possess at the moment of the celebration of marriage, or acquire during marriage, are joined into one sole conjugal substance, 194. The part of this conjugal substance brought by the wife remains her property. The husband is owner of the goods which he himself brought, and of any conjugal substance which was not brought by the wife. The wife's revenues and natural fruits of goods brought by her are the property of the husband from the moment when they are owed or separated, 195. The husband administers the conjugal substance, uses and enjoys it as a usufructuary, 200, 201. When the wife has died, the goods brought by her pass to her heirs. When the husband has died, the wife recovers the goods brought by her. If, after separation has been made, an increase is had, two thirds of this pertain to the wife and her descendants, the third part to the husband and his heirs. If on the contrary diminution is had, it is to be sustained by the husband and his heirs unless it is proved to have been caused by the wife. And, if on account of debts made by the husband the wife would obtain less than half of the goods brought by her, her credit for completing this half part is privileged. The cession of this privilege in favor of individual creditors is null, 211 seqq.

By communion of goods all goods and revenues of husband and wife are joined into one undivided substance, which pertains to each. The husband administers it. By the death of either spouse, half part of the common substance pertains to the surviving spouse, the other half part to the heirs of the deceased. Increase is divided into two equal parts between the spouses or their heirs. Diminution must be sustained by the husband or by his heirs, unless it is proved to have been caused by the wife. 215, 216, 225, 240.

Separation of goods regards the whole substance of each spouse. Each preserves ownership, administration, and usufruct of his or her own substance. But the wife is bound to contribute, in an equitable portion, to the burdens of marriage, even with reserved goods. 192, 241, 242, 246. Goods are reserved either by matrimonial contract, or by the liberality of third parties, or by law. Reserved by law are those things which personally and exclusively pertain to either spouse; goods of the wife which serve her for the exercise of her profession or art; and the gain which the wife receives by laboring in her own name. Reserved goods of the wife are not comprehended in the union of goods. 190, 191, 194.

What can a wife do as to entering various contracts? - The wife cannot, without the consent and authority of the husband, donate, alienate, or subject to mortgage her immovable things, contract a loan, cede or demand capitals, stand surety, make a settlement, or act in judgment concerning these acts. C. I. 134; cf. C. G. 215, 217; C. A. 91. Nor can she undertake to manage another's affairs without authorization of the husband. C. I. 1743; cf. C. G. 1990. But a woman needs no consent or authority of the husband or of another when the husband is a minor, interdicted, absent, or expiating a penalty longer than a year, or absent, or when she is juridically separated by the fault of the husband, or when she exercises commerce. C. I. 135; C. G. 220. From C. He. 161, 163, the wife is the one who directs domestic economy and represents it. And from art. 167, the wife has the faculty of exercising a certain profession or art with the express or tacit consent of the husband.

He who contracts with a wife, without the consent and authority of the husband, when this is needed, is obligated to the wife both civilly and naturally; and the wife is likewise obligated to him. But restitution in full is given to the wife and her heirs, and also to the husband while marriage remains, and to those having cause, unless it is proved that what was paid to the wife went to her convenience and utility. C. I. 134, 137, 1157, 1300; C. G. 217, 225, 1304, 1312. From C. H. 1304, the wife is not bound to restore a thing received by contract, when it has been rescinded, unless she became richer by it. Cf. also art. 1163. From C. B. 1365-1371, 1395-1400, 1405-1407, the wife can freely dispose of goods reserved to her; but as to goods subject to the administration and usufruct of the husband, she needs the approval of the husband.

Can a wife sometimes stand surety for the husband? - R. Affirmatively, namely so that she may provide for domestic necessities. But otherwise negatively. Thus commonly. The reason is that the former is sometimes required by the good itself of the family, but the latter is excluded by this same good. Hence it follows that a wife is bound to pay debts legitimately contracted by the husband in the name of the wife, with her knowing and consenting, for the good and convenience of the family itself. L. 454. From C. I. 1405; C. G. 1558, the authority of the judge is required, or from C. He. 177, the consent of tutelary authority.

What is the law if a man and woman contracted an invalid marriage? - If each was aware of the nullity, there is indeed no marriage, and no right from positive law can be claimed from it, whether as to the dowry of the wife, or as to the legitimacy and hereditary succession of the children. C. 10, Qui fil. sint legit.; C. I. 116; C. G. 202; C. A. 160. Yet the son can, during his life, demand support from the father just as if he were legitimate. C. B. 1703. If each was unaware of the nullity, the marriage is just as if it were truly valid, whence rights flow from it as from a true marriage. C. 2, 8, 14, Qui fil., etc.; C. I. 116; C. G. 201; C. A. 160; C. B. 1699; L. l. 7, n. 425.

If one was aware and the other unaware of the nullity, civil rights are established for the spouse alone who contracted in good faith; but the children are legitimate as to each. C. 14, Qui fil.; C. ult., § Si quis 1, de Cland. desp.; C. I. 116; C. G. 202; C. A. 160; cf. arts. 1265, 1266; C. B. 1701, 1702; Schmalz., l. 4, t. 17, nn. 13, 18, 57; Lugo, d. 24, n. 8; L. l. 7, nn. 425, 432. Cf. here 223.

680bis. Can a woman be emancipated from the man, and obtain equality with him? - Emancipation of this sort of woman from the man in the family and in society, whether civil or religious, as also absolute equality in the same order of family and society, is against every law, natural and positive, divine, canonical, and civil, as is clear of itself. Yet from this it does not follow that the condition of the woman is vile, or that she is altogether to be depressed. The nobility of the woman appears from her first production, from her destination by universal nature for propagating the human race together with the man. Whence she is the man's companion. Gen. 2:18 seqq. Yet in this domestic society, the woman is under the power of the man. But this subjection of the woman is in no way servile, but economic. 1 Pet. 3; S. Th. 1 p., q. 92, a. 1; q. 94, a. 4. But if the discourse is about civil society, man by nature itself is destined for exercising rule and for undertaking the greater offices. Woman can exercise arts and lesser offices for which she has aptitude, and which, if she is a mother of a family, do not impede the duties of a mother of a family.

Ulpian, L. 2, de Diversis Regulis Iuris antiqui, lib. 50, tit. 17. Finally, in the Church of Jesus Christ, man and woman are of equal condition in order to faith, to grace, and to obtaining eternal glory. Gal. 3:28. But, since woman is altogether excluded from Order, the sacrament, as to the ecclesiastical hierarchy she is in an inferior condition with respect to man. Yet nothing prevents a woman also from exercising in the Church certain works of religion and charity for promoting the salvation of souls and the glory of God. 1 Cor. 14:34; Rom. 16:1 seqq. Therefore the emancipation of woman from man, or absolute equality between man and woman, cannot be admitted. Yet a woman can well be admitted to undertaking easier and secondary offices which seem more proper to woman, and for which she herself also has greater aptitude, outside domestic society. Consequently women can also be admitted to a certain broader education and instruction beyond domestic matters. But in that exercise of offices, and in this greater education, due precautions must be observed, lest public honesty suffer detriment, and the religion and good morals of women be exposed to danger of perversion.

1. Philemon, married, thinks to undertake a pilgrimage to Rome and Jerusalem. He manifests his desire to his wife Anna, who openly asserts that she is altogether unwilling. Hence Philemon asks his confessor whether, notwithstanding the manifest dissent of his wife, he can depart.

Q. 1. What are the obligations of spouses? 2. What must be responded by the confessor?

R. To the first. Cf. I. M. 674, 675; V. 2, n. 1051, 1052. To the second. The confessor ought to respond that he cannot depart. For there is a grave obligation of the consortium of an undivided life; nor does the reason, in the case, of mere devotion excuse him from such an obligation. Nor indeed is the wife held, in this case, to follow the husband, since this is altogether grave for a woman. Hence it is that a wife can also annul a vow emitted by the husband of a long pilgrimage, since this vow gravely prejudices her. Lig. 235. For indeed those things which are of necessity are not to be passed over on account of those things which are of one's own will. Hence also the Lord, Matt. 15:13 seqq., rebuked the Pharisees, who taught that the commandment concerning the honoring of parents should be passed over, so that some voluntary offerings might be offered to God. But from necessity it is incumbent on a man that he have care for his wife and cohabit with her. But that he undertake a pious pilgrimage is subject to his own will. But if it is of necessity of the Church that the man undertake such a pilgrimage, then the wife is held to consent to it. St. Thomas, Quodlibet 4, a. 11; S. q. 64, a. 6, ad 1.

2. Polydorus, managing the family estate badly, seeks borrowed money so that he can continue the trade which he exercises. Aurelius, his friend, indeed gladly gives it to Polydorus; but he requires that his wife Apollonia also sign the debt. Apollonia, fearing lest the matter turn out badly, altogether refuses, but, pressed by the entreaties of Polydorus, signs the debt. A little afterward Polydorus dies, burdened by debt. Aurelius demands payment of the debt from Apollonia out of her dotal goods. Since it is a question of an immense sum of money, the whole family is exposed to most grave misery. Apollonia consults Philetus the advocate, who immediately says that she is held to nothing, according to the law, since her private signature is not admitted by law, and that she can fear no detriment from this, since, if the matter were treated before a judge, sentence would certainly have to be rendered for her. Hence, Philetus adds, Aurelius himself will suppress the matter in deep silence. Apollonia, agitated by scruples, asks her confessor whether she can with a safe conscience stand by the counsel of the advocate Philetus, an excellent Catholic.

Q. 1. What are the rights and obligations of spouses concerning goods? 2. Is Apollonia held to pay the debts of her husband from her own dotal goods?

R. To the first. Cf. I. M. 677 seqq., 868. - To the second. Negatively. For from C. I. 1407, no alienation and obligation of a dowry exists, although the spouses consent, unless it was permitted in the marriage contract itself and the prescribed formalities are fulfilled. Thus also from C. G. 1554. Laws of this sort, since they are just, for they are directly on account of the public good, and since they are definitive and constitutive of the right of property, have effect in the forum of conscience and oblige. Therefore Apollonia can use the benefit of the law. Indeed, if Apollonia, during marriage, incautiously permitted her husband to draw off part of the dowry for entering some contract or paying debts, she has a right to obtain the rescission of the contract, or compensation for the detriment brought upon the dowry; for the dowry of a wife cannot be alienated. - I. M. 677, 678, 953; Lig. 354; G. 506.

3. A father of a family, about to give his daughter in marriage, had promised to the bridegroom a dowry of fifty aurei. But because, the nuptials having been celebrated, he does not have them ready at hand, meanwhile he gives to his son-in-law in pledge a little vineyard which he possesses, of about the same price.

Q. Is the son-in-law held to compute into the principal the fruits which, all expenses having been deducted, he gathers from that little vineyard?

R. Negatively, provided nevertheless, as is supposed, that the son-in-law, not the father-in-law, feeds the wife. The resolution of this case is found in C. Salubriter 16, de Usuris, where it is said: "Indeed, we do not think that a son-in-law must be compelled to compute into the principal the fruits of possessions which have been obligated to him by the father-in-law as a pledge for the counted dowry, since frequently the fruits of the dowry do not suffice for bearing the burdens of marriage." But because it is generally certain that a creditor must compute into the principal sum the fruits received from a thing given to him in pledge, as is clear from C. de Pignoribus and C. 1 de Usuris, therefore the present decision has not undeservedly seemed difficult to doctors, both jurists and theologians, and they have brought forward various interpretations of it, most of which obscure rather than illustrate it. The rest being omitted, that which is brought forward by Emanuel Gonzalez in his commentary on the cited C. Salubriter, n. 7, is especially approved by us, where he says: "That we may assign the true reason of this text, it must be premised that a husband, to whom the promised dowry is not paid, is not held to sustain the burdens of marriage; indeed the father, or the stranger promising the dowry to the husband, is held, while the dowry is not paid, to support the burdens of marriage, L. Si is qui 56, § 1, ff. de Iure dot.; L. Si filia nupta 20, § 2; L. Si maritus 46, Famil. ercisc. Then it must be premised that if, from the beginning, when there is question of the constitution of the dowry, it has been agreed between the husband and the one constituting the dowry that the dowry be paid within a month or a year, pledges having been given, although meanwhile he sustains the burdens of marriage, nevertheless for this reason he cannot profit from the fruits of the pledge or seek interest on the dowry, unless an agreement intervened that meanwhile, while the dowry is not paid, something be paid under the title of interest. But in the present text the dowry was constituted for the present, with no delay of time having been given to the father for its payment. These things having been premised, the true reason appears why in the present case the husband can receive the fruits of the pledge and is not held to impute them to the dowry: namely, because he receives them not by reason of a loan, nor of delayed payment, but from this cause, namely, because he fed his wife and sustained all other things without the dowry, which the father-in-law ought to sustain. Wherefore what wonder, if the son-in-law sustained the burdens of marriage from the things of the father-in-law, namely from the fruits of the pledges, which burdens the father ought to have sustained, and therefore is not held to impute such fruits to the principal sum?... Therefore the whole reason why in the present case the husband duly and rightly profits from the fruits of the pledges consists in this: that he sustains the burdens of marriage which the father-in-law ought to have sustained." Cas. Bonon. Dioec., year 1766, month Sept., case 2, p. 142.

The same indeed is the resolution of the case from more recent laws. For in the Italian Code, art. 1397, it is thus had: "The interests of the dowry run by right from the day of the marriage against those who have promised it, even though a delay of payment has been agreed upon, if there is no stipulation to the contrary." The disposition of the French Code, art. 1440, 1548, is altogether the same. Wherefore the son-in-law in the case, since the father-in-law did not pay the dowry, will be able rightly to use the fruits of that little vineyard of equivalent price, without afterward having to compute those fruits into the principal sum. - Dal giorno del matrimonio, from the day of marriage, namely from the day of the celebration of the marriage before the civil magistrate, not from the day of the celebration of the dotal contract before the notary. From the day of marriage, because from that day the burdens of marriage begin, for the sustaining of which the dowry is destined. - I. M. 677.

4. Felix, a tailor, having his own shop in Naples, is joined in marriage to Feliciana, a seamstress, also having her own shop, without any marital contract. Felix, during several years of marriage, gains fifty thousand lire. But Feliciana gains ninety thousand lire. With the capital, by common consent, being constituted as one for its more convenient administration, from its fruits both spouses are sustained, and they perform many pious works and give alms. Meanwhile Feliciana, wishing, for the future case of death, to make a testament, since she is ignorant of these matters, approaches her confessor, asking of him whether she can make a testament, and whether by her testament she can leave 30,000 lire to her surviving husband, 30,000 lire to her sister, 10,000 lire to the chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 10,000 lire to the Capuchin Fathers, 5,000 lire to the poor of the place, 4,000 lire for her soul, so that Masses may be celebrated for her, and finally 1,000 lire so that each year ten Masses may be celebrated for her in perpetuity in the parish church.

Q. 1. Is that which a wife gains by her own industry proper to the wife? 2. What must be answered to Feliciana?

R. To the first. Cf. I. M. 677. 4°. - To the second. That sum of 900,000 lire [printed thus; context indicates 90,000] which Feliciana gained by her singular industry, exercising the art of seamstress, belongs entirely to Feliciana. That sum constitutes neither a dowry and a dotal good, nor a common good. For no dowry was constituted at the beginning of the marriage, and no contract was entered concerning community of goods, C. I. 1388, 1425, 1433. Besides, Feliciana gained that sum not by common labor with her spouse, but from her own singular industry and extraordinary and proper labor. Wherefore a sum of this sort constitutes an extradotal good and one altogether proper to Feliciana. But that afterward, from the 50,000 lire of Felix and from the 900,000 lire [printed thus; context indicates 90,000] of Feliciana, one capital was made, this was only for more convenient administration, and accordingly those two spouses remained owners, each of his or her own capital. Wherefore Feliciana can rightly dispose by testament concerning that whole sum. - I. M. 677.

But as to the testamentary dispositions which Feliciana proposes to make for herself, these things must be noted.

1. As seems to be gathered from the case, Felix and Feliciana are Italians; therefore Feliciana, according to the Italian Code, can make a testament concerning her own goods, nor for making a testament does she need the consent of her husband or the decree of a judge. I. M. 1137.

2. A spouse is not declared by law incapable of receiving an inheritance. If the testator spouse does not leave ascendants and descendants who have a right to the legitime, the other spouse has a right to the usufruct of a third part of the goods. C. I. 814. Feliciana, as appears from the case, has neither ascendants nor descendants. But the part left to Felix exceeds the legitime. Wherefore, since the rights of Felix are not only not harmed, but on the contrary he receives far more than is owed to him, the disposition of Feliciana can be placed in the testament. I. M. 1043.

3. According to civil law, indeed there is no obligation to institute brothers and sisters as heirs or legatees. Indeed this obligation is not present according to natural law and in the forum of conscience either, unless they are in grave necessity; in which case it suffices to leave to them only as much as suffices for relieving their need. Nothing therefore can be noted against Feliciana if she does not have other brothers and sisters, or if, should she have them, they are not needy. But as regards her sister who is to be her legatee, Feliciana used her own right, since Feliciana can freely and altogether dispose of her own goods, apart from the usufruct owed to her husband by law, since she lacks necessary heirs. I. M. 682, 1040-1042, 1044.

4. The legacy of 10,000 lire for the chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary is altogether valid as a pious legacy, which is governed only by Canon Law.

Nor indeed from civil law can this disposition suffer any difficulty; since here it is not a question of dispositions ordered to instituting simple benefices, or lay chaplaincies, or other similar foundations, which art. 833 declares null. Nevertheless the permission of the Government is needed. C. I. 1060. Wherefore this disposition also can be placed in the testament. I. M. 1039. But to avoid every difficulty on the part of this permission, and since, generally speaking, pious legacies are often subject to the annulment of civil laws, because they are considered as autonomous moral entities which are not approved by law, in place of bequeathing the aforesaid sum to the chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the testament, it should be bequeathed to the Ordinary of the place, with his name and surname expressed, and beforehand, by a particular letter, the destination of this pious legacy should be signified to him.

5. The legacy in favor of the monastery of the Capuchin Fathers is valid, since they can receive a legacy after the manner of alms. But from civil law there can be grave difficulty, since Institutes, Congregations, and other foundations whose existence is not legally proved are incapable. Indeed, moral bodies, although they are legally recognized, need the permission of Superiors. C. I., a. 2; law of 5 June 1850; decree of 26 June 1864. But religious, from the Italian Code, even if they are professed, are not incapable either of making a testament or of acquiring an inheritance. Wherefore Feliciana will be able to leave 5,000 lire to some determined Father, for example, Fr. Philip of Naples or another, with a note privately delivered to him and to be preserved in the archive of the monastery, by which she declares her mind concerning that legacy in favor of the monastery. I. M. 1038, 1039.

6. Nor indeed can there be any difficulty, also on the part of civil law, as to the legacy of 5,000 lire for the poor of the place. For this disposition is expressly approved by art. 832. But this disposition, from the same article, devolves to the local Institute of Charity. I. M. 1039. Wherefore if she wishes it to be distributed, by the parish priest, for example, among the present poor, it should be bequeathed to some determined person who merits trust; and by living voice, or better by some written note, the destination of that sum should be signified. - Besides, the disposition by which the testator assigns to the parish church a determined revenue, constituted in certificates of public debt, with the obligation that the parish priest distribute it annually to the poor of the parish, is juridically valid. Likewise, a resolutive clause in favor of relatives is valid, when from any cause whatever the legacy can no longer be fulfilled. A legacy in favor of the poor blood-relatives of the testator is juridically valid. For the legacy is not uncertain, since that double quality can easily be certified.

7. The disposition made in favor of her soul, of 4,000 lire, is valid and is admitted by the civil law itself. For Feliciana's disposition is in no way perpetual, nor is it expressed generically, but is altogether precarious and is determined as to its scope. I. M. 1039.

8. Finally, the disposition of the foundation of ten Masses in perpetuity, in the parish church, is also valid from the civil law itself. For here it is not a question of a benefice, or of a chaplaincy, or of a similar foundation. Nor indeed is it a question of a pious work expressed generically, but one altogether determined. C. I. 832; I. M. 1033. Moreover, legacies made to the parish church for worship and suffrages, mandated by testament, are juridically valid. For the testator does not create an autonomous entity, but only bequeaths certain goods to the parish Fabric with the obligation of burdens of this sort. Nevertheless, immovable goods bequeathed are converted by the Treasury, and the corresponding revenue must be paid by the same to the Fabric. - Likewise, a testament has juridical value by which the testator imposes on the heir the burden of giving to the parish priest, or to other celebrants designated by the testator himself, or to be designated by another person, annually and in perpetuity, a certain determined sum of money for offices and Masses to be celebrated in suffrage for his soul. Cassaz. di Roma, 10 May 1882; Cassazione di Napoli, 17 Dec. 1880.

9. Let Feliciana name as heir in the testament her spouse or her sister, and let her impose on the heir the burden of executing the remaining pious dispositions. For thus the dispositions will be firmer; for it will be a testamentary disposition under a mode. But if Feliciana wishes to be altogether certain concerning the fulfillment of her will, as regards pious legacies, it is much better that, during her life, she herself hand these things over from hand to hand to the bishop, so that afterward they may be applied to the destined purpose.

5. Romanus and Romana, spouses separated in goods, had handed over the administration of their goods to their firstborn son Peter. Now a certain spacious and very ancient villa was being exposed to public sale. Romana, desiring to buy it, gave a mandate to Peter that he buy it in her name and with her money. But at that moment there was not found, in the chest of the mother's administration, sufficient counted money. Peter, greatly desiring to comply with his mother, took money from the chest of the father's administration, and with that money bought the villa. After the contract had already been perfected, Romanus learns that his money had been used for that purchase; hence he contends that the purchased villa is his, although integral restitution of the money had already been made from the chest of Romana's administration into the chest of Romanus's administration.

Q. 1. Can a wife enter contracts? 2. Whether the villa belongs to Romana or to Romanus?

R. To the first. Cf. I. M. 678, 953. - To the second. The villa belongs to Romana. For it was bought in her name and from her mandate. Therefore she is the one who, by the contract of purchase, acquired its dominion. Nor indeed is it an obstacle that the purchase was made with another's money. For it is not money which acquires dominion for the person; but it is the person of the buyer who, through the money, in the purchase, by an act of his will, acquires dominion, which is transferred from the seller to that person. And thus dominion of the thing bought can be acquired even when the price has not yet been paid. C. I. 1448, 1507 seqq. This is besides established also from L. 1, Cod., tit. Si quis alteri, vel sibi, sub alterius nomine, vel aliena pecunia, emerit: "If land and slaves were purchased with the father's money, nevertheless, since you state that the purchases were made in the name of your mother, you must not be ignorant that by tradition your mother was constituted mistress." Likewise L. 2 and 8, e. t., and L. 6, Cod., tit. de Rei vindicatione: "If from that money which you had deposited, the one with whom it had been placed purchased possessions for himself, and they were delivered to him, it is unjust for them either all to be delivered to you, or for some of these to be conferred upon you by him unwilling, by way of compensation." I. M. 1127.

378. • I. Spouses are bound:

1. To mutual love. For since they are one flesh, they must also be one heart. Thus Ephes. 5. 25: Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the Church. - Tit. 2. 4: (Wives) are to love their husbands.

2. To conjugal society and cohabitation. This is clear from the nature and ends of matrimony, and from the words of Christ, Matt. 19. 5: A man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall be in one flesh.

3. To food and whatever pertains to the honorable sustaining of their condition, to be furnished to one another: For now they are not two, but one flesh, Matt. 19. 6. - For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, Ephes. 5. 29.

4. To rendering the conjugal debt to one another, when it is seriously sought and no legitimate cause of denying it is present; because they bound themselves to this. Hence the Apostle, 1 Cor. 7. 4: The woman does not have power over her own body, but the man; and likewise also the man does not have power over his own body, but the woman (namely in order to generation).

379. • II. The husband is bound in particular:

1. Studiously to manage the family estate, and to administer with due diligence both common goods and the proper goods of the wife.

2. To take care that the wife fulfill the duties of the Christian profession and execute the precepts of both divine and ecclesiastical law. For the man is the head of the woman and the ruler of the whole family; and therefore the right governance both of the wife and of the other members of the family pertains to him.

3. To correct a delinquent wife, where this work is needed for her amendment and for forestalling scandal. But correction must proceed from charity or love of justice or zeal for procuring the right governance of the family, and be much lighter than the fault deserves, because the wife is the companion of the man, not a slave. Care must besides be taken lest peace and love perish between them.

380. • III. The wife, on her part, is bound:

1. To reverence the husband, because he is her Superior, as is clear from what has been said and from the words of Gen. 3. 16: Thou shalt be under the power of the man, and he shall rule over thee.

2. To furnish obedience to him; because obedience is owed to a Superior in those things which pertain to governance; and the Apostle to the Colossians 3. 18 says: Women, be subject to your husbands, as it is fitting in the Lord.

3. To bear care of the house in the family estate, and therefore to perform the offices of the family, such as to prepare foods, sweep the house, wash linens, mend torn clothes, and furnish other things of this sort. Yet a noble wife can fulfill the lower offices through servants or maids, provided she watches over them and takes care that the domestic matter is well managed.

381. Resolves. - 1. A husband can sin gravely if he pursues his wife with insults, for example by calling her an adulteress, a witch, etc.; if without just cause he impedes her from fulfilling divine or ecclesiastical precepts, or from very useful devotions, for example from discreet frequency of the Sacraments; if he treats her in a tyrannical manner like a vile slave; if he does not cohabit with her; if he neglects the governance of the family, etc. - St. Alphonsus, n. 356.

2. A wife likewise can sin gravely if she is accustomed to deride and mock her husband; if by harsh words, contumacious disobedience, or excessive moroseness she provokes him to anger and blasphemies, etc.

3. The husband ordinarily ought to begin correction of the wife by words gentler words, and if these do not profit, to come down to graver correction. Sometimes he must dissemble the defects of the wife, when he can do this without sin, and not be excessive in correcting; but sometimes he should defer correction for a time, lest correction seem to proceed from the heat of anger and lack fruit, while the wife is less disposed to receive it.

4. Let the confessor not immediately believe a spouse complaining against a spouse, especially if the wife inveighs against the husband; because women generally are prone to lying. Wherefore it is better, with the matter dissembled, to commend to them prayer, patience, mildness, and greater solicitude for furnishing services to the husband.

5. Let the wife be silent while the husband is angry or drunk; if an admonition seems likely to profit, let her admonish while the husband is well disposed; if an angry man must be answered, let her answer gently: for a soft answer breaks anger, and a hard one arouses fury. If these obtain nothing, let her take care that the husband be admonished through the Parish Priest or another prudent man.

548. • The goods of a wife are of three kinds, namely:

1. Dotal goods, whose fruits the husband enjoys for sustaining the burdens of marriage.

2. Paraphernal goods (παρὰ φερνὴν, besides the dowry), which the wife has besides the dowry, and which she specially reserves to herself.

3. Common goods, which by the pacts of the spouses or by determination of law are brought into a certain partnership.

Spouses can, before entering marriage, determine the conditions to which their goods are to be subjected, with certain statutes of law being preserved; if they have omitted to do these things, the law will supply.

549. • I. The wife has direct dominion of her dowry, but the husband has usufruct and administration. When the husband has died, she is preferred to all the personal creditors of the husband, and even during life she can juridically reclaim the dowry if she fears that the husband will become unable to restore it. If the dowry consists in money or in other things consumptible by use, full dominion of the dowry is indeed attributed to the husband, but with the obligation of restoring the value, dominion having been transferred for the wife into all the goods of the husband according to the rate or quota of her dowry ¹. - St. Lig., n. 489.

¹ This is valid if the dowry consists in things which are counted by weight, number, or measure, or certainly in appraised things handed over; for then the husband becomes by full right the owner of those things. But if non-appraised species are given as dowry, then the wife alone is mistress of the dowry; but to the husband only two things pertain from the right of dominion, namely vindication of the thing given, and the right of using and enjoying.

II. The wife holds full dominion and administration of paraphernal goods, so that concerning these the husband is able to dispose of nothing against her will. Hence as to these she depends in no way on her husband. - St. Lig., ibid.

III. The property and utility of common goods belong to each spouse; but the administration of the same belongs to the husband alone. But this community of goods can admit various conditions or restrictions, and therefore attention must be paid to the various dispositions of places. - Elbel, n. 69.

Pacts which can be entered into by spouses before marriage constitute three classes, or a threefold regime, namely: 1. the dotal regime; 2. the regime of community; 3. the regime excluding community.

550. • I. Dotal regime. Dotal goods are those which constitute the wife's dowry: the husband has full administration of these and receives the usufruct. But the wife preserves direct dominion alone (art. 1549).

If the dotal goods consist in movable goods, either partly or totally, the husband has perfect dominion of them, and is bound only concerning their value consigned in the contract preceding the marriage (art. 1554).

Dotal goods can in no way be alienated, even with the wife consenting, except certain particular cases excepted by law (art. 1551 and following).

But all goods whatever of the wife, not constituted in the dowry, remain altogether her own, or are held as paraphernal; and the woman also has the administration of them and receives the usufruct (1574, 1576). Yet she cannot alienate immovable goods, nor appear in court for them, without the express consent of the husband, or, if the husband resists, without a sentence of the tribunal of first instance (art. 1576); the same must be said if the wife is entirely separate in goods (art. 1536).

To paraphernal goods also belong those which the wife procures for herself by singular industry or extraordinary labor, with sufficient care of the family estate having been applied, or those which she accumulates by subtracting something from what is granted to her for food, clothing, recreations, etc.; and also those things which have been given to her with the express condition that they not yield to the husband.

551. • II. Regime of community. It has place when spouses establish in the matrimonial contract that certain goods will be common between them ². But community is either legal or conventional, according as it is constituted by law or by the special pact of the contracting parties.

² This perhaps is said less exactly. For even if the spouses do not establish that certain goods will be common, nevertheless, if any other pact is lacking, legal community has place by force of law. See art. 1393 and 1400.

Legal community is formed: 1. from all movable goods which the spouses possessed on the very day the marriage was begun, or which afterward come to them by title of succession or donation; 2. from all fruits and any revenues whatever of immovable goods possessed by the spouses before marriage, or coming to them during marriage; 3. from all immovable goods which have been acquired during the time of marriage from common goods (art. 1401-1402).

Conventional community consists in other pacts of the spouses, by which the legal statutes can be restricted or relaxed. When these are lacking, the community is governed by the disposition of the law alone.

552. • Under the regime of community, the husband alone has the administration and usufruct of the common goods. Indeed he can sell them, exchange them, hand them over in mortgage, even without the wife's consent. Yet he cannot donate immovable goods by gratuitous title, nor movable goods by universal title, or as to their universality, or quota, namely a half, third, or fourth part. But when the community has been dissolved, the goods and burdens are divided into two parts, unless the wife or her heirs prefer to renounce the goods and so exempt themselves from the burdens. Debts are to be paid by each spouse, or by their heirs (art. 1482).

553. • III. Regime excluding community. Spouses constitute this in a twofold way, namely: 1. by declaring that they enter marriage without community; 2. by establishing that, as to goods, each will be entirely separate as to his own. In the former case, the husband receives all revenues of the wife's goods and alone administers all things. But if they are consumed by use, he is bound to return their value. In the latter case, however, the woman has the administration and usufruct of all her goods. But each spouse contributes to the burdens of marriage by special pact; but if no convention exists, the wife must contribute up to a third part of her revenues. Wherefore in this third regime, just as also in the second, some dowry is to be furnished by the wife, by which she may in part assist with the burdens of marriage; but such a dowry can be alienated by the husband.

554. • Resolutions. 1. A wife has a strict right to support from the common goods; therefore she can procure it for herself if the husband refuses, or consents only with very great difficulty.

2. The wife does not sin by subtracting some things for food, clothing, and the other necessities of the family, which husbands often do not take care of, and which would be sought from them in vain. - St. Lig., n. 541.

3. If the husband squanders or wastes goods to the detriment of the family, the wife can hide them and reserve them for the good of the family.

763. Principle: Regularly spouses are held to dwell in the same house, and to use the same table and the same bed. It is certain.

(A) For this is deduced from Scripture,¹ as understood by the Fathers: "A man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh"; for the word shall cleave signifies an intimate and constant union, and from the context it is gathered that this is closer than that which exists between parents and children; but the words "and they shall be two in one flesh" rather clearly designate communion of bed.

¹ Gen., II, 24.

(B) The same is clear from the very ends of marriage: for this is required by (a) the conjugal debt, which cannot easily be rendered without regular cohabitation of the spouses; (b) the good education of offspring, which demands the cooperation of each spouse; for for good education there is desired both the tender love and provident care of the mother, and the severe authority and consummate prudence of the father; (c) the fellowship of common life: for they ought mutually to help and console each other; for the man is stronger and more prudent than the woman, who therefore needs the counsels and direction of the man; conversely, the woman is more suited to domestic matters, and therefore the man needs her work;² but they cannot furnish this unless they live together.

² St. Thomas, Comment. in Ethic., lib. VIII, c. 12.

764. The principle is explained: (a) Since man and woman are one flesh, they must not be separated for a longer time without grave cause. But since the man is the head of the woman, regularly the wife is held to follow the husband wherever he goes, even if he is sent into exile or goes away into a distant region, unless there is a grave excusing reason. But on the other side, a man departing for a long time is held to bring his wife with him, unless a grave reason stands in the way. But if the man is going to depart for a short time, he is not held to take his wife with him.

It was said regularly, because the wife is not held to follow the husband if this cannot be done without grave spiritual or temporal harm, for example if she would be exposed to proximate danger of sin, death, or grave detriment. Hence there does not fall upon her the obligation of following a man wandering everywhere, unless before the nuptials she had known his wandering life.

(b) Regularly also the spouses ought to share the same table, so that they may be able to enjoy the consolation of mutual conversation. The man is held to support his wife, unless it has been otherwise agreed, even if she does not have a dowry; but the wife is to attend to domestic matters, according to her condition.

(c) Generally also communion of bed ought to be present: but if the spouses, on account of a reasonable cause, have a distinct room and bed, free access to the other's room should be open to each.

765. Corollary. That spouses may cohabit peacefully and happily, they must cultivate certain virtues, especially chaste love, constant fidelity, mutual assistance; besides, the man must furnish protection to the wife, and the woman obedience to the man.

Leo XIII excellently declares this thus, in the Encyclical Arcanum: "Namely, they themselves must always be so disposed in soul that they understand that each owes to the other the greatest love, constant fidelity, and careful and assiduous protection. The man is the prince of the family and the head of the woman; yet she, because she is flesh of his flesh and bone of his bones, is to be subject and obedient to the man, not in the manner of a slave, but of a companion; so that, namely, neither honor nor dignity be absent from the obedience furnished. But in him who presides, and in her who obeys, since each bears the image, the one of Christ, the other of the Church, let divine charity be perpetually the moderator of duty."

(a) They must cultivate chaste love: "Men, love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church, and delivered Himself up for her... So also men ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself."¹

¹ Ephes., V, 25, 28.

Hence that love must be chaste: for if it is lustful, it will soon become adulterous; pleasure is naturally inconstant and is carried toward various objects, so that those who serve lust, after some time, foster other loves; - patient, by cheerfully bearing mutual infirmities and forgiving each other mutually; otherwise discord arises: the man, abusing his power, treats the wife badly not as a companion, but as a slave; the wife despises the husband and refuses to be subject to him; - full of devotion, insofar as each seeks not exclusively his or her own things, but the man those things which please the wife, and the wife those things which please the man; likewise insofar as each is prepared to sacrifice himself or herself for the other, just as Christ delivered Himself for the Church.

766. (b) They are held to preserve mutual fidelity for each other, not only by avoiding adultery, but also whatever can lead to so great a crime and deservedly excite the jealousy of the other spouse: "The woman has not power over her own body, but the man; and likewise the man has not power over his own body, but the woman."¹ In reality nothing destroys domestic happiness more effectively than the very suspicion of conjugal infidelity.

¹ I Cor., VII, 4.

Moreover, the spouse who, without legitimate cause, nourishes sinister suspicions as to the fidelity of the other party sins gravely: for this is against charity and justice, and often becomes the cause of quarrels and of other evils. Hence let the confessor seriously warn him or her to lay aside so unjust a suspicion, as though it were a suggestion of the devil himself.

767. (c) They must furnish mutual assistance to each other; for God created the woman so that she might be a help to the man: "It is not good for man to be alone; let us make him a help like himself."² And surely the woman herself needs the help of the man.

² Gen., II, 18.

St. Thomas explains this thus:³ "For it is immediately apparent that the human works which are necessary for life are distinct between male and female; so that certain things are fitting to the man, I mean those things which are to be done outside, and certain things to the wife, such as spinning and other things which are to be done at home. Thus therefore they suffice for each other, while each reduces his or her proper works to the common." Therefore let them divide among themselves the works of domestic life; and in all things let them strive to please not so much themselves as the other party.

³ Comment. in lib. Ethic., lib. VIII, c. 12, p. 608, t. XXV, ed. Vives.

768. (d) The man is held to furnish protection to the wife, and the wife obedience to the man.⁴ This flows from these words of St. Paul:⁵ "Let women be subject to their husbands, as to the Lord, because the man is the head of the woman, as Christ is the head of the Church: He is the savior of His body."

⁴ The Gallican civil Code thus sets forth these various duties: "The spouses owe each other fidelity, help, assistance" (a. 212). "The husband owes protection to his wife, the wife obedience to her husband" (a. 213). Cf. Baudry-Lacantinerie, nn. 714-718.

⁵ Ephes., V, 22-23. - It is lawful to advocate the rights and higher education of women, provided nevertheless that those words of St. Paul be kept in a pious mind.

Indeed spouses form a certain society, of which the man is the head or president: therefore there falls upon him the obligation of a president, namely of protecting the whole body; therefore he will furnish himself as a strenuous protector not only in dangers of the body, but also in dangers of the soul, not only in temporal matters, but also in spiritual matters. But the wife must obey the man in all things which are legitimately prescribed by him, "not in the manner of a slave, but of a companion, so that neither honor nor dignity be absent from the obedience furnished." The husband indeed cannot prohibit the wife from fulfilling the precepts of God and of the Church, for example from being present at Mass, approaching the tribunal of Penance and the sacred table; but she herself must satisfy religious works in such a way that at the same time she fulfills the duties of her state. - If these things are rightly attended to, Christian spouses will live piously and happily.¹

¹ On the duties of married life see St. Francis de Sales, Introd. à la vie dévote, 3rd Part, ch. 38-39; A. de Margerie, De la Famille, Paris, 1869, vol. I, pp. 1-53, 151-225; Devas, Studies of family life, London, 1886, part II; P. Janet, La Famille, Paris, 1894, pp. 23-106; Landriot, La Femme forte, 1868; La Femme pieuse, 1874; Baudrillart, La Famille et l'Education; Meignan, Instructions et conseils aux familles; Turgeon, Le Féminisme français, Paris, 1902, vol. II, pp. 80-113.

Husband and wife together constitute a society, i. e., a stable union of persons, entered into for a common purpose, i. e., a complete enduring personal partnership for the continuance of the race.

From this definition may be deduced the mutual duties of husband and wife. These duties are partly natural, partly intellectual, moral, and religious. They are based upon the threefold character of Matrimony as a natural union, a moral society, and a sacramental association for the salvation of its members, and designed to enable man to accomplish the threefold purpose of marriage, namely, the propagation of the human race, mutual assistance, and mutual sanctification.¹

¹ Gen. I, 27 sq.; II, 18; Matth. XIX, 4–6; 1 Cor. VII, 2–5; 1 Tim. II, 15; 1 Pet. III, 7.

Though the sedatio concupiscentiae and the propagation of the species are true purposes of Matrimony, yet its highest or principal object is the undivided community of life led by husband and wife.² Hence we may distinguish matrimonial duties of the natural or lower, and of the spiritual or higher order.³

² 1 Cor. VII, 2.—St. Augustine, De Bono Coniug., c. 5: “Marriage exists for this, that concupiscence, reduced to a legitimate bond, should not drift about misshapen and unrestrained, having from itself an unbridled weakness of flesh, but from marriage an indissoluble fellowship of fidelity; from itself a tendency to immoderate intercourse, from marriage a manner of chaste procreation. For although it is shameful to wish to use a husband lustfully, it is nevertheless honorable to be unwilling to unite except with a husband and to bear children only by a husband.”—Ibid., c. 3: “The good of marriage, which the Lord also confirmed in the Gospel, not only because He forbade dismissing a wife except for the cause of fornication (Mt. XIX, 9), but also because He came when invited to a wedding (John II, 2), why it is good is rightly asked. It does not seem to me to be only the natural fellowship in the different sex. Otherwise marriage would no longer be called such in old age, especially if they had either lost children or had begotten none. But now, in a good marriage, even one advanced in years, although the ardor of age between male and female has withered, the order of charity between husband and wife nevertheless flourishes, because the better they are, the earlier, by mutual consent, they have begun to abstain from the union of their flesh, not that it would thereafter be a necessity not to be able to do what they wished, but that it would be to their praise first not to have wished what they could.” (Migne, P. L., XL, 377, 375).

³ Gen. II, 24; Matth. XIX, 5; 1 Cor. VII, 4; Eph. V, 25–29; Tit. II, 4.

The qualities required of the married are thus described by the famous pulpit jester Abraham a Santa Clara: “Married people must have good teeth, for they are obliged to chew and swallow many disagreeable things. They must have good fingers, for it is often necessary that they peer through them. They must have good feet, for the shoe will often pinch them. They must have a good stomach, for they have to digest many troubles. They must be very devout, for they have to carry the cross every day in the year.”

I. The principal duties of the married in the natural order are cohabitation and the debitum coniugale.

1. The duty of living together (communio mensae sive cohabitatio) is imposed by the common life to which both parties are vowed.⁴ By the law of nature the husband is the head of the family and determines its place and manner of living. If for some good reason he decides to change his domicile, the wife is bound to follow him, unless she is physically or morally unable to do so. If he is temporarily forced to live apart from his wife, he should obtain her consent, without which he should not act except in case of necessity, and even then only provided the separation does not bring in its wake the periculum incontinentiae. For a short absence the husband does not need the consent of his wife, but it would undoubtedly be an injustice to her if he remained away even for a brief while without informing her of the reason.⁵

⁴ Matth. XIX, 5; 1 Cor. VII, 5.—Cfr. St. Alphonsus, Theologia Mor., l. VI, n. 977.—Gury, Comp. Theol. Mor., Vol. I, n. 388.

⁵ St. Alphonsus, Theol. Mor., l. VI, n. 939: “It is certain that spouses are bound by an obligation of justice to cohabit in the same house, at the same table and bed. Hence it is inferred that neither spouse can depart elsewhere for a long time against the will of the other unless just causes are present, namely for the public good, to support or protect the family, or to avoid harm from enemies. But Bossius, with Toletus and Sayrus, said that if the husband had to remain elsewhere for a long time, he would be bound, if he conveniently can, to bring his wife there so that she may cohabit with him. . . . The husband can undertake a brief pilgrimage for the sake of devotion even against his wife’s will; the wife, however, cannot do this without the husband’s consent, since she is subject to his will and it does not become the state of women to travel. From mutual consent, however, spouses can rightly separate from each other, provided the danger of incontinence and harm to the education of the offspring are absent, from the words of the Apostle (1 Cor. VII, 5): ‘Defraud not one another, except perhaps by consent for a time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and return together again, lest Satan tempt you because of your incontinence.’”—Cfr. Reuter-Lehmkuhl, Neoconfessarius, P. II, c. 4, n. p. 151.

If the matrimonial contract stipulates that the husband shall not change his domicile without the wife’s consent, or if he becomes a vagabond after marriage, and the wife was unaware of this propensity before she married him, she is not bound to accompany him. The fact that the wife’s dowry has not yet been paid, does not justify the husband in refusing to cohabit with her, for the duty of cohabitation flows from the marriage contract. Arbitrary separation, secret escape, or malicious abandonment of one party by the other, is a grievous injustice.

If married people live apart, it is usually an indication that their spiritual union is not very close. The wife’s place is in her husband’s house, and she inflicts an injury upon him if she goes away to live with her parents or other relatives.

If a man wishes to emigrate to a foreign country, he should not do so against the wishes of his wife. Even though she can give no other reason for opposing the plan than a strong love of home, this sentiment should be respected. The man who without important reasons disregards such a noble sentiment in his wife, cannot expect her to become more closely attached to him if he disregards her wishes. Only when the motives inspiring the husband are very weighty, can the wife be expected to acquiesce, even at the sacrifice of her natural sentiments.⁶

⁶ Linsenmann, Moraltheologie, p. 629.

Neither party may leave the other except on account of notorious adultery or if further cohabitation has become impossible without serious danger to faith, morals, or honor. In that event the facts should be reported to the ecclesiastical authorities and permission obtained for a separatio a mensa et toro.

If one party has committed adultery, and the fact is established beyond doubt, the innocent partner is justified in denying to the guilty the debitum coniugale and other signs of matrimonial affection, and if he or she intends to apply for an ecclesiastical decree of separation, the debitum must be denied, because otherwise the right to a separation would be forfeited.

Even when there are good reasons for demanding a separation the innocent party should consider well whether it would not be better, for the sake of the temporal and eternal welfare of himself or herself and of the children, to condone the crime and continue to cohabit with the guilty partner rather than get a separation.

For a husband or wife to live apart from the other without sufficient canonical reasons is a mortal sin and renders the party per se unworthy of absolution. Under present conditions, however, the Church is no longer able to prevent such unauthorized separations and therefore tolerates them. Hence if married persons living apart are convinced that they are right, if their separation does not give scandal, and if admonitions and warnings are likely to prove ineffective, they may be left unmolested.⁷

⁷ J. E. Pruner, Kath. Moraltheologie, Vol. I, 3rd ed., p. 335; cfr. Lehmkuhl, Theol. Mor., Vol. II, n. 934 sqq.

2. The communio tori or ius et debitum coniugale also flows from the nature of Matrimony.

a) Matrimonial cohabitation in the narrower sense of the term is not sinful, but on the contrary, the right to demand, and the duty to render it, are clearly taught by St. Paul, when he says: “Let the husband render to his wife her due, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife hath not control of her own body [in this matter], but the husband; the husband likewise hath not control of his own body, but the wife. Deprive not one another [of your due], unless it be by consent for a time, that you may devote yourself to prayer and [then] be together again, lest Satan use your lack of self-control to tempt you.”⁸

⁸ 1 Cor. VII, 3 sq.—St. Alphonsus, Theol. Mor., l. VI, n. 938: “Although spouses are bound by no law to the use of marriage, they are nevertheless bound of themselves in justice to render the debt to each other if one asks it of the other expressly or tacitly (modesty, of course, standing in the way). The reason for the former is that they are not bound to use their right. The reason for the latter follows from the nature of a mutual contract. Neither is bound, speaking of itself, to request the debt, although accidentally one may sometimes be bound either by charity, e. g., to notice the danger of incontinence threatening the spouse, or by legal justice, because the public welfare would be endangered unless offspring were born.”—Gury, Comp. Theol. Mor., II, n. 687: “The conjugal debt is called that common action of the spouses which is necessary for generation and which is ordained by the supreme Provider of all things for propagating human society. This action consists in carnal union, by which man and woman become as it were one body and one flesh. An act of this kind is called a debt by the Apostle; for it is what spouses owe to each other.”—Ibid., n. 688: “The conjugal act is of itself altogether honorable and licit between true spouses, provided it is exercised for a due end; for it is the sole means established and ordained by the Creator of nature Himself for the legitimate propagation of the human race. The ends which render such an act honorable are: 1. The generation of offspring, which is numbered among the principal ends of marriage; 2. The satisfaction of the obligation arising from the right of one’s spouse; 3. The avoidance of incontinence both in oneself and in one’s spouse; 4. The desire of fostering or obtaining honorable friendship, of making manifest the conjugal affection, or of promoting it.”—Ibid., n. 696: “There is no obligation of itself to request the conjugal debt. The reason is that neither spouse is bound to use his right and each can remit it. Accidentally, however, there can be an obligation to request it from charity or another virtue, especially in the husband, e. g., if he judges that his spouse is in danger of incontinence because of modesty in asking, or if the request is necessary for the sake of fostering or restoring conjugal friendship, etc.”—Wilhelm, Das Eheleben, 98 sqq.

It follows that the married have the right, within the limits set by God, to demand the debitum coniugale of each other, and to this right corresponds the strict duty of rendering the debitum, unless there are good reasons justifying a refusal. Hence both parties have equal rights and duties in regard to matrimonial cohabitation and, generally speaking, are bound under pain of mortal sin to render each other the debitum. This obligation is especially grave if either party is exposed to the danger of incontinence.

As a rule the debitum coniugale or the redditio debiti may not be denied sub gravi if the other party expressly demands it, or the demand may be reasonably presumed. Unwarranted denial of this right is apt to disturb the peace and may easily become a source of marital infidelity.⁹

⁹ 1 Cor. VII, 7.—St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 3a, Suppl., qu. 63, art. 2: “Requesting the debt happens in two ways: in one way expressly, as when they request it from one another in words; in another way interpretatively, when, namely, the husband perceives through certain signs that the wife would wish the debt to be rendered to her, but is silent because of modesty; and thus, even though she does not expressly request the debt in words, nevertheless the husband is bound to render it when certain signs of rendering the debt appear in the wife.”—Ibid., art. 9, ad 1: “This has been divinely ordained because of the slipperiness of the flesh, that the debt always be rendered to one requesting it, lest any occasion of sin be given.”—St. Alphonsus, Theol. Mor., l. VI, n. 940: “He sins mortally who denies the debt to a spouse seriously and urgently requesting it, because it is a grave matter and is owed in justice. Understand this unless the one requesting can be turned aside by entreaties or another honorable reason and the request is not immoderate (for if it is denied once in words to one frequently requesting it, apart from danger of incontinence, it seems to be only venial because of lightness of matter; and sometimes, if one requests too immoderately and unjustly too often, none), nor is there another just cause for denying. M. Perez judges it a just cause, apart from danger of incontinence for either, if more children would be born than they can support.”

The duty of rendering the debitum ceases if the party demanding it is not in the full possession of his or her senses (e. g., insane or totally drunk), if he or she suffers from an infectious disease or has forfeited the ius petendi debitum coniugale by adultery.¹⁰

¹⁰ St. Alphonsus, Theol. Mor., l. VI, n. 948, 950–953; Gury, II, n. 696: “The obligation of rendering the debt ceases when the right of demanding it ceases; but the right is extinguished especially in the following cases, namely: 1. If one of the spouses has committed adultery, because fidelity is no longer owed to one who breaks fidelity; 2. If the one requesting lacks the use of reason, because his request is not a human act; 3. If the one rendering can reasonably fear damage or grave danger to health, because spouses are not judged to have bound themselves to render the debt with so great an inconvenience; 4. If the one requesting has lost the right to request because of incest committed with the other’s blood relatives or for some other reason.”

b) The conjugal act (usus matrimonii) is licit only if prompted by reasonable and proper motives, such as the desire for children (generatio prolis), mutual affection (caritas mutua), or the wish to avoid sin (evitatio peccati), and provided it takes place within the limits prescribed by the moral law, or, as theologians are wont to put it, “salva personae incolumitate et salvâ debitâ honestate.” Though in its nature licit, nay laudable and where the conditions for supernatural merit are present, even meritorious, the actus coniugalis may become illicit and sinful per ac- cidens, i. e., through the circumstances accompanying it.¹¹

¹¹ St. Augustine, De Genesi ad Lit., l. IX, c. 7, n. 12: “That which marriages possess as a good, and by which marriages are good, can never be a sin. This, however, is threefold: fidelity, offspring, sacrament. In fidelity, care is taken that there be no intercourse with another woman or man outside the marriage bond; in offspring, that it be lovingly received, kindly nourished, religiously educated; in the sacrament, moreover, that the marriage not be dissolved and that the man or woman who is dismissed not be joined to another even for the sake of offspring. This is, as it were, the rule of marriages, by which either the fecundity of nature is adorned or the depravity of incontinence is governed.” (Migne, P. L., XXXIV, 397.)—Idem, De Bono Coniug., c. 6, n. 6: “Conjugal intercourse for the sake of generation has no fault; that for satisfying concupiscence, however, but nevertheless with one’s spouse, has venial fault because of fidelity to the marriage bed; adultery, however, or fornication, has mortal fault. And for this reason continence from all intercourse is indeed better than even marital intercourse itself, which is performed for the sake of begetting.”—Ibid., c. 7, n. 6: “But because that continence is of greater merit, while rendering the conjugal debt is no crime, demanding it beyond the necessity of generation is a venial fault, and fornicating or committing adultery is a punishable crime, conjugal charity ought to take care lest, while seeking for itself that from which it may be more greatly honored, it make for the spouse that from which the spouse may be condemned.” (P. L., 377 sq.)—Peter Lombard, Sent., l. IV, dist. 31, c. 5.—St. Thomas, S. Theol., 3a, Suppl., qu. 49, art. 5: “Just as the goods of marriage, in so far as they are in a habit, make marriage honorable and holy, so also, in so far as they are in actual intention, they make the act of marriage honorable with respect to those two goods of marriage which concern the act itself. Hence, when spouses come together for the sake of procreating offspring, or in order to render to each other the debt that pertains to fidelity, they are totally excused from sin.”—J. Nider († 1438), Praeceptorium Div. Legis, pr. 6, c. 4: “Intercourse in marriage is therefore a meritorious act and an act of the virtue which is called conjugal chastity, when it takes place solely for the sake of procreating offspring and educating it religiously for the increase of divine worship. And if the other due circumstances are then present, it is an act of the virtue which is called religion.”—Cfr. Denifle, Luther und Luthertum, Vol. I, 2nd ed., pp. 238 sqq.

a) If it entails grave danger to life or health for one or both of the parties, the act is illicit and cannot even be justified by the periculum incontinentiae, because the latter may be obviated by other means, e. g., prayer and mortification. When there is immediate danger to an already conceived fetus, e. g., through abortion, the concubitus matrimonialis is forbidden, because it would inflict upon the child an injustice which not even the danger of incontinence could excuse. If the procreation of an imperfect offspring is to be apprehended from the act, the principle of St. Thomas applies: “Although weak offspring may be generated, nevertheless it is better for it to exist thus than not to exist at all.”¹² In such a case no right is violated by matrimonial intercourse because the proles concipienda as yet possesses no rights. Besides, the fact of conception and the harm apprehended are both uncertain.

¹² St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 3a, Suppl., qu. 64, art. 1, ad 4.

It should be observed, however, that harm caused to a child quite often means injury to the family and to the State, for instance, through idiocy. For this reason prospective parents are under a grave obligation to avoid whatever might lead to the birth of exceptionally abnormal offspring. Broadly speaking, married couples have not the right to bring into the world children whom they are unable to support, for they would thereby inflict a grievous damage upon society.

It should be remembered that a fetus has the rights of a human being. Hence the married are not permitted to have sexual intercourse if it is apt to injure an existing fetus and the injury is not compensated by a corresponding advantage. The risk of incontinence can be offset by other means. But to forbid marital inter- course when the danger of abortion is but slight, would be imposing an intolerable burden. Aside from the danger of abortion, all other possible injuries to be apprehended from marital intercourse may be compensated for by such reasonable ends as the fostering of mutual affection, avoiding incontinence, etc.¹³

¹³ F. A. Göpfert, Moraltheologie, Vol. III, 5th ed., p. 431.

In cases of mental derangement on either side, the sexual intercourse of the married is subject to certain restraints imposed by regard for the welfare of the offspring. The children of a psychopathic or neurotic couple will not easily escape a hereditary taint. In cases of extreme and permanent psychic affection some authors hold that sexual intercourse is forbidden. When the trouble is less deep-seated and merely temporary, it will be advisable to await the return of a more normal condition, if this can be done without irritating the patient too much.¹⁴

¹⁴ Stöhr-Kannamüller, Handbuch der Pastoralmedizin, 5th ed., pp. 507 sqq.

β) Married people may not, under pain of mortal sin, gratify the sexual instinct outside the limits established by nature, especially are they forbidden to prevent conception or limit offspring except by mutual abstention.¹⁵ A hus- band who practices onanism cannot be absolved unless he shows extraordinary signs of contrition and a firm purpose of amendment. The wife should try to prevent onanistic intercourse. If she does not succeed, she should withhold interior consent from the sin committed by the vir onanista and manifest her disapproval of his conduct by earnest protests and admonitions. For the rest she may remain passive, because the act is legitimate in its inception and becomes sinful only through subsequent abuse on the part of the husband. If, however, it is impossible for the wife to render the debitum coniugale in ordine naturae, because the husband uses mechanical appliances (condoms, pessaries) or other means to prevent conception, (“contraceptives,” as they are called), she is strictly bound to deny him the debitum coniugale, because in that case the act is intrinsically bad from the very beginning and therefore co-operation would be illicit and a mortal sin except when rendered under the influence of dire compulsion.¹⁶

¹⁵ “A certain noble lord, otherwise well instructed, is accustomed to interrupt intercourse, even though his spouse objects, lest offspring follow. Asked why he acts thus, he replies that this was permitted to him by some learned confessor. When reproved, he says that he does it for a twofold reason: 1. Lest the condition of the family be brought low by more numerous offspring; 2. Lest the wife be excessively wearied by repeated pregnancy. Moreover, rejected by the pastor, who does not absolve him when he is unwilling to withdraw from this manner of acting, he everywhere proclaims his pastor ignorant and proud, as one who corrects the opinion of others and imposes unbearable burdens upon penitents. The Sacred Penitentiary, under date of Nov. 13, 1901, replied: The pastor of whom the case speaks acted rightly, and a penitent who is unwilling to abstain from this manner of acting, which is pure onanism, cannot be absolved.”—Cfr. L. Freund, Kindersegen und Kindersorgen, 2nd ed., Donauwörth 1907; D. J. Cardinal Mercier, The Duties of Conjugal Life, London C. T. S., pp. 14 sqq.

¹⁶ St. Alphonsus, Theol. Mor., l. VI, n. 927: “From the cases stated it is consequently resolved that it is lawful to use marriage for the sake of offspring, even though offspring need not necessarily be intended while it is exercised, provided that it is not positively prevented; indeed, sometimes it may even lawfully be excluded by a simple intention, e. g., by a poor man, lest he be excessively burdened with children.”—Ibid., n. 954: “You ask whether it is ever lawful to impede the generation of offspring. It is answered: Spouses can indeed for a grave reason do something from which the emission of seed follows accidentally; they sin, however, if in the use of marriage or after its use they do something by which conception is impeded or conceived seed is cast out. The reason for the former is that generation is not impeded, not even indirectly, but it is merely permitted that generation not occur, which is lawful for a reasonable cause. The reason for the latter is that they act against fidelity and the principal end of marriage. Hence neither impending poverty nor danger from childbirth excuses such persons.”—Gury, Comp. Theol. Mor., II, nn. 702–705.—Lehmkuhl, Casus Consc., Vol. I, 3rd ed., nn. 548–552.—Jos. Antonelli, Medicina Pastoralis, Vol. II, 3rd ed., pp. 152 sqq., 476 sqq.

A woman who directly or indirectly (e. g., by complaining) induces her husband to employ unnatural means to prevent conception, commits a mortal sin.

It goes without saying that the medicinal or artificial sterilization of the semen virile post copulam is illicit.¹⁷

¹⁷ Except in cases of rape; Lehmkuhl, Theol. Mor., Vol. I, n. 1013; cfr. Aertnys, Theol. Mor., Vol. I, 7th ed., l. III, n. 192, qu. 2.

It is permissible to limit sexual intercourse to the period during which conception does not ordinarily take place.¹⁸

¹⁸ S. Poenit., decree of June 16, 1880.—M. D. Nardi, De Sanctitate Matrimonii Vindicata contra Onanismum, 3rd ed., Rome 1907.—C. Capellmann, Fakultative Sterilität ohne Verletzung der Sittengesetze, 13th ed., Aix-la-Chapelle, 1896, pp. 15 sqq.—A decision of the Holy Office, March 24, 1897, forbade the artificial fecundation of women (see Antonelli, Medicina Past., Vol. II, 4th ed., pp. 534 sqq.).

The excision of the uterus or ovaries, if performed for the sole purpose of preventing conception, is sinful, even in cases where conception might involve danger to the woman’s life.

If the husband demands the debitum coniugale while intoxicated, the wife, because of the danger to the offspring, is justified in denying him; nay, she is in duty bound to refuse if there is direct danger of abortion.¹⁹

¹⁹ Stöhr-Kannamüller, Handbuch der Pastoralmedizin, 5th ed., p. 507.

γ) Married people in the nature of things enjoy great freedom in those actions which are directed towards the concubitus coniugalis.²⁰ But the usus matrimonii is not, as many seem to think, a permit for the unlimited gratification of the passions. It is, on the contrary, designed as a medicine and protection against inordinate concupiscence and must, therefore, always be chaste and decent.²¹ To indulge in it merely and solely for pleasure, i. e., to the positive exclusion of every other legitimate end, would consequently be sinful, for that pleasure is intended by nature as a means to an end, namely, the procreation of offspring, and must not be raised to the rank of an end in itself.²²

²⁰ St. Alphonsus, Theol. Mor., l. VI, n. 932: “You ask whether and when touches, looks, and indecent words are lawful between spouses. It is answered: Such acts are lawful to them in themselves, because to one to whom the end is lawful, the means are also lawful, and to one to whom consummation is lawful, the beginning is also lawful. Hence they may lawfully excite nature to intercourse by such acts. But if they are performed separately and without relation to intercourse, v. g., solely for the sake of pleasure, they are venial sins, because by reason of the state which renders those acts honorable they have a right to them. Unless, however, as often happens, they are joined with danger of pollution, or the spouses have a vow of chastity, for then they are mortal.”—Gury, Comp. Theol. Mor., Vol. II, n. 700 sq.

²¹ Tob. IV, 13; VI, 16 sqq., 22. 1 Cor. VII, 29; Tit. II, 5.—St. Jerome, Adv. Iovinian., l. I, n. 49: “A wise man ought to love his wife with judgment, not with passion. Let him govern the impulses of pleasure and not be borne headlong into intercourse. Nothing is more shameful than to love one’s wife as though she were an adulteress. . . . It is the saying of a most learned man that chastity must above all be retained; when it has been lost, every virtue falls. In it lies the pre-eminence of womanly virtues. It commends the poor woman, exalts the rich, redeems the deformed, adorns the beautiful; it serves the ancestors well, whose blood it does not corrupt with secret offspring; it serves the children well, who need neither blush for their mother nor doubt their father; above all it serves herself well, whom it vindicates from the outrage of another’s body. . . . There are many things which ennoble distinguished characters. A woman’s proper virtue is chastity.” (Migne, P. L., XXIII, 281 sq.)—St. Augustine, De Bono Coniug., c. 11, n. 12: “The beauty of marriage is chastity in procreating and fidelity in rendering the carnal debt.” (P. L., XL, 382). Idem, Serm., n. 9 (al. 96 de tempore), c. 9, n. 12: “Many safeguards make a woman chaster; let manliness itself make a man chaste. For a woman therefore has greater custody, because she has greater weakness. She blushes before a man; do you not blush before Christ? You are freer because stronger: because you conquer easily, you are therefore entrusted to yourself. Over her are both the vigilance of her husband and the terror of the laws and the custom of morals and greater modesty; and over you is God, God alone.” (P. L., XXXVIII, 84.)

²² Prop. damn. sub Innoc. XI, n. 9: “The conjugal act performed solely for pleasure is wholly free from all fault and venial defect.” (Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 1026.)

According to Thomas R. Malthus († 1834) population, when unchecked, always increases in a geometrical ratio, whereas the food supply increases only in an arithmetical ratio, in other words, “while the primitive agricultural community increases from two to sixteen, the food which their labor produces only increases from two to eight. Thus a time must sooner or later arrive when the population has outrun the means of subsistence, and its further increase is limited by actual starvation.” The so-called Malthusian law has long since been disproved, but this fact does not hinder thousands of presumably educated persons from regarding its fundamental thesis as a sure conclusion of science.²³ Christian economists have proved on a strictly scientific basis that Malthusianism is wrong.²⁴ “With the increase in population,” says Dr. Linsenmann, “there grows not only the power of productivity inherent in human labor, but also, in consequence of advancing civilization, the productiveness of the soil, because it is more intensely cultivated, and the progress of the science of economics enables men to make better use of the gifts of nature. . . . The theory of voluntary self-restraint, moreover, misses its aim. If this self-restraint is to be truly moral, rather than a cause of grave moral aberrations and social evils (prostitution), it presupposes a moral strength which can be expected least of those who ought to be the first to exercise it. The man who possesses enough strength of character to practice this self-control, will not ‘breed proletarians,’ but is competent to establish and support a home of his own and to rear his children as useful members of society. It would not be better, but rather worse, for society if the best and morally most perfect families would produce fewer children in order not to deprive the offspring of the homeless proletarians of their sustenance. . . . When self-restraint is really moral and based upon mutual consent, it may be justified by the motive not to have more children than can be properly taken care of, in connection with other motives. But because of its dangers it should be recommended only with the greatest caution.”²⁵

²³ A. M. Carr-Saunders, The Population Problem, London, 1922; H. G. Sutherland, M. D., Birth Control, London, 1922, pp. 1 sqq.

²⁴ H. G. Sutherland, Birth Control, London 1922, passim.—H. Pesch, S. J., Lehrbuch der Nationalökonomie, Vol. II, pp. 587 sqq.—V. Cathrein, S. J., Moralphilosophie, Vol. II, 5th ed., pp. 132 sqq.—Idem, Der Sozialismus, 9th ed., pp. 392 sqq. (Engl. tr. by V. Gettelmann, S. J.).—F. Keller, Bevölkerungspolitik und christliche Moral, Freiburg 1905.—S. de Plauzoles, La Maternité et la Défense Nationale contre la Dépopulation, Paris 1909, pp. 119 sqq.

²⁵ F. X. Linsenmann, Lehrbuch der Moraltheol., pp. 633 sq.

Malthus, who was a parson of the Anglican Church and a conservative in politics, recommended abstinence from sexual intercourse on moral grounds only, and hence it is wrong to designate the modern theory of “birth control” as “Neo-Malthusianism.” In direct opposition to Malthus’s teaching the Malthusian League in England advises early marriage combined with artificial birth control.²⁶ There can be no doubt that the honest citizen who marries and rears a large family of healthy children serves his country more effectively than the bachelor who engages in speculation regarding population figures.

²⁶ “Although their policy is thus in flat contradiction to the policy of Malthus,” says Dr. Sutherland (op. cit., p. 3 sq.), “there are two things common to both. Each is based on the same fallacy, and the aim of both is wide of the mark. Indeed, the Neo-Malthusian, like Malthus, has ‘a mist of speculation over his facts, a vapor of fact over his ideas.’ Moreover, the path of the Malthusian League, although at first glance an easy way out of many human difficulties, is in reality the broad road along which a man or a nation travels to destruction; and as guides the Neo-Malthusians are utterly unsafe, since they argue from (a) false premises to (b) false deductions.”—Cfr. Aertnys, Theol. Mor., Vol. II, 7th ed., l. VI, n. 493; B. Mosso, De Frustratione Finis Matrimonii in the Pastor Bonus, Treves 1893, pp. 376 sqq.

There is a duty of moderation and continence which binds all, even the married, according to the individual character of their relationship, and cannot therefore be regulated by a general law,—a duty to take care of one’s health and that of one’s partner, which finds expression in the ancient ecclesiastical admonition to the married to abstain from sexual intercourse at certain seasons of the year as a work of penance. That no positive law to this effect has come down to our time does not prove that the duty of moderation no longer binds married people. They should practice moderation for moral, religious, and hygienic reasons. The admonition of the Roman Catechism is still timely: “As all blessings are to be obtained from God by holy prayer, the faithful should be taught to abstain at times from marital intercourse in order to devote themselves to prayer and supplication to God. By practicing this religious continence, according to the proper and holy injunction of our Fathers, they will find the blessings of marriage augmented by a daily increasing accumulation of divine grace; and living in the pursuit and practice of piety, they will not only spend this life tranquilly and placidly, but will also rest on the true and firm hope, which ‘confoundeth not’ (Rom. v, 5), of attaining, through the goodness of God, life eternal.”²⁷

²⁷ Catech. Rom., P. II, c. 8, qu. 34.—Cfr. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., 3a, Suppl., qu. 64, art. 6–9.

c) Intimately connected with the debitum coniugale is the duty of fidelity which the married owe to one another (fides matrimonialis). This duty is a postulate of nature, imposed by the purpose of Matrimony as well as by the fact that Christian marriage is a symbol of Christ’s indissoluble and exclusive union with His Church.²⁸ Every gratification of the sexual instinct outside of Matrimony, nay even the voluntary desire for it, is a mortal sin (adulterium), doubly grave if the real or coveted accomplice is a married person. The specific sin of adultery is committed also if one party has illicit sexual intercourse with the consent of the other, because neither husband nor wife can abolish the matrimonial relation.²⁹

²⁸ Gen. II, 24; Matth. XIX, 5; 1 Cor. VII, 4; Eph. V, 25 sqq.; Heb. XIII, 4.—Catech. Rom., P. II, c. 8, qu. 24: “Fidelity . . . is the second good of marriage, not that habit of virtue with which we are imbued when we receive baptism, but a certain faithfulness by which husband and wife mutually bind themselves in such a way that one hands over to the other power over his or her body and promises never to violate that sacred covenant of marriage.”—St. Augustine, De Bono Coniug., c. 4: “This [fidelity], even in corporeal and abject matters, is a great good of the soul, and therefore it is certain that it ought to be preferred even to bodily health, in which our life also is contained. For although a little straw is almost nothing in comparison with much gold, nevertheless fidelity, when it is sincerely kept in a matter of straw just as in gold, is not therefore less because it is kept in a lesser matter.” (Migne, P. L., XL, 376.)

²⁹ Prop. damn. sub Innoc. XI, n. 50: “Intercourse with a married woman with the husband’s consent is not adultery, and therefore it is sufficient in confession to say that one has committed fornication.” (Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 1067.)

Though, so far as the duty of mutual fidelity is concerned, there is no difference between man and wife, and adultery is equally sinful for both, in regard to the bonum fidei as well as the bonum sacramenti, this crime may be aggravated by uncertainty regarding the paternity of a resulting child.³⁰

³⁰ V. supra, pp. 438 sq., 440, 442. Cfr. Holweck, Die kirchlichen Strafgesetze, p. 265.

Adultery is one of the most pernicious of crimes, for it not only involves a grievous injustice to the innocent spouse, but violates the most sacred bond of society, destroys the peace and happiness of numberless families, promotes perjury, child-murder, and other heinous crimes; and hence we need not wonder at the terrible punishments leveled against it.³¹

³¹ Ecclus. XXIII, 21 sqq.; Ez. XXII, 11 sqq.; 1 Cor. VI, 9; Heb. XIII, 4.—St. Jerome, Adv. Iovinian., l. I, n. 49: “No calamity of captivity is greater than to be drawn to another woman.” (Migne, P. L., XXIII, 282).—Idem, Epist., 22, n. 12: “David . . . after, while walking upon the roof of his house, he was captivated by the nakedness of Bethsabee, joined homicide to adultery.” (P. L., XXII, 401).

Adultery is usually preceded by a mental estrangement between husband and wife, and by undue affection for a third party. Where this occurs, it is evident that husband and wife were not what they should have been to each other, namely, true soul-mates and boon companions, and this is often the fault of the party who poses as the innocent one after the catastrophe. Lack of expressions of sincere affection and signs of indifference are usually the first indications of an estrangement. They are followed by the destruction of mutual confidence and jealousy. Jealousy may be a sin, namely, when it nourishes suspicion; but in most instances it is caused by the coldness of the other partner, who claims rights, but forgets that he has corresponding duties to fulfil.³²

³² Linsenmann, Moraltheologie, p. 634.

II. Prominent among the duties of the higher order which elevate and ennoble married life, are mutual love and the unity and indissolubility of the marriage bond.

1. The principal duty of the married is mutual love (amor mutuus). The love which induced them to contract Matrimony should remain with them till death. St. Paul says: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church and gave himself up for her sake . . . Even thus ought husbands to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his own wife loveth himself. Surely no man hateth his own flesh, nay, he doth nourish and cherish it, even as Christ the Church; because we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones. For this shall man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall come to be one flesh. The mystery here is great—I mean in reference to Christ and the Church. However, let each of you, also, love his wife even as himself; and let the wife reverence her husband.”³³

³³ Eph. V, 28–33; cfr. Tit. II, 4.—Rive-Umberg, S. J., Die Ehe, 2nd ed., Ratisbon 1921, pp. 312 sqq.

This mutual love (unio cordium), which should be so strong that neither party will prefer his parents or children to the other except in extrema necessitate,³⁴ is a highly important factor in marital life, first, because it preserves domestic concord, and especially the sacred blessing of mutual fidelity; second, because it guarantees mutual assistance and aid in the material, moral, and religious necessities of life, and third, because it secures the divinely-established subjection of the wife to the authority of her husband. For although husband and wife stand in a most intimate mutual relationship, and possess the same rights over each other in regard to the bonum fidei, yet the husband is the natural head of the family, and the wife owes him reverence and obedience in all matters pertaining to domestic government. From this duty of obedience it does not, however, follow that the husband may treat his wife as a servant or slave, for she is his companion and best friend, to whom he owes reverence and love.³⁵

³⁴ St. Alphonsus, Theol. Mor., l. VI, n. 939, dub. 2: “It must be noted that in extreme necessity aid must first be given to parents, who are to be loved as the source, rather than to one’s spouse, and first also to children, since they are a part of the parent. In grave necessity, however, aid must first be given to one’s spouse rather than to parents and children, because with respect to domestic administration there is a greater union between spouses, since they are one flesh.”

³⁵ Gen. II, 20; III, 12, 16; Eph. V, 22–25, 28; Col. III, 18 sq.; Tit. II, 4 sq.; 1 Pet. III, 1.—Cat. Rom., P. II, c. 8, qu. 26 sq.—St. Ambrose, Epist., 63, n. 107: “Let the woman show deference to the man, not serve him; let her present herself to be governed, not coerced. She is unworthy of marriage who is worthy of strife. Let the man likewise direct his wife as a governor, honor her as the companion of his life, and let him make her a participant as a co-heir of grace.”—Leo XIII, Encycl. “Arcanum divinae sapientiae,” Feb. 10, 1880: “The man is the ruler of the family and the head of the woman; nevertheless she, because she is flesh of his flesh and bone of his bones, should be subject and obedient to the man in the manner not of a maidservant but of a companion, so that neither honor nor dignity be absent from the obedience rendered. In him who commands, and in her who obeys, since each represents an image, the one of Christ, the other of the Church, let divine charity be the perpetual moderator of duty.”—Cfr. J. P. Gury, Comp. Theol. Mor., I, nn. 389–391.

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.

Usefulness. - In this brief chapter, besides inculcating the duties by which conjugal life is as it were completed, we propose to supply a gap in several manuals of moral theology.

After in the other volume, concerning the duties of the virtues, we said what rights and duties would arise for spouses from piety, it is enough that here we briefly touch upon fidelity of friendship and the obligation of cohabitation.

I. Fidelity of Friendship. Manuals of theology, too much, as it seems to us, pass over in silence that kind of infidelity by which one spouse, by the love which is called platonic, withdraws his heart from the other spouse so as to give it to an extraneous person, while leaving the body to the spouse for conjugal acts. Besides the fact that this is very dangerous to chastity itself, this alienation of mind is of itself a cause of grave and just sorrow to the deserted spouse, which detracts not a little from due piety. And it cannot be composed with the obligations tacitly undertaken in contracting marriage according to the usages received among cultivated European peoples. Wherefore we judge that it is opposed to justice itself and must be marked with the note of mental adultery. Finally, the right instruction of offspring also demands agreement of minds. Therefore we judge this infidelity to be charged as grave sin. Yet the consent of the other spouse here can be more efficacious for removing at least grave guilt than when it is a question of bodily adultery.

II. The obligation of cohabiting follows both the obligation of rendering the debt and domestic society. By the former reason the one is commanded to be sufficiently near, so that he can comply with the reasonable petition of the other. But domestic society requires a more continuous dwelling under the same roof. Therefore, against the will of the other, one spouse cannot be absent for a longer time without necessity. Except the case of adultery, which confers the right of perpetual separation.

Yet this obligation must be understood in a human manner. Wherefore, with a burden plainly extraordinary and not foreseen, the wife will not be bound to follow her husband into a distant region; and a more excellent good, or certainly one more owed and more necessary, can excuse spouses from cohabitation. By a prudent estimation it will have to be weighed when, according to the gravity of the cause, the husband or wife is judged absent longer than the obligation of cohabitation permits. A husband who is forced to be absent for a long time must take his wife with him, if he conveniently can. (Cf. St. Alph., 6, 939.)

To be absent, against the will of the other spouse and without sufficient cause, will be mortal:

a) as often as it includes a mortal denial of the debt;

b) if it has not been for a brief time: this will have to be weighed both in itself and from the harm or sadness of the other. Just causes can be: honest recreation, care of health, a necessity either of avoiding one's own harm or of protecting the family, or of administering family affairs, the requirement of the public good.

But neither, with the other assenting, will it therefore immediately be lawful to depart for a certain time without another just cause, unless "probable danger of incontinence in either one is guarded against, no harm to the family follows, and scandal is absent" (Palmieri, Opus theologicum, tom. 6, tr. 10, n. 388).

In this matter it will be fitting that the richer aid the poor or humbler persons who, seeking a richer wage outside their fatherland, can easily there be exposed to many sins against religion and morals. Means must be applied to averting so great a harm of souls. Nor, insofar as there is opportunity, will confessors tolerate migrations which are a proximate occasion of sinning either for the separated wife or for the man.

A Connected Counsel. — A sharing of bedroom, not only of roof, is very greatly to be commended to spouses. For the separation of bedrooms, besides the fact that it offers an easy occasion for sins and suspicions, is shown to be not lightly harmful to mutual love, and, experience testifying, is a frequent cause of unhappy marriages and divorces.

On Separation and Divorce. — Separation from bed and board, opposed to cohabitation, cannot be introduced with a safe conscience unless because of adultery one party has given to the other the right of perpetual separation, or unless other imputable faults create a just cause of separation, regularly to be referred to the Ordinary.

Full civil divorce is still more opposed to the duty of cohabitation, if it is attempted with that mind that the indissoluble bond be broken. And even where the intention of the party seeking the divorce bears only upon a just separation, such a petition, scandalous of itself and dangerous to the morals of both spouses, cannot honestly be made unless grave reasons sufficiently overcome those inconveniences. A grave reason could be a founded fear lest adulterine children be imputed to the innocent husband, lest because of a defect of civil laws, divorce be pronounced against the innocent party in a manner harmful to patrimony or to the right instruction of children. And even if causes seem to be present which excuse, deference must be given to the authority of the Church in this way, that nothing be done unless ecclesiastical authority permits it.

I. According to usages received among cultivated peoples, spouses have wished to hand over to one another not only the body but also the heart in the conjugal pact itself. This accepted promise is gravely derogated from by a "platonic" love by which the heart is withdrawn from the spouse so as to be given to another person.

We mark this with the grave note of mental adultery. Yet the consent of the other can here remove grave guilt.

II. 1. Spouses must mutually furnish cohabitation to one another, tacitly promised, yet to be understood in a human manner, so that, against the will of the other spouse, the one cannot without grave fault be absent if thus he virtually denies the debt which he must render under grave sin, or if he is absent for a not brief time.

Indeed, not even with the other assenting will it always be lawful for one to be absent, with attention to a moral danger not removed or compensated.

2. The very sharing of a bedroom is greatly to be commended.

3. He fails in this obligation of cohabitation who illegitimately separates himself from bed and board, and much more who, without graver reasons and with ecclesiastical jurisdiction observed, seeks full civil divorce.

The great positive duty is that of mutual love inspired by charity. The marriage bond sets up between the spouses an intimacy which no other surpasses or even equals; the marriage would never have been entered upon without the mutual affection which was necessary for the parties to give themselves to each other. Conjugal love has in Christian marriage a sort of noble primacy. For matrimonial faith demands that husband and wife be joined in an especially holy and pure love, not as adulterers love each other, but as Christ loved the Church. This precept the Apostle laid down when he said: “Husbands, love your wives as Christ also loved the Church,” which of a truth He embraced with a boundless love, not for the sake of His own advantage, but seeking only the good of His spouse.¹

¹ P. 28.

Charity is a love which is forgetful of self: “Charity seeketh not her own” (I Cor. xiii, 5). It is a love which is not content with words: “Let us not love in word, nor in tongue, but in deed and in truth” (I John iii, 18). It is a love which has its source in God, ends in Him, and tends to lead to Him those that He loves. Charity should, therefore, manifest itself by mutual benevolence, readiness to help in every necessity or difficulty; also by activity of mutual upbuilding, and reciprocal

influence for good according to the qualities allotted to each party, an office which is called in Christian tradition the work of edification according to the Gospel.

It excludes any abasement of one of the spouses, any degrading subjection or servitude; but, far from excluding all subordination, it rather requires it for the sake of order and harmony; only it must see to it that this subordination is suave and gentle.

Because if nature had not established a hierarchical order domestic society would begin with anarchy, and authority which did not rest on a natural title would make submission more painful and less welcome. Nature herself designates the husband as the superior by giving him strength of body and a fatherhood which does not interfere with his duties in the maintenance and government of the family. Besides having a natural ability which is usually greater, the man has by nature a taste for government and leadership; whereas the woman, physically less robust, naturally leans upon him, and is besides normally impeded by the inconvenient consequences of motherhood. By supernatural revelation, the Apostle derives this hierarchy from the mysterious origin of woman: “For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man” (I Cor. xi, 8).

Not at all. It is limited to the exterior acts of family life which may be reasonably demanded. The wife keeps the independence of a human person; she remains free in her personal conduct, in her practises of piety, in her goings and comings, with due consideration for the conjugal pact and the order of the house and family; she preserves the right to demand of the husband whatever her quality as wife and mother entitles her to, for she, too, has charge of the education of the children. Finally, as the husband and wife were equal in giving themselves each to the other, so they remain equal in regard to the right which flows from

this mutual self-surrender. Besides, the subordination of the wife admits of a certain variation according to circumstances of time, place, and persons. Incapacity on the part of the husband confers upon the wife by a natural devolution the right to replace him in the government of the house. State laws, and the ante-nuptial agreement, if any, may modify the property rights of the wife. There will, therefore, be,even as a regular thing, cases of independence and cases of equality; besides there are exceptional cases.

It may be somewhat diminished or intensified; but, since it is founded in the natural order it can never be entirely abolished nor go beyond certain limits. It is intended to last as long as the family itself.

The Encyclical reminds us that if the husband is the head of the family, the wife is the heart.¹ As the former has the primacy of government, the latter may and should claim for herself the primacy of love. As Leo XIII observes (Encyclical “Arcanum”): “Divine charity should never cease to be the norm of their respective rights.”

¹ See the beautiful reflections of Dermine, work cited, pp. 41-43 on these reciprocal parts of the husband and wife.

Marriage may also be defined as a “total community of life.”

Certainly not, since it began and sprang from that mutual giving of self, and at the same time is its crown and glory.

First, because the spouses can in their union make this their chief purpose. Secondly, because the community of life between the spouses—our second definition of marriage—is providentially directed by God to this last end, which, being the supreme end of man, occupies the first place in the Divine Will.

Absolutely not, because such relations are intrinsically vicious, wrong, and the circumstances mentioned, being merely accidental and extrinsic, cannot alter this. Besides, such a moral disorder could never conduce to perfection nor even serve the purposes of true love, for true love is partly founded on mutual respect, which moral disorder must necessarily weaken. This truth is confirmed by the experience of anthropologists and public officials. Improper relations break up homes.

256. - 1. The obligation of cohabiting follows upon the obligation of rendering the conjugal debt. Moreover, cohabitation is consonant with the nature of marriage, since, from the very definition of law, marriage is "the union of a man and a woman, containing an undivided manner of life" (Institutes, book 1, title 9, De patria potestate, § 1).

The new Code of Canon Law sanctions the same in these words canon 1128: "Spouses must preserve the communion of conjugal life, unless a just cause excuses them."

Therefore, when the other is unwilling, one spouse cannot be absent for a longer time without necessity. Except the case of adultery, as was stated in no. 249.

2. Nevertheless, this obligation is to be understood in a human manner. Wherefore, with a burden plainly extraordinary and unforeseen, the wife will not be bound to follow her husband into a distant region; and a more excellent good, or certainly one more due and more necessary, can excuse spouses from cohabitation. It must be left to the judgment of prudent persons to determine when, in proportion to the gravity of the cause, a husband or wife is judged to be absent longer than the obligation of cohabitation permits. But if it is necessary for the husband to be absent for a long time, he must take his wife with him, if he conveniently can. Cf. St. Alphonsus, book 6, no. 939.

3. When the other spouse is unwilling, to be absent without a sufficient cause will be mortal:

1. Whenever it includes a mortal denial of the debt;

2. If it is not for a short time: this will have to be weighed both in itself and from the harm or sadness of the other.

4. Just causes can be: honorable recreation, care for health; the necessity either of avoiding one's own harm, of supporting the family, or of administering the family property; the demand of the public good.

Thus, for the sake of religion, they permit a man a brief pilgrimage, while the wife, since the man is her head, has need of the husband's permission.

5. But neither, "when the other consents, is it therefore at once lawful, without another just cause, to depart for a fixed time, unless provision is made against the probable danger of incontinence in either party, no harm comes to the family, and scandal is absent" (Palmieri, vol. 6, treatise 10, no. 388).

In this matter, it will be necessary that the richer assist the poorer or more humble who, seeking richer wages outside their homeland, can easily be exposed there to many sins against religion and morals. Cf. the institutions in Belgium for assisting those who, each year, are accustomed to go to France for several months for the sake of work; and what Kolping devised to protect those who learn a trade even in a foreign region (apprentices).

Formerly writers permitted that, in order to obtain payment of the promised dowry, the man refuse cohabitation for some time, if this seemed to be an efficacious means. And they dispensed the man from providing support to a wife whose promised dowry had not yet been paid. Cf. St. Alphonsus, book 6, no. 939; Palmieri, vol. 6, treatise 10, nos. 390, 391. These things now have little practical use.

6. It is also to be desired, and care is to be taken insofar as possible, that spouses use not only a common roof but also a common bedroom. For the separation of bedrooms, besides providing an easy occasion for sins and suspicions, is shown to be not slightly harmful to mutual love and, as experience testifies, is a frequent cause of unhappy marriages and divorces. Cf. nos. 208, 3, and 215, 1, and Forel himself.

We treat briefly of the obligations of spouses, because in other places, namely, in the tract on justice, where the goods of wives were discussed, n. 15ff., and in the tract on matrimony, where the conjugal due will be treated, III, n. 704ff., the mutual rights and obligations of spouses are explained. There can be distinguished, however, mutual obligations which are equal between both spouses, and obligations which are peculiar to one or the other spouse.

591. 1. Mutual obligations. Spouses equally owe to one another: a) mutual affective and effective love; b) the conjugal due; c) common life.

a) Spouses are bound to show one another sincere mutual love. For since they are, as it were, one flesh, they must also be, as it were, one heart. Therefore St. Paul commands husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the Church;¹⁰²³ and wives to love their husbands.¹⁰²⁴ This love must be not only affective but also effective. Effective love demands that spouses assist one another according to their ability, especially in necessities; that each bear the burdens of the other; and that they avoid disordered egoism, insulting words, harshness, and especially jealousy, which is accustomed to be the sepulcher of conjugal love.

b) Spouses are bound mutually to render the conjugal due. Therefore St. Paul says: "Let the husband render the debt to his wife; and the wife also in like manner to the husband."¹⁰²⁵ Above all, spouses must preserve conjugal fidelity, so that they do not perpetrate even mental adultery. The conjugal due will be discussed in the tract on matrimony III, n. 704ff.

c) Spouses are bound to live together, so that they have a common dwelling, table, and bed. Hence Christ again inculcated the precept of the Old Testament: "For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be in one flesh."¹⁰²⁶ When it is lawful to make either perfect or imperfect divorce will be said below in the tract on matrimony III, n. 688ff.

¹⁰²³ Eph. 5:25.

¹⁰²⁴ Titus 2:4; cf. also Col. 3:18 and 1 Tim. 2:15.

¹⁰²⁵ 1 Cor. 7:3.

¹⁰²⁶ Matt. 19:5.

592. 2. The obligations and rights of the husband. Since the husband is the head of the family, there belongs to him the power of governing: a) the wife; b) the children; c) the family property.

Hence he must take care that the wife faithfully fulfills all her duties; but he is also bound to provide her with sufficient food, clothing, and housing, even if the wife brought no dowry goods. In the case of divorce as to bed and habitation, the husband is bound to provide suitable support for the wife, unless the divorce was made on account of the grave fault of the wife. Therefore a husband sins if he treats his wife harshly and roughly; or if he compels her to labors which dishonor her condition and dignity. For the wife is the companion, and not the handmaid, of the husband. A husband can, and indeed must, correct a wife who is at fault; this correction ordinarily ought to consist in words uttered without anger and hatred. Graver corrections consisting in deeds or blows are commonly evil or at least to be dissuaded, inasmuch as they are more harmful than useful. A husband can sin gravely if he pursues his wife with abusive words, for example, by calling her an adulteress, harlot, witch, etc.; likewise he sins gravely if he greatly afflicts his wife by his drunken excesses and other disordered passions.

By reason of paternal power over the children, the direction of their education is incumbent upon the husband according to what was said above concerning the education of children.

The husband must diligently administer the family goods entrusted to him. As regards the administration of the wife's goods, the civil laws or legitimate agreements must be observed, as was said above, n. 16ff., in the tract on justice.

593. 3. The obligations and rights of the wife. The wife must revere the husband and render him due obedience.

Therefore the Apostle admonishes: "Wives, be subject to your husbands, as it behoveth in the Lord."¹⁰²⁷ The reason for this subjection is drawn from the condition of the family itself, whose head and ruler is the husband. The wife must furthermore exercise diligent care in the education of the little children and in domestic affairs, as her condition requires. Hence a wife sins if she neglects domestic affairs by indulging too much in idleness and amusements; likewise she sins if she indulges too much in luxury and thus exasperates her husband. The rights of the wife are drawn from the obligations of the husband just explained; but especially the wife can demand that she be treated by her husband in all things as his companion.

¹⁰²⁷ Col. 3:18.

594. Scholion. On the emancipation of women. Although this matter does not pertain to the virtue of piety, nevertheless, since there was discussion above concerning the relations between man and woman, it is useful here to touch briefly upon some things necessary for the moral theologian to know concerning the emancipation of women, which today so agitates minds and the commonwealth. By the name emancipation of women is understood an equality of rights in every respect between men and women, so that access even to all political offices, and especially to political suffrage, is open to women. Some, however, do not aspire to so radical an emancipation of women, but wish only to vindicate greater rights for women in the domestic and economic order. The Catholic Church has not hitherto condemned a moderate emancipation of women. The following norms appear to be observed:

1. Man and woman are equal as regards the substance of human nature, as regards the soul, and as regards the attainment of grace and glory; therefore St. Paul says: "[In Christ] there is neither male nor female."¹⁰²⁸ For this reason the Catholic Church has never ceased to teach that woman is not the handmaid, but the companion, of man.

2. Although a woman is ordinarily weaker than a man as regards the powers of body and intellect, nevertheless there exist not a few women capable of accomplishing the same works, at least the easier ones, which men perform. Therefore nothing of itself prevents these works and offices from being entrusted to capable women. Hence, for example, nothing prevents the office of physician, advocate, teacher, etc., from being entrusted to suitable women. Already in the Old Testament Deborah was a judge.

3. The principal natural end for which God created woman is that she be a help to man.¹⁰²⁹ Therefore God first created Adam and afterward Eve, whom He made from the rib of Adam; He did not first make Eve, nor did He derive Adam from the substance of Eve. These things appear to be manifest signs that woman ought to be subject to man. To this is added that in both the Old and the New Testament God excluded women from the priestly office, which again demonstrates sufficiently clearly that God does not will to grant woman equality with man in every respect in all offices. Therefore the radical emancipation of women and complete equalization between man and woman appears to be contrary to the intention of the Creator.

4. The principal office of woman is to procure the good of the domestic family. But the family is the foundation of the whole of human society. Now it is established by daily experience that the good of the family is scarcely possible without the effective assistance of woman. Therefore such an emancipation of women as tears them too much from the bosom of the family, or renders family life very difficult for husbands and children, is morally evil and harmful also to the social good.

5. On the part of Christian doctrine, nothing prevents, at least of itself, the right of suffrage even in political matters from being granted to capable women, for this is prohibited nowhere; but it is another question whether any benefit arises for the commonwealth and the Church from the right to vote being granted to women. This question does not appear capable of being solved a priori, but will have a diverse answer according to the diverse regimes of different regions.¹⁰³⁰

¹⁰²⁸ Gal. 3:28.

¹⁰²⁹ Gen. 2:18.

¹⁰³⁰ A. Rösler treats this matter well in Die Frauenfrage (Freiburg, 1907); Gnauck-Kühne in Staatslexikon, s.v. "Frauenfrage"; H. Lange and G. Bäumer, Handbuch der Frauenbewegung (1901).

I. The special obligations of spouses are usually numbered as three:

1. Mutual love and assistance: namely an intimate and special love, and one conformable to the order of charity, so that it inspires in the wife reverence toward her husband and obedience in good morals and in the governing of the house, because the man is the head of the woman; but the husband should be a protection to his wife and should show benevolence to her, because she is not his servant or maid, but a suitable companion. Hence in daily life they ought patiently to bear each other's defects; nevertheless at times the wife can charitably admonish and exhort the husband, while the husband can correct, reprove, and chastise the wife, that she may fulfill her duties, even authoritatively, but moderately, and ordinarily only lightly.

2. Cohabitation, because they have entered marriage unto an undivided sharing of life; hence regularly they ought to dwell together unless a grave reason excuses; and the wife is bound to follow the husband if it can be done without grave harm, but not if the husband wishes to wander about, unless this was his condition before the marriage, because then the wife is presumed to have consented in this.

3. Chaste fidelity as to the conjugal due, so that at the same time every approach to adultery may be closed off, and also imprudent familiarity with another person, and likewise every vice against nature may be avoided; concerning this we have spoken sufficiently in the little work Questions concerning Chastity and Lust, q. 8.

II. Spouses sin gravely:

A. Generally: 1. those who hate one another, or provoke one another with insults or quarrels;

2. those who indulge unjust jealousy;

3. those who deliver their heart to an outside person of the other sex and withdraw it from their spouse, even if they leave the body to the spouse for conjugal acts;

4. those who are accustomed to deny to one another due assistance, especially if in grave necessity;

5. those who habitually do not cohabit without a sufficient reason;

6. those who deny the conjugal due without a grave reason, all the more if they break matrimonial fidelity.

B. In particular, the husband sins:

1. if he denies his wife food and support, or, when he can, does not provide it, unless she has departed by her own fault;

2. if he treats his wife very harshly and roughly, or compels her to labors which are altogether unbecoming to her condition;

3. if he afflicts his wife with insulting or defamatory words;

4. if without grave cause he impedes her as to the practice of religion;

5. if he beats her gravely;

6. if he greatly afflicts her by his drunken revels and other disordered passions;

7. if he is very negligent in the governing of the family estate.

C. But the wife sins:

1. if she provokes her husband by quarrels or words to grave anger or blasphemy;

2. if, despising her husband, she herself wishes to govern and is notably disobedient, unless the husband commands altogether unreasonably;

3. if she gravely neglects the household, indulging sloth or amusements; or, being given to luxury, she exasperates her husband;

4. if she habitually thrusts herself into the administration of the house, not in the manner of one helping but of one ruling; unless there is a just cause, such as if the husband as a spendthrift dissipates the goods of the family or is unfit for management; but let her not easily think this latter thing.

What can be lawful for spouses as to their goods of fortune, and how they can be guilty of injustice, is declared in the treatise on Justice.¹

¹ Cf. Summa Theologiae Moralis, II, nn. 181-182.

III. Spouses are to be questioned:

1. Each one, whether he or she lives well with the consort, so that they are of one mind; whether they employ every solicitude and care for the Christian education of the offspring; whether they permit themselves nothing which is opposed to the ends of marriage.

2. The husband, whether he keeps faith with his wife, and supplies the family the sustenance due to it.

3. The wife, whether she obeys the husband in honest and lawful things; whether she has not provoked the husband to anger or blasphemy; whether she has not defrauded him of the conjugal due.

As far as possible, such questioning should be done in more modest words, especially to a wife; for example, whether she has not been disobedient to her husband as regards marriage, whether perhaps she has some doubt which troubles her concerning marriage, and so on. This questioning can generally be omitted with persons who are truly pious, unless nevertheless there is some special reason for doubting.

IV. Special tribulations occur for spouses, which arise from three sources: from vices, from the evil morals of children, and from adverse fortune.²

² Cf. Aertnijs, Th. P., n. 144-147; Reuter, Neo-conf., n. 130-135.

As to the first: a) If one spouse complains against the other, the confessor should not at once believe that the complaining one is free from fault, nor condemn the other while the cause is unknown, nor in the presence of the wife cast blame upon the husband, even if he is certainly guilty; because women by their nature, being forward, easily object faults to their husbands, especially if these have been condemned by the judgment of the confessor. Therefore it is better, while passing over the matter, to commend prayer, patience, meekness, and greater solicitude in showing services to the husband.

b) If the wife complains of the severity and anger of the husband, the confessor should persuade her to pray for the husband, to be diligent in rendering services to him, and to add extraordinary things to ordinary ones, for example by preparing foods pleasing to him and saying that she does this so that it may be well with him; that she be exactly obedient; that she be silent while the husband is angry or drunk. Let her try to lead the drunken man to bed with gentle words so that he may sleep; and on the following day, if an admonition seems likely to profit, let her lovingly admonish the husband while he is well disposed. If an angry man must be answered, let her answer gently, for "a soft answer breaketh wrath, a harsh word stirreth up fury" (Prov. XV, 1). If nothing is of avail, there is need of patience, by which she may obtain consolation from God and merit.

c) On the other hand, if the wife attempts to dominate the husband, the husband should be advised to dissuade the wife gently, but by no means to show himself timid, otherwise the woman would become more insolent; if gentle words do not profit, let him resist graver things and do contrary to what the wife wills, yet let him sometimes consent; let him discharge his own office well, lest he provide the wife any occasion of complaint.

As to the second: If a parent complains that the children are disobedient, fierce, and given to idleness, the confessor should exhort him to examine whether perhaps this has happened by his own fault from neglected education, for example because in childhood he indulged them too much, did not restrain them from wicked companionships, or, on the contrary, treated them too harshly and addressed them with curses and disgraceful words; then it is not strange that the children have become stubborn and disobedient. Let him remember his own youth, whether he himself did not err.

The correction of children should have paternal kindness mixed with rigor. Moreover, while the offspring is being punished by one parent, if it is not done beyond measure, let the other beware lest he openly oppose it, or afterward flatter the offspring as though it had suffered innocently; this removes the fruit of correction and makes children refractory. If one parent seems to need admonition from the other, let this be done secretly from the children.

As to the third: If they complain of a defect of means for sustenance, the confessor should console them and stir them to patience and conformity with the divine will; let him say that the salvation of the soul is to be preferred to all things; let him exhort them to educate their children in the fear of God; let him stir them to confidence in God, who said: "Seek first the kingdom of God, and the rest shall be added unto you." In the service of God there is true happiness; and mediocrity is sufficient for man, since riches are for many an occasion of perversity and damnation.

V. Spouses are to be admonished according to opportunity concerning their obligations; and indeed:

1. That not all things are lawful for married persons, but that the sanctity of marriage can be defiled.

2. That in this matter a threefold rule holds: those things are lawful which of themselves are ordered to the primary end of marriage; things contrary to this are gravely evil, such as adultery, pollution, sodomy, onanism; but useless things are only lightly evil if they are done without great danger of pollution.

830. Mutual offices of spouses. - Besides the offices of justice, which regard either the administration of goods, concerning which it was already spoken in n. 181-182, or the conjugal debt itself of intercourse to be rendered (I Cor. VII, 3) and conjugal fidelity to be preserved, concerning which it must be spoken in the treatise on matrimony, there are three things which spouses owe each other by natural and divine law from piety: mutual love, mutual help and consolation, and cohabitation.

1. Sincere and intense mutual love. For since they are as one flesh (Mt. XIX, 5), they ought also to be as one heart; for this reason St. Paul commands husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the Church (Eph. V, 25), and wives to love their husbands (Tit. II, 4; Col. III, 18; I Tim. II, 15). This love must be not only affective but also effective, so that spouses furnish help to each other, especially in necessities, and, says Prummer, Th. M. II, n. 590, "avoid disordered egoism, contumelious words, harshness, and especially jealousy, which is wont to be the sepulcher of conjugal love."

2. Mutual help and consolation: for in this they complete each other, because the gifts of one are the complement of the other. Whence God says: It is not good for man to be alone; let us make him a help like unto himself (Gen. II, 18). Hence matrimony is not only a union of bodies but also a union of souls, and a special friendly society by which spouses promise service and assistance to each other.

3. Cohabitation at one table and bed (can. 1128; C. C., a. 214); this is a corollary of the others, altogether required for attaining the ends of matrimony: the education of offspring and mutual help. Whence it is said: For this cause a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh (Gen. II, 24; Mt. XIX, 5).

831. Special offices of the husband. - The husband is the head of the wife and family; and therefore there belongs to him the power of governing not only the children and the family property, but also the wife, who nevertheless is not his handmaid but a worthy partner. Hence he is bound:

1. to furnish to the wife suitable sustenance according to his state, and support and protection;

2. to take care that the wife faithfully fulfill her duties;

3. also to correct her when delinquent; but correction ordinarily ought to consist in words brought forth without anger and hatred: for graver correction consisting in deeds or in moderate blows is rarely opportune or even legitimate.

Hence per se he sins gravely a) if he denies food to the wife, or, although he can, does not procure it, unless she has departed by her own fault;

b) if he treats his wife very harshly and roughly, or compels her to labors which altogether disgrace her condition;

c) if he affects his wife with contumelious or defamatory words;

d) if without cause he impedes her as to the practice of religion;

e) if he gravely beats her;

f) if he greatly afflicts her by his drunken excesses and other disordered passions;

g) if he is very negligent in the governance of family property.

832. Special offices of the wife. - The wife ought to reverence her husband as head and ruler, and furnish him due obedience; whence the Apostle warns: Women, be subject to husbands, as it behooves in the Lord (Col. III, 18; Eph. V, 33). For this reason she ought to expend diligent care in domestic affairs, as her condition demands; and to obey the husband in the governance of the house and in good morals.

Hence per se the wife sins gravely: a) if by quarrels or words she provokes her husband to grave anger or blasphemy;

b) if, despising her husband, she herself wishes to govern, or is notably disobedient, unless the husband commands irrationally;

c) if she gravely neglects domestic affairs, indulging idleness or amusements; or if, given to luxury, she exasperates her husband;

d) if she habitually injects herself into the administration of the house, not in the manner of one helping but of one dominating; unless there is a just cause, such as if the husband, as a spendthrift, squanders the goods of the family or is unfit for management: yet let her not think this last too easily.

936. A threefold obligation or mutual office immediately arises in spouses from matrimony, as is clear from the very nature of matrimony and from its ends:

1° of rendering the conjugal debt,

2° of establishing the companionship of bed and of cohabitation,

3° of furnishing mutual love and assistance to one another.

971. Mutual love and help is a necessary condition and foundation of conjugal life. So intimate and individual a custom of life, which is perfected in rendering the conjugal debt to one another and is completed by the partnership of roof and bed, so that spouses adhere to each other to the exclusion of another person, is not understood, we said, nor can it firmly stand, without an intimate union of souls strengthened by constant love, and without mutual help to be furnished to each other in the various necessities of domestic life. And indeed:

1° Nature inclines to this love, which moves to matrimony and to mutual love of man and woman, so that under its influence they may be a support and help to each other; marital copula fosters and nourishes this love, and common offspring promotes and strengthens it.

2° Christian doctrine commands love: "Husbands," says the Apostle, Eph. V, 25, 28, "love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church, and delivered himself up for her... So also husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself"; and similarly he wills that women "love their husbands, love their children; be prudent, chaste, sober, having care of the house, kind, subject to their husbands," Tit. II, 4-5.

3° Reason also confirms it: for where there is a special conjunction, there ought to be a special love. Between husband and wife there is an altogether special and most intimate conjunction in conjugal life, so that they are even one flesh. Therefore between them there ought to be an altogether special and intimate love; from which mutual support and help is naturally born to follow, because true love is naturally operative.

To true and intimate conjugal love there is opposed:

a) love, as it is called, platonic, nourished toward an unmarried person of the different sex; by which the spouse withdraws his heart from the other spouse so as to give it to an outside person, while nevertheless leaving the body to the spouse for conjugal acts;

b) a fortiori adulterous friendship, which would admit a lustful affection or act with outside persons; to which they say indulgence must be given in our days, since they judge affection restricted to the spouse to be "a certain obsolete weakness of mind and soul, or an abject and vile jealousy," and "this the more because not a few have an innate sexual disposition to which they cannot give satisfaction within the narrow limits of monogamous marriage," as Pius XI denounces;

c) likewise blind agreement of character and mere sympathy of disposition, which certain moderns intend to substitute as the foundation of marriage for genuine conjugal love, or for the deliberate and constant conjunction of souls and mutual charity, and "when this ceases, they teach that the bond by which alone souls are united is relaxed and fully dissolved";

d) finally conjugal jealousy, which can arise not only from the imprudence or fault of the other spouse, but also from the mere suspicion of the jealous one, and consists in this, that everywhere and in all actions of the other party he perceives signs of diminished love toward himself and undue love toward another person. For this defect the best remedy, says Prummer, Th. M. III, n. 688, "is the candid and open manner of speaking and acting always employed between spouses, without all ambiguities and secrets. As a rule to be recommended: Each spouse in his private life should hide nothing from the other party." This indeed, the praised author warns, is not to be extended to one's professional life and to secrets committed to one.

972. Respective offices of husband and wife. - Every love ought to be ordered; but in conjugal love there ought to be an order of subordination, because the husband is loved by the woman as her head, and the woman by the husband not as a slave or handmaid but as a companion and friend. Hence the Apostle says, Eph. V, 22-23: Let women be subject to their husbands as to the Lord; because the husband is the head of the woman, as Christ is the head of the Church (likewise I Pet. III, 1; I Cor. XI; Col. III, 18; I Tim. II, 12; Tit. II, 5); as he also adds: Husbands, love your wives as Christ also loved the Church, which he chose for himself, namely as a companion. Hence, although husband and wife are equal in right as to those things which are proper to the human person in order, namely, to his ultimate end, and as to the primary object itself of the matrimonial contract, or the conjugal debt, nevertheless they are by no means equal, but unequal, as to those things which concern domestic life.

And therefore the offices of the husband are one thing, those of the woman another.

A. The husband is the head of the woman and of the family, and therefore he ought

1° to protect the woman,

2° to provide suitable support to her according to his state,

3° to direct and govern her, not however as a slave, but as a companion and friend, and therefore to see to it that she fulfills her duties and to correct her when she fails, moderately, however, and according to her dignity,

4° diligently to administer the temporal goods of the family.

Noldin, II, n. 281; Rosler, C.SS.R., Die Frauenfrage; Vermeersch, Quaest. de Just., n. 512; Godts, C.SS.R., Le feminisme condamne; Cathrein, Frauenfrage; Stimmen aus Maria-Laach, where there are many things (cf. Gen. Index, v. Frauenemanzipation, etc.); Ami du Cl., 1903, p. 36, 745; Schindler, Moraltheol., II, 747.

703. Principles. I. Spouses mutually owe to themselves society, love, and faith. Thus namely from the nature of marriage, and from positive law, both divine and human⁶ (cf. treatise on Matrimony, c. VII).

1. Society; for they are held to live together, as to table and bed, unless a legitimate cause excuses, as is established from the words of the Lord: A man shall leave father and mother, and shall cling to his wife, and the two shall be in one flesh (Matth., 19, 5). But the choice of domicile pertains to the husband (cf. n. 2120 seq.).

2. Special love, namely conjugal love; for since they are one flesh, they ought also to be, through a more intimate love, one heart. Thus Ephes., 5, 15: Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church; and (Tit., 2, 4) it is commanded to wives that they love their husbands.

Whence a spouse sins against charity and conjugal love if he or she has hatred for the other, or wishes a grave evil; if by injurious words or signs he or she saddens the other, etc. Likewise, because they are held, from love, to furnish food mutually to one another, either husband or wife sins gravely if, either by harshness, idleness, or sumptuousness, he or she deprives the other part of those things which are necessary to life or condition (III, 356).

3. Faith, that is, conjugal fidelity, according to that (1 Cor., 7, 4): The woman does not have power over her own body, but the man. And similarly also the man does not have power over his own body, but the woman, namely in order to generation.

Hence: a) They are held to render to each other the conjugal debt, when it is sought seriously, and there is not a legitimate cause of denying. b) Every venereal act, whether internal or external, with or concerning an alien person, in married persons has the malice of adultery (cf. n. 781).

704. • II. Certain duties are proper to each spouse. This follows from the proper condition of each. For although there is some equality between spouses, nevertheless the ends of marriage and the native character itself of the spouses require that the man be the head of the woman (1 Cor., 11, 3), and that the woman be subject to the man.

1. The HUSBAND must care for his wife's soul, by directing her rightly, watching over her morals, and correcting her where there is need; - body, namely by retaining his wife with him, and feeding her according to his status; - goods, by diligently conducting the family affair.

Hence, the husband sins, and at times gravely: a) If he affects his wife with blows or insults, without just cause. "Nevertheless he can sometimes chastise her moderately by words, or even from a grave cause by moderate blows, having regard to condition" (III, l. c.; H. Ap., VII, 12). See n. 732. b) If he impedes her from fulfilling the precepts of God or of the Church. But if he impedes her, without cause, concerning those things which are of counsel, such as confession, communion, etc., he sins only venially, unless it is established that she perceives great utility from the sacraments. c) If he denies or neglects to procure food for her. Yet he could justly deny these things if the wife had committed adultery, or had departed from him without cause. d) If he treats her in a tyrannical manner, like a vile slave. e) If he neglects the governance of the family, etc.

2. The WIFE is held to exhibit reverence and obedience to the husband in all licit things: Women, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting, in the Lord (Coloss., 3, 18).

Whence she sins gravely if by quarrels or harsh words she provokes the husband to grave anger, or blasphemy; if, the husband being spurned, she claims authority for herself; if without sufficient indication she judges badly concerning his continence; if she spends something notable from common goods, against his will and the custom of women of her condition; if she arrogates to herself the administration of the house without just cause; if she is unwilling to follow the man changing domicile, provided she can follow without danger of life and salvation, and he, after the nuptials, has not become wandering. It also belongs to the wife to devote work to the offspring to be educated, and in domestic business to bear care of the family, applying effort to cleanliness, not to luxury or talkativeness. If nevertheless she is of conspicuous condition, she can fulfill the lower offices through male servants or maids, provided she watches over them and takes care that the domestic affair is well conducted. Consult St. Alphonsus, III, n. 351-356; H. Ap., tr. VII, n. 12-13. See the rest in the treatise on Charity (n. 484 seqq.) and in the treatise on Justice (n. 863 seqq.).

The doctrine just set forth does not please many moderns, especially those who are opposed to positive religion. They demand equality in every way between man and woman, and they say that it is a crime that woman must be subject to man. This modern theory can be considered under a threefold respect: for it touches the domestic order, the economic or social order, and finally the political order.

1. As regards the domestic order. Whatever those say who vindicate complete emancipation, this can in no way be conceded; for nature has so prepared and ordered the whole matter that the man preside, be the head of the family, the mind which directs all things, the will which by labor and endeavor conquers all things. But let the woman become and remain the heart of the family, and let her work by loving, praying, and bearing, and always lead morals to better things. Head and heart, the mind directing and the heart loving, fortitude and loveliness, the strength of the body and the tender constitution of the members, must be one; yet so that what by nature has been made weaker subjects itself to the stronger.

2. As regards the economic and political order, nothing prevents women also from being admitted almost equally as men to many businesses and to many arts, provided, and let this be well noted, that all things are proportioned to their powers, and never harm the office which they must pursue as wives and mothers. Therefore a moderate and tempered emancipation is not to be rejected a priori; but let there be rejected whatever could destroy the family as it was founded by the Creator: in the middle you will go most safely. Cf. the authors cited at the beginning of this chapter.

Spouses, on account of the undivided manner of life by which they are bound to each other in turn, and on account of the mutual help which one ought to furnish to the other, are held to cohabit together, unless a legitimate cause of separation has freed them from this obligation. - Whence there is a new argument, the treatment of which we shall dispatch in few words.

2120. Principles. I. "It is certain that spouses ARE HELD, from an obligation of justice, TO COHABIT in the same house, at table and bed."¹ - This is clear both from reason, namely from the nature of marriage, and from the words of the Lord: "A man shall leave father and mother, and shall cling to his wife" (Matt. 19:5).

Hence it is inferred: 1. "Neither spouse can depart elsewhere, against the will of the other, for a long time, unless just causes are present, namely on account of the public good, or for nourishing or protecting the family, or for avoiding harm from enemies."

2. "If the husband had to remain elsewhere for a long time, he would be bound, if he conveniently can, to bring his wife there, so that she may cohabit with him."

3. The wife is held, more probably, to follow the husband into exile; because she is held to suffer his misfortune. Similarly the husband is held to accompany the wife, if necessity compels her to change domicile.²

2121. II. "Regularly the WIFE is held TO FOLLOW THE HUSBAND changing domicile, even if he changes without just cause, provided the cause is not foul. And this, even if somewhere there is a contrary custom, which cannot derogate from divine law, which constituted the man the head of the wife. Likewise also, if the husband departs far away and will remain there for a long time. But otherwise, if he is going to return from there shortly; for then neither is the wife held to follow the husband, nor the husband to lead the wife with him, just as neither is the husband held to lead her with him, even if he departs far away, if great expenses would be required to transport her there."³

We said regularly; for "the wife is not held to follow the husband if he wishes to drag her into sin, or if the wife by departure would be exposed to grave danger of life, or to danger of grave detriment. Thus likewise the wife is not held to follow a wandering husband, unless before matrimony she knew his errant life."⁴

IT IS ASKED. Whether it is licit for a husband not to cohabit with his wife, and to expel her from the house, ON ACCOUNT OF A DOWRY promised and not paid?

Resp. Panormitanus with others affirms; but others with Sanchez more commonly and more probably deny. - "The reason is that the obligation of cohabiting does not arise from the payment of dowry, but from the natural and divine law itself, by which the husband is held to render the debt to the wife, and therefore to live with her. - Whence authors say that even if the husband has not yet led the wife into his house, he is held to lead her there, notwithstanding that the dowry was not paid."⁵

2122. Principles. I. DIVORCE, or separation from bed or habitation, can be made for just causes, while the bond of marriage remains. - This is clear from Trent (sess. 24, can. 8): "If anyone shall say that the Church errs when she decrees that, on account of many causes, separation between spouses, as regards bed or as regards cohabitation, can be made for a certain or uncertain time: let him be anathema."⁶

2123. II. There are very many CAUSES OF DIVORCE, or of the separation of spouses as regards bed and habitation. This is clear from different places of canon law, against some Protestants, who acknowledged adultery as the only cause of this separation. - But the CAUSES enumerated by canonists can be reduced to THREE:

1. The first and principal cause, on account of which it is licit to make divorce, and indeed perpetual divorce, is the adultery of a spouse. - This is clear both from divine law, the Lord saying (Matt. 19:9): "Whoever shall dismiss his wife, except on account of fornication, and shall marry another, commits adultery"; and from canon law, cap. Significasti and cap. Gaudemus, de divortiis. - But it is REQUIRED that the adultery be: 1) morally certain; - 2) voluntary, and not perpetrated from violence brought upon one; - 3) not condoned, whether expressly or implicitly, e.g. by the conjugal act, or by other signs, exhibited by the innocent party conscious and mindful of the adultery, with the mind, for the internal forum, of condoning; - 4) not mutual, because then compensation would exist; - 5) consummated by intercourse, as is more probable to St. Alphonsus; - 6) committed without the consent of the coparty. - And here it must be noted that, from the more common and at least extrinsically more probable opinion of authors, under the name of adultery there is also understood every division of flesh, such as sodomy and bestiality.¹ Long-lasting and injurious desertion is also customarily equated with adultery.²

We said that it is licit to make divorce; for the innocent party is not held to dismiss the guilty party, unless this is necessary for correction and amendment, or for removing scandal; and in these cases also he is excused whenever he would prudently fear grave inconvenience from it.³ Nor indeed is some adultery admitted before nuptials and afterward disclosed a sufficient cause of divorce, unless injury is inflicted on the husband from it, as would be if the wife, when she married, had already been pregnant by another; for then, as one deceived and injured, he can remove from himself, by the authority of the Church, her who contrived fraud and dishonor for him. And this same thing seems to be said if the wife had given herself to prostitution.

Authors note besides the following: 1. A juridical separation having been made, the innocent spouse is not held to receive the adulterous coparty, although amended; for "on the one hand Christ has perpetually freed him from the obligation of cohabiting with an adulterer, and on the other hand charity does not seem, of itself, to oblige to so great a burden."⁴ - 2. Yet he can recall the adulterous spouse to himself, although juridically separated, because he can renounce his right; but it is scarcely to be counseled or prescribed to an adulterous woman that she return to the husband, on account of the frequent danger of bad treatment.⁵ - 3. If after the sentence of divorce it happens that the other spouse also commits adultery, it is more probable that neither is held to return to the coparty recalling; because by the sentence of the judge each was freed from servitude. Nevertheless, the judge ought to take care that they return to each other, so that they may better provide for the salvation of their souls and remove the scandal of others.⁶

2. The second cause of divorce is some grave danger of soul or body; by reason of which danger: 1) If one of the spouses slips into heresy or apostasy from the faith, which is spiritual adultery, it is conceded to the other to institute divorce, even perpetual, after the sentence of the judge.⁷ 2) If a spouse draws the coparty into sin, e.g. if he solicits that one to heresy, sodomy, adultery, etc., the innocent party can depart, indeed is bound if the danger is grave.⁸ 3) Finally, if from cohabitation there threatens grave danger of life or health, or if cohabitation becomes so burdensome that it is rendered morally impossible; for instance, if a spouse were compelled to suffer cruelties grave and frequent for his condition, or if the wife were expelled without cause.⁹

3. The third cause is mutual consent. From this consent spouses separate themselves licitly from bed, or even from habitation, whether for a time or in perpetuity. - Moreover, separation from habitation in perpetuity is not customarily permitted unless each enters Religion; or at least unless, when one professes Religion or receives sacred Orders, the coparty vows chastity. But this ought not to be done inconsiderately; rather, it is required that, all things having been well weighed, every danger of incontinence be absent, and offspring not need the care of parents, etc.; for the evangelical counsels do not free human beings from the duties by which they are bound by the law of nature.¹⁰

2124. Questions. QUESTION 1. By what AUTHORITY ought the separation of spouses to be made?

Resp. It is to be made, regularly speaking, by the authority of the judge, i.e. of the Bishop, whenever there is question of separation from the roof; because such separation is public and pertains to external governance; and although it remained hidden, nevertheless the authority of the Bishop would be required.

We said 1. regularly; for by private authority divorce can be made by an innocent spouse in the case of cruelty or danger of perversion, if there is danger in delay, and the judge cannot be approached, or perhaps the fact cannot juridically be proved. Likewise, it can be made by the husband, more probably, in the case of the wife's adultery, whether the adultery is public or hidden, provided it is certain and provided the separation does not bring public scandal with it. For it is said in law: "Wherever there is fornication, or suspicion of fornication, the wife is freely dismissed."¹¹ But in the case in which he were compelled by the judge to cohabit with the adulteress, he would indeed be held to obey, but by no means to render the debt.¹²

We said 2. whenever there is question of separation from the roof; for spouses, from their own authority and mutual consent, can be separated from each other as regards bed, provided danger of incontinence is absent, as is clear from the words of the Apostle (1 Cor. 7:5): "Do not defraud one another, except perhaps by consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to prayer; and return again to the same, lest Satan tempt you because of your incontinence." Recall the things said in n. 2103.

QUESTION 2. After juridical divorce has been made on account of adultery, can the spouses enter RELIGION, or the man receive SACRED ORDERS?

Resp. 1. The innocent spouse can, even against the will of the adulterous party, enter Religion or receive sacred Orders.

2. The adulterous spouse cannot enter Religion, nor be initiated into sacred Orders, unless the innocent one consents, or has already himself undertaken an irrevocable state; otherwise, if he received the priesthood or entered Religion, he could be recalled by the innocent party, even after profession. Nevertheless, the tacit consent of the innocent party suffices, e.g. if the innocent one, knowing that the adulterer wishes to change state, does not impede him, though he conveniently could; or if, when asked by the adulterer, he did not wish to admit reconciliation.¹³

QUESTION 3. After juridical divorce has been made, with which spouse are the CHILDREN to be educated, and at whose expense?

Resp. 1. Natural law being considered, all children are to be educated with the innocent spouse. Except if this one is an infidel or heretic, because then they are to be educated with the faithful spouse.¹⁴ But from civil law, children are generally handed over to the one who obtained the separation, unless, on account of the greater advantage of the children, the judge has established otherwise.¹⁵

2. The expenses of the whole education are regularly to be paid by the spouse who is in fault. Yet always in these matters the sentence of the judge is required, by which one must stand.

2125. PRACTICAL RULES. As regards spouses who, legitimate separation not having been sought, live separated, let the parish priest or confessor attend to the following: - 1) A woman whom it is publicly clear to have been unjustly driven away by her husband is not to be barred from the Sacraments; and the husband is not to be absolved unless he restores the consortium of life with the wife. - 2) He who withdrew from the coparty by reason of notorious adultery is not to be disturbed; but the guilty party is not to be admitted to the Sacraments unless he has repaired the crime and scandal. - 3) They are to be held unworthy of absolution who, on account of a matrimony unhappily begun, e.g. mutual aversion, have separated themselves by private counsel. But, scandal having been removed, if they are in good faith and do not wish to acquiesce when admonished, they are not to be admonished concerning this.¹⁶

2126. FROM CIVIL LAW, in force in many places, there can be had a judicial sentence of divorce or of separation from bed and from habitation, on account of various CAUSES, which are commonly enumerated as THREE, namely: 1. Adultery of the woman, and also of the man, if he kept a concubine in the house common to the spouses. 2. Cruelties or grave injuries brought by one spouse against the other. 3. Condemnation of one of the spouses to an infamous penalty.¹ - And here it must be NOTED that separation of bodies always imports separation of goods, but not vice versa.

Indeed, in several places, civil law permits not only that imperfect separation, or separation of habitation and goods, but also DIVORCE PROPERLY SO CALLED, namely as regards the civil bond, so that it becomes free for spouses to pass to other nuptials. And in that case, to the three causes of separation already numbered, in certain places there is added a fourth, namely mutual consent.

Wherefore it helps to report the following Documents of the HOLY OFFICE.

1. Response to the Bishop of St. Gallen: "The law of the Swiss Confederation enacted concerning status and civil matrimony sanctioned that all and singular matrimonial causes, ecclesiastical jurisdiction being suppressed from now and thereafter, are to be treated in lay tribunals according to the norm which is established in civil causes; and that sentences are to be pronounced in them according to the prescriptions of common law and of the most recent enacted law, by which even marriages of Catholics can, under certain very light reasons, be perpetually severed and dissolved as regards the bond, so that litigating spouses of this kind, after the sentence of divorce of secular judges has been passed, can pass to contracting other marriages if they wish. Therefore it is asked: Whether Catholic JUDGES and ADVOCATES in lay tribunals of this kind can with safe conscience take up and defend, or know and judge, matrimonial causes? - Likewise, whether the same Catholic judges and advocates, according to the recent law of Switzerland, can with safe conscience propose the bond of matrimony as to be dissolved, or declare it as dissolved, and also declare that spouses of this kind can pass to contracting another marriage, just as civil law in this case expressly commands and urges judges to judge and declare?"

In discussing this question, it must not be forgotten that the secular tribunals, whose office it is to judge concerning civil causes, are the same tribunals to which by the new law it belongs to know and judge matrimonial causes. But if, therefore, Catholic judges were forbidden to sit in tribunals of this kind, we would experience, to the great harm of citizens, that those tribunals are deprived of those judges who, filled with the fear of God, judge piously and justly.

But the Sacred Congregation, on Wednesday, 3 April 1878, responded: "As regards Judges, let him recur in particular cases. - As regards advocates, let the responses already given to the Bishop of Southwark be given, namely Tuesday, place IV, on 22 May 1860, to the DOUBT: whether a Catholic advocate can defend the causes of the party brought to trial, against an actor seeking dissolution of the bond? The Response was: 'Provided that it is established to the Bishop concerning the probity of the advocate, and provided that the advocate does nothing which deflects from the principles of natural and ecclesiastical law, it can be tolerated.' And to the other DOUBT: whether it is licit to act the parts of advocate and actor, when the end of the lawsuit is simple separation, without any sentence drawing with itself the nullity of matrimony? The Response was: 'Provision has been made in the preceding'; and on Wednesday, 19 December of the same year: 'provided the Catholic party can approach no other tribunal from which he may obtain a sentence of separation as regards bed and table, and provided the sentence of this tribunal has no other effect than the aforesaid separation, it can be tolerated that Catholics, in that forum, act the parts of actor and advocate, and provided just causes of separation are present, in the judgment of the Bishop; and if besides he has anything of doubt, let him recur, setting forth all the circumstances and dispositions of the law.' J. Velamie, Notary of the Holy Roman and Universal Inquisition."²

2. Letter to all Ordinaries in French territory: "After the recently restored laws of divorce among the French in the year 1884, several doubts were proposed by some Bishops of France to this Holy Roman and Universal Inquisition: namely whether it would be lawful for lay judges in causes concerning the separation of spouses to declare law, whether concerning the bond or concerning habitation only; whether for advocates and procurators to conduct causes of this kind before lay judges; whether for those to whom by law it pertains to appoint the official defenders, as they call them; finally, whether for syndics, commonly maires, to pronounce divorce.

"The Most Eminent Fathers, General Inquisitors together with me, after the matter had been maturely weighed, on Thursday, place IV, on 25 June 1885, judged that it should be decreed thus:

"Considering the most grave adjuncts of things, times, and places, it can be tolerated that those who hold magistracies and advocates conduct matrimonial causes in France without being held to resign their office, provided they openly profess Catholic doctrine concerning matrimony and concerning matrimonial causes as pertaining to ecclesiastical judges alone, and provided they are so disposed in mind, both concerning the value and nullity of marriage and concerning the separation of bodies, about which causes they are compelled to judge, that they never pronounce a sentence, nor defend one to be pronounced, nor provoke or excite one contrary to divine or ecclesiastical law; and in doubtful or more difficult cases, let each approach his Ordinary, direct himself by his judgment, and, insofar as there is need, recur through his mediation to the Apostolic Penitentiary."

"The Most Holy Father held this decree ratified; and therefore it is made known to all Archbishops and Bishops in France for their norm, by these letters which otherwise are not to be published. R. Card. Monaco."

3. Decree for excluding false interpretations of the preceding Letter:

"By some Bishops of France the following doubts were proposed to the Holy Roman and Universal Inquisition: 'In the Letter of the Holy Roman and Universal Inquisition of 25 June 1885 to all Ordinaries in French Territory concerning the law of civil divorce, it is decreed thus: Considering the most grave adjuncts of things, times, and places, it can be tolerated that those who hold magistracies and advocates conduct matrimonial causes in France without being held to resign their office'; it added conditions, of which the second is this: 'Provided they are so disposed in mind, both concerning the value and nullity of marriage, and concerning the separation of bodies, about which causes they are compelled to judge, that they never pronounce a sentence, nor defend one to be pronounced, nor provoke or excite one contrary to divine or ecclesiastical law.' It is asked:

I. 'Whether the interpretation diffused throughout France and also printed is correct, according to which the judge satisfies the aforesaid condition who, although some matrimony is valid before the Church, entirely abstracts from that true and constant matrimony, and by applying civil law pronounces that there is place for divorce, provided he intends in mind to break only the civil effects and only the civil contract, and the terms of the pronounced sentence regard only those things? In other terms, can the sentence thus passed be said not to be contrary to divine or ecclesiastical law?

II. 'After the judge has pronounced that there is place for divorce, can the Syndic, in French, le maire, also himself intending only the civil effects and only the civil contract, as is set forth above, pronounce divorce, although the matrimony is valid before the Church?

III. 'After divorce has been pronounced, can the same Syndic civilly join with another the spouse attempting to pass to other nuptials, although the prior matrimony is valid before the Church and the other party is living?'

"Thursday, place IV, on 27 May 1886. In the General Congregation of the Holy Roman and Universal Inquisition held before the Most Eminent and Most Reverend Lords, Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, General Inquisitors, the above-written doubts having been proposed, and the Vote of the Lord Consultors having been had beforehand, the same Most Eminent and Most Reverend Lords ordered that response be made: To the first, second, and third doubt, Negatively.

"On the same weekday and day, report having been made concerning these things to Our Most Holy Lord Pope Leo XIII, His Holiness approved and confirmed the resolutions of the Most Eminent Fathers. Jos. Mancini, Notary of the Holy Roman and Universal Inquisition."

It seems useful also to add these decisions of the S. PENITENTIARY:

1. Response to a certain Bishop of Italy: "Most Reverend Lord. I have reported to the Eminent Major Penitentiary what you write concerning a certain Syndic of your diocese, who by force of his office would have to assist at the civil matrimony of someone already bound by another matrimony celebrated in the face of the Church; and I must, at the command of the aforesaid Eminent Penitentiary, signify to you that the aforesaid syndic can by no pact furnish his work to an act which is so greatly opposed to the sanctity of matrimony. Therefore, whatever the circumstances of the case may be, he ought altogether to deny his assistance, even though it would happen that for this reason he would be compelled to resign his office.

"From the S. Penitentiary, 28 Nov. 1883. Luigi Martini, Substitute of the S. P."

2. Instruction to the Bishops of Italy, of 29 March 1885.

Q. Whether a CIVIL OFFICIAL can both assist at matrimony which they call CIVIL, and prepare and draw up the legal instrument of the same matrimony, although true matrimony did not precede, indeed although there is suspicion or even certainty that it will by no means be celebrated before the Church?

"R. It can be tolerated, provided civil officials in drawing up acts of this kind intend to exercise a merely civil ceremony, and perform or advise nothing against the sanctity of matrimony and the necessity of contracting it before the Church; indeed let them exhort to contracting it before the Church herself, having before their eyes the most holy laws of our religion and the letters of Benedict XIV, Redditae sunt Nobis, concerning which, for removing scandal, let them admonish the contracting parties. - But as regards the cases in which it appears that the faithful, approaching the civil ceremony, are badly disposed, and are not going to celebrate matrimony, which regularly ought to have been premised, before the Church, but are going to persist in concubinage under the pretext of a civil contract, the officials themselves are to be directed according to the rules handed down by approved authors, and especially by ST. ALPHONSUS DE LIGUORI (Lib. 2, tr. 3, cap. 2, dub. 5, art. 3), concerning cooperators."³

From these things you will resolve: - 1. Matrimonial causes look only to the ecclesiastical forum, and therefore cannot, unless the Church permits this, be brought to the civil forum; thus from the constant doctrine of the Church.

2. The Church indeed permits, in various regions, that causes of this kind be treated in the civil forum, but always under the condition that nothing be done which is contrary either to divine or to ecclesiastical law.

3. Where legitimate and canonical causes of divorce are had (cf. n. 2123), spouses can seek separation of habitation and goods, advocates can promote it, and judges can pronounce it. Nor indeed is it licit for spouses to bring the cause to the civil forum before it has been defined by the ecclesiastical judge, since it looks to this judge alone to judge whether sufficient motives of separation are present. Nevertheless, if the spouses, the ecclesiastical judge having been passed over, present themselves to the civil judge, this judge can, on account of grave reasons, know their cause, and, the motives being just, pass a sentence of separation.

4. Divorce as regards the bond of matrimony contracted only civilly can be both sought and pronounced in the civil forum, as is clear. The same must be said concerning matrimony indeed before the Church, but invalidly contracted, provided that the sentence of the ecclesiastical forum concerning the invalidity of the matrimony has preceded.

5. The sentence of divorce by which the bond of a validly contracted matrimony is declared dissolved can neither be sought by spouses nor promoted by advocates. For actors in such a cause seek a thing manifestly unjust and impious. - Nor is it licit for the judge to pronounce a sentence of divorce, even if, while he pronounces it, he intends to abstract from true matrimony and to break only the civil contract, nor do the terms of the pronounced sentence regard anything else.

But whether this is licit if he openly manifests this mind of his and professes the true doctrine of the Church concerning matrimony, there are not lacking those who still move controversy. But to us it seems that it must altogether be denied. The reason is that the sentence of the judge, as regards its being and as regards its effects, depends in no way on his intention or on the declaration of intention, but on the law which he applies. Whence a sentence of divorce, whether the judge wishes it or not, is of itself, not otherwise than the law of divorce itself, evil and iniquitous, and it furnishes help and support to iniquity.

6. Whether a civil official can join by civil rite persons if one of them or each is already bound by the bond of true matrimony, there is not yet one opinion of all; nevertheless, from the above-cited document of the S. Penitentiary, it seems to be denied. But he can, on account of most grave reasons, assist at the civil matrimony of those who are held to be badly disposed, even if he foresees that matrimony will not be celebrated before the Church.⁴

441. • I. Spouses are bound:

1° To mutual love. For since they are one flesh, they ought also to be one heart. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church. - Let them (wives) love their husbands.²

2° To conjugal society and cohabitation. This is plain from the nature and ends of matrimony, and from the words of Christ: A man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh.³

3° To furnishing mutually to one another food, and whatever pertains to the honorable sustenance of their condition: For (now) they are not two, but one flesh.⁴ But no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it.⁵

4° To rendering the conjugal debt mutually to one another, concerning which matter in the Treatise on Matrimony.

442. • II. The husband is bound in particular:

1° To conduct the family property studiously.

2° To take care that the wife fulfill the duties of a Christian profession, and execute the precepts of the law both divine and ecclesiastical. For the man is the head of the woman and the rector of the whole family; and therefore to him belongs the right governance both of the wife and of the other members of the family.

3° To correct a delinquent wife where this is necessary for her amendment and for preventing scandal. But correction ought to proceed from charity, or love of justice, or zeal for procuring the right governance of the family, and in manner to be such that it is plain the wife is the partner of the man, not a servant. Care must also be taken lest peace and love perish between them.

443. • III. The wife for her part is bound:

1° To reverence her husband, because he is her Superior, as is established from what was said, and from the words: Thou shalt be under the power of the husband, and he shall rule over thee.¹

2° To furnish obedience to him; because obedience is owed to a Superior in those things which pertain to governance; and the Apostle says to the Colossians:² Women, be subject to your husbands, as it behooveth in the Lord.

3° To carry care of the house in the family property, and therefore to undertake the offices of the family, as to prepare food, sweep the house, wash linens, repair torn garments, and furnish other things of this kind. Yet in families sufficiently wealthy the wife can fulfill the lower offices through male servants or maidservants, provided she watches over them and takes care that the domestic matter be well conducted.

444. You will resolve. - 1° A husband can sin gravely if he pursues his wife with insults, for example by calling her an adulteress, etc.; - if without a just cause he impedes her from fulfilling divine or ecclesiastical precepts, or from devotions very useful, for example from discreet frequency of the Sacraments; - if he treats her in a tyrannical manner like a vile slave; - if he does not cohabit with her; - if he neglects the governance of the family, etc.³

2° A wife likewise can sin gravely if she is accustomed to ridicule and mock her husband; - if by harsh words, contumacious disobedience, or excessive peevishness she provokes him to anger and blasphemies, etc.

3° Ordinarily the man ought to begin the correction of the wife by gentler words, and, if these do not profit, to proceed to graver correction. Sometimes he ought to conceal the faults of the wife when he can do this without sin, and not be excessive in correcting; but sometimes to defer correction for a time, lest the correction seem to proceed from the heat of anger and lack fruit, while the wife is less disposed to receive it.

4° Let the confessor not immediately believe a spouse complaining against a spouse, especially if a wife rails against the husband; because women are generally prone to lying or certainly exaggerating. Wherefore it is better, the matter being passed over, to commend to them prayer, patience, meekness, and greater solicitude for furnishing services to the man.

5° Let the wife be silent while the husband is angry or drunk; if admonition seems likely to profit, let her admonish while the husband is well disposed; if a reply must be made to an angry man, let her reply gently: for a soft answer breaketh anger, and a hard word stirreth up fury. If these things obtain nothing, let her take care that the husband be admonished by the Pastor or another prudent man.

445. • Quaer. What are the principal dispositions of our civil laws concerning the obligations of spouses?

Resp. 1° "The husband may ... be bound to keep the peace as against his wife, and for any unreasonable and improper confinement by him, she may be entitled to relief upon habeas corpus. But as the husband is the guardian of the wife, and bound to protect and maintain her, the law has given him a reasonable superiority and control over her person, and he may even put gentle restraints upon her liberty, if her conduct be such as to require it, unless he renounces that control by articles of separation, or it be taken from him by a qualified divorce."¹

2° "If he" (the husband) "shifts his domicile, the wife is bound to follow him wherever he chooses to go."²

3° The husband is bound to provide his wife with necessaries suitable to her situation and his condition in life; and if she contracts debts due for them during cohabitation, he is obliged to pay those debts; but for anything beyond necessaries, namely "elegancies or luxuries,"³ he is not chargeable....

"If the husband abandons his wife, or they separate by consent, without any provision for her maintenance, or if he sends her away, he is liable for her necessaries, and he sends credit with her to that extent." The same says "if she receives such treatment as affords a reasonable cause for her to depart from his house, and refuse to cohabit with him."

"But if the wife elopes, though it be not with an adulterer, he is not chargeable even for necessaries."¹

I. Spouses are held: 1st, To mutual love. For since they are one flesh, they ought also to be one heart. Thus Ephes. v, 25: "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church"; Tit. ii, 4: "(Wives) let them love their husbands." 2nd. To conjugal society and cohabitation. This is clear from the nature and ends of marriage and from the words of Christ, Matth. xix, 5: "A man shall leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife and they shall be two in one flesh." 3rd. To furnishing mutually to each other food and whatever pertains to the decency of their condition: from the words of Christ, l. c. Matth.: "For now they are not two but one flesh." - Cf. Ephes. v, 29. 4th. To rendering to each other the conjugal debt when it is seriously asked and there is no legitimate cause for denying it, because they have obliged themselves to this. - Cf. I Cor. vii, 4.

II. The husband is held in particular: 1st. To conduct the family estate diligently, and either rightly to administer or to take care that both common goods and the wife's goods are not dissipated; 2nd. To take care that the wife fulfills the duties of Christian profession, and executes the precepts of both divine and ecclesiastical law. For the man is the head of the woman and the ruler of the whole family; and therefore the right governance of both wife and whole family duly pertains to him. 3rd. To correct a delinquent wife, where this work is necessary for her amendment and for preventing scandal. But correction ought to proceed from charity or love of justice or zeal for procuring the right governance of the family, and to be much lighter than the fault deserves, because the wife is the companion of the man, not a slave. Care must also be taken lest peace and love perish between them.

III. The wife, for her part, is held: 1st. To reverence the husband, because he is her superior, as is clear from what has been said. 2nd. To render obedience to him, because obedience is owed to a superior in those things which pertain to governance; the Apostle to the Colossians iii, 18, says: Women, be subject to husbands, as is fitting, in the Lord. 3rd. To bear the care of the house in the family affair, and therefore to go about the offices of the family.

Speaking of Christian marriage, Leo XIII in the Encyclical Letter Arcanum thus explains its dignity and the duties of spouses:

"By the nuptial society something higher and nobler has been proposed than had been before: for it was commanded to look not only to propagating the human race, but to generating offspring for the Church, citizens of the saints and domestics of God (Eph. ii, 19), namely, that a people might be procreated and educated for the worship and religion of the true God and of Christ our Savior (Catech. Rom. chap. VIII). In the second place, their own duties have been defined for each of the spouses, their own rights entirely described. Namely, it is necessary that they always be so affected in soul that they understand that the one owes the other the greatest love, constant faith, and attentive and assiduous protection. The man is the prince of the family, and the head of the woman, who nevertheless, because she is flesh from his flesh and bone from his bones, is to be subject and obedient to the man in the manner not of a handmaid, but of a companion; namely so that neither honorableness nor dignity may be absent from the obedience furnished. But in him who presides, and in her who obeys, since each represents an image, the one of Christ, the other of the Church, let divine charity be the perpetual moderator of duty. For the husband is the head of the woman, as Christ is the head of the Church. ... But as the Church is subject to Christ, so also let women be subject to their husbands in all things; Eph. v, 23, 24. But as regards children, they ought to be under and obey parents, and to show honor to them on account of conscience; and conversely, in protecting children and especially in forming them to virtue, all the cares and thoughts of parents must be vigilant: 'Fathers, educate them (children) in the discipline and correction of the Lord'; from which it is understood that the duties of spouses are neither few nor light; yet for good spouses, on account of the virtue which is received from the sacrament, these become not only tolerable, but also pleasant." § "Nor to them."

Martha accuses herself in confession of stealing her husband’s money, and, when the confessor asks about the circumstances, she answered that her husband earns by his labor the sum of twenty shillings every week, but gives her only ten to pay the expenses of the family, which scarcely suffice, if indeed they suffice at all, for that, while he dissipates the other ten in drinking with bad companions; furthermore, that she has been accustomed secretly to take three or four shillings from her husband’s clothes, and that on this account her conscience is tormented all the more because she possesses nearly one hundred pounds sterling of her own money, which, however, she says she wishes to preserve for providing dowries for her daughters. Hence it is asked:

1. By our law does a husband acquire any right in the goods of his wife?

2. Is support owed by a husband to his wife and children from strict justice?

3. What is to be said of the case?

1. Does a husband, by English law, acquire any rights in the property of his wife?

No, not by the simple fact of marriage and during the wife's life. He may acquire rights in virtue of marriage settlements voluntarily entered into; and in case the wife dies intestate the husband is entitled to hold, for his life, all the lands and tenements of which he and she were seised in deed in her right, for an estate of inheritance, and after taking out administration he becomes entitled to her chattels, personal as well as real.¹

1 Manual of Moral Theology, vol. i, p. 355.

2. Is the husband bound to support his wife and children in justice, strictly so called?

Yes; this duty is laid upon him by the natural law, and by the law of the land, and when he marries his wife he undertakes to fulfil all his obligations towards her, and thus he is bound in justice by his contract to support her and her children, as well as by the Fourth Commandment.²

2 The same work, p. 288.

3. The case. There is no reason why Martha's conscience should be disturbed at what she does. If she can not otherwise get what is necessary to support herself and her children, she has a perfect right to take it as she does, unknown to her husband. Nor need she be disturbed about her £100. She may keep it intact so that she may be able to give a small dowry to her daughters on their marriage, as long as the husband's wages are sufficient to support her and the family. She is not bound to spend her little hoard in order that her husband may have more to spend in drink.

Caia, a Catholic and the wife of Titius, a Protestant official in a certain colony, comes to her native country to supervise the education of their daughters in a convent of nuns and, led by this purpose, lives near the convent. After some months Titius asks, indeed orders, her to return to him; Caia, however, always excuses herself on the ground that she herself must care for the daughters who are to be educated, and at length Titius publicly takes a concubine for himself. Having heard this, Caia, anxious about the past and the future, asks a confessor whether she is bound to return to her husband. Hence it is asked:

1. What are the obligations of spouses with regard to cohabitation?

2. Is it lawful to institute a partial divorce by public or private authority?

3. Are husband and wife equal in rights with regard to a partial divorce?

4. What is to be said of the case?

1. What are the obligations of married people with regard to cohabitation?

From the nature of the marriage contract and to secure the ends of marriage those who are married are bound to live together, unless by mutual consent they agree to live apart for a time and there is no danger of scandal or incontinence. This obligation is one of justice and is grave in serious matter.¹

1 Génicot, vol. ii, n. 552 ff.

The second question was answered above, p. 266.

3. Are husband and wife equal in the matter of rights about separation?

In general, husband and wife are equal in the matter of conjugal rights, though the husband as head of the family has authority over her and is her superior. The causes then, such as adultery, on account of which one consort is allowed to separate from the other, favor husband and wife equally. Because the husband has the duty of providing for the family, lawful causes of absence from his wife will more frequently exist in his case than in hers, and because of this and of her inferior position the wife will be called upon in general to follow her husband, and not vice versa.

4. The case. Titius was a colonial official, and his wife Caia went to the mother country to see to the education of her daughters. She put her daughters in a convent and took up her residence in the neighborhood. Her husband sent for her but she refused to go, under the pretext that she had to look after the education of her daughters. She became uneasy in conscience when she heard that her husband was living with another woman.

Caia’s uneasiness was justified. Her husband bade her come out to him and she had no good reason for refusing. The education of her daughters would probably proceed better without her presence than with it. Objectively she committed a grave sin in not obeying her husband and exposing him to the danger of incontinence.

She is bound to do what she can to repair her fault and bring back her husband from his sinful course of life. But now on the supposition that Caia knows for certain that her husband has committed adultery she has the right to separate from him. Although her disobedience was the occasion of his sin, yet we must not presume that she acted as she did with the view of making him commit adultery, and on that supposition she did not lose her right to separate from her husband on account of his adultery.¹

1 Gasparri, De Matrim., vol. ii, n. 1113.

Caius relates to his confessor that he is anxious about his manner of acting with his own wife. For she, he says, is very weak; indeed, a certain experienced physician declared that she would give birth again only with proximate danger of death. Caius himself, on the contrary, is robust and has scarcely any hope of restraining himself. Indeed, he often indulged in immodest touching with his wife in bed, from which he not rarely suffered pollution; sometimes he began intercourse but did not complete it because of fear that a child might be generated. He wishes to confess all these things insofar as they are sinful, and humbly asks advice concerning the future. Hence it is asked:

1. What are the marital obligations of spouses, and what is permitted to them?

2. Is the hope of generating a child equal at whatever time intercourse is had?

3. What is to be said of the case?

1. What are the obligations of marriage for spouses, and what are permitted to them?

A spouse is bound under grave sin to render the conjugal debt to the other spouse who reasonably asks it, and consequently spouses are regularly bound to live together. Moreover, signs of conjugal love are to be shown mutually by the spouses. What is permitted to them is contained in the following rule: 'What is useful for the performance of the conjugal act is permitted; what is' contrary to the generation of offspring or tends to hinder that is gravely illicit; what is not contrary to the generation of offspring, although it is beyond that, at least is not gravely illicit.

2. Is there an equal hope of generating offspring at whatever time intercourse is had?

The matter is uncertain. Some thought that the period between two days before menstruation and fourteen days afterwards was more suitable for generating offspring more certainly, and consequently that, if spouses do not wish offspring to follow from intercourse, they can avoid this period and have intercourse outside it. Nothing prevents them from acting in this way, but whether they will attain the intended end is very doubtful.²

2 Génicot, vol. ii, n. 551.

3. To the case. To employ immodest touches in such a way that a proximate danger of emission is induced is forbidden under grave sin even to spouses. To employ touches not so immodest, short of the proximate danger of emission, although emission sometimes follows, to which, however, consent is not given and which is not intended, is not considered forbidden to spouses under grave sin, nor even under venial sin, provided there is a just cause, such as fostering conjugal love. According to these rules judgment is to be made concerning the immodest touches employed by Caius. By beginning intercourse but not completing it because of fear of generating offspring, Caius sinned onanistically and gravely, unless it is established to him by experience that he can act in this way without proximate danger of emission.³

3 Ibid., 551.

For the future, let Caius exercise the marital offices in an honorable and due manner, entrusting himself and his wife to God with great confidence.

1 Manual of Moral Theology, vol. ii, 362.