Polygamy and Polyandry

516. What the Unity of Matrimony Is. The unity of matrimony, or monogamy, consists in this, that it is the union of one man with one woman. The unity of matrimony is perfect if neither spouse contracts another matrimony after the dissolution of the prior matrimony; it is imperfect if at least one of the spouses contracts another after the dissolution of the prior matrimony.

Polygamy is opposed to the unity of matrimony; it can be simultaneous and successive. Simultaneous polygamy is either polyandry, if one woman has several husbands, or polygyny, if one man has several women at the same time. Successive polygamy is called bigamy, whether one man successively marries several women, or one woman successively marries several men.

The Church at every time vindicated the unity of matrimony, which also the Roman civil laws prohibiting polygamy defended, and it never permitted polygamy, although it was importunately sought by supreme rulers. Among Protestants there are several examples of polygamy admitted by the heresiarchs. Polygamy, which the Mormons exercised for a long time, the Turks and pagans exercise today. Socialists, at least theoretically, admit not only polygyny but even polyandry itself.¹

1. Polyandry is repugnant to natural law, because it is repugnant to the primary end of matrimony, namely the generation and education of offspring: to generation indeed, because a woman to whom several men approach is rendered sterile; but to education, because the father of the offspring received is unknown, and consequently no father cares for its education. Hence polyandry was always and everywhere prohibited, so that not even God can dispense from this law.

2. Polygyny is repugnant to natural law and to the secondary end of matrimony; it is also repugnant to positive divine law: Every one who puts away his wife and marries another commits adultery.²

a. There are several reasons on account of which polygyny is contrary to natural law: a. it is physically impossible, since the number of persons of each sex is almost the same; therefore nature intends monogamy; b. it is repugnant to the equality of rights which belongs to each sex and universally to human beings; c. it is repugnant to the common good, since it weakens the man and deprives the woman of her dignity; d. it disturbs the tranquil fellowship of life and mutual help between the spouses.

b. God can dispense from this law and in reality did dispense from it; for after the flood polygamy was granted to the patriarchs and to the Israelite people, which concession was also extended to gentiles. Through Christ, however, who restored matrimony to its primitive integrity, this dispensation was removed even with respect to infidels, so that even among infidels a second matrimony during the prior one is invalid, and among the Jews matrimony is no longer dissolved through the bill of repudiation.³

3. Bigamy or successive polygamy is permitted to both man and woman even in the new law: A woman is bound as long as her husband lives; but if her husband dies, she is free: let her marry whom she wishes, only in the Lord.⁴ Therefore the Church always held second nuptials entered after the death of the prior spouse to be valid and licit, although it approved them less.

¹ Bebel, Die Frau (Stuttgart).

² Luke 16, 18. Cf. Council of Trent, sess. 24, can. 2.

³ Matt. 19, 3 ff.

⁴ 1 Cor. 7, 39. Cn. 1142.

The unity of matrimony consists in the conjunction of only one man with only one woman, that is, monogamy. Opposed to unity are simultaneous polyandry, which is the simultaneous conjunction of one woman with several men, and simultaneous polygamy, which is the simultaneous conjunction of one man with several women. Now:

I. Simultaneous polyandry is prohibited by natural law; both because natural law is opposed to several heads in the same society, and because the education of offspring, which belongs to the primary ends of matrimony, is ruined. For the care both of father and of mother is required for the education of offspring. But from the fact that several men use the same wife, uncertainty arises as to who is the father of the offspring to be born; and this uncertainty will bring it about that no one has care of the offspring (St. Thomas, Supplement, q. 65, a. 1, ad 8).

II. Polygamy is prohibited by natural law. That it is prohibited to Christians is of faith from the Council of Trent;¹ that it is prohibited to all is clear from Sacred Scripture.² But that it is prohibited to all by natural law is gathered from the fact that it is opposed to the secondary ends of matrimony; namely, to mutual help, which will suffer detriment from the lack of peaceful cohabitation; and to the quieting of concupiscence on the part of the wives, to each of whom the debt will not be rendered sufficiently. There are added the Instruction of the Holy Office,³ and canon 1013, § 2, which counts unity among the essential properties of matrimony.

In the Old Law polygamy, besides for the reason alleged by Christ, that is, because of hardness of heart, was also conceded by God, so that the human race, and especially the Jewish race, might be multiplied more quickly (cf. St. Thomas, Supplement, q. 65, a. 2). The said concession also seems to have been extended to the nations. But Christ the Lord removed the aforesaid concession,⁴ so that in the evangelical law simultaneous polygamy is wholly and everywhere prohibited.

¹ Session 24, canon 2.

² Matthew 19:4 sq.

³ June 20, 1866 (Collectanea, 1354).

⁴ Matthew 19:4 sq.

What concerning the unity of marriage? The unity of marriage consists in this, that marriage is the union of one man with one woman. - It is certain that polyandry, or the simultaneous union of several men with one woman, conflicts with the natural law, because it is opposed to the chief ends of marriage, namely the generation of offspring and their good education. The seed of several mixed is sterile. Furthermore, the father becomes uncertain, upon whom the education of offspring especially falls. - It is certain that simultaneous polygamy, or the simultaneous union of several women with one man, is prohibited in every case, at least by positive divine law of the New Law, as is clear from Luke 16:18: Everyone who dismisses his wife and marries another commits adultery.

It is likewise clear from Trent, sess. 24, Doctrine on the sacrament of matrimony, c. 2. Moreover, it repugns at least to the peaceful dwelling of spouses, a secondary end of marriage, and renders the education of offspring more difficult. - It is certain that second nuptials and further nuptials are licit both for a man and for a woman even under the Evangelical law. This is clear from the authority and practice of the Church, and also from Sacred Scripture, 1 Cor. 7:39: A woman is bound by the law as long as her husband lives; but if her husband has fallen asleep, she is freed: let her marry whom she wishes, only in the Lord. - St. Thomas, Suppl. q. 63, q. 65; E. M.

757. • The unity of matrimony is situated in this: that matrimony is the union of one man with one woman.

1. It is certain that polyandry is opposed to the natural law, because it is opposed to the principal ends of matrimony, namely, the generation of offspring and their good education. - Thus all.

2. It is certain that simultaneous polygamy is prohibited in every case, at least by the divine positive law of the New Law, as is evident from Luke 16:18: Everyone who dismisses his wife and marries another commits adultery. It is likewise established from the Council of Trent, session 24, canon 2.

3. It is certain that second and further marriages are licit both for a man and for a woman, even under the evangelical law. This is established from the authority and practice of the Church, as well as from Sacred Scripture, 1 Corinthians 7:39: A woman is bound by the law as long as her husband lives; but if her husband has fallen asleep, she is free: let her marry whom she wishes, only in the Lord.

A twofold firmness of matrimony is distinguished: the one regards the bond, the other the bed.

702. (c) If the condition is concerning a future event against the substance of marriage, and is brought into the pact by the two contracting parties, or consent is expressly bound to it by either one, the marriage is invalid. For then true matrimonial consent is lacking, since at least one of the essential properties of marriage is excluded.

But if a condition of this kind is posited by only one, the other contradicting, or at least manifesting dissent by silence, the marriage is presumed valid, because the former is judged to have withdrawn from the condition and to have contracted absolutely. Yet that presumption yields to the truth, if it is certainly proved that the former bound consent to this condition.

Likewise, if the condition is merely concomitant, so that consent is not bound to it, the marriage is judged valid. For in the conflict of two intentions opposed to each other, that one is efficacious which prevails in the mind of the contracting parties; but in the present case there is a twofold opposed intention, namely the intention of marrying and at the same time of doing something contrary to the essence of marriage; moreover the intention of marrying, from things commonly occurring, prevails in the mind of the spouses; therefore it is truly efficacious and marriage is contracted. Yet this is a presumption which yields to the truth, when this is certainly established from elsewhere.

Let us declare the matter by examples. 1) If a condition is added against the good of offspring, for example, "provided that we avoid the generation of offspring until we become richer, - provided that after one or another child we exclude offspring"; the intention of the spouses must be explored: if they intend to exclude the right to the legitimate use of marriage, the contract is invalid, because they do not grant a perpetual right over their own body in order to generation, which nevertheless is essential to the essence of marriage; but if, as generally happens, the intention of handing over that right prevails, with a secondary intention of abusing marriage, the contract is valid.

2. Likewise, where the law of divorce is in force, if those about to marry contract under the condition of dissolving the matrimonial bond in the case of adultery or disagreements,¹ so that they would not wish to marry unless divorce were permitted to them, the marriage is invalid; for they do not consent to a perpetual bond, which is of the essence of marriage. But if they are so disposed that they would wish to marry even if divorce were prohibited, the contract is valid.¹

¹ Thus the Congregation of the Holy Office declared, May 20, 1754, that a marriage entered before a Calvinist minister was invalid, because he is accustomed to use a formula contrary to the perpetuity of marriage, in Gasparri, n. 854. See also Instruction of the Holy Office to the Bishop of S. Alberti, December 9, 1874, in Collect. P. F., n. 1301.

¹ Thus the Sacred Congregation of the Council, January 31, 1891, declared valid a marriage in which the bridegroom had wished to contract only a soluble bond, but nevertheless truly to marry. Cf. Acta S. Sedis, vol. XXIII, pp. 711-736.

3. The same must be said of conditions against the unity of marriage, for example, provided that I may take another, - provided that for money you prostitute yourself. - In individual cases an investigation must be made to detect whether or not consent was bound to this condition, and this cannot be supplied by a general presumption. But to detect the intention of the contracting parties, not only must the words by which consent was expressed be considered, but also the facts and circumstances from which the sense of the words can be known.²

² Thus Congregation of the Holy Office, 1877, to the Bishop of Nesqually, in Collect. P. F., n. 1302.

But when doubt remains, one must stand for the validity of the marriage, until the Holy See has decreed otherwise. If the spouses wish to renew consent, this is altogether to be advised.

706. Polygyny, before Christ, flourished among most peoples, although not all men were polygamous. Today also among unbelievers it prevails, especially among the richer, who can support several women. But among Christian nations monogamy is acknowledged as the foundation of the family. - Yet Luther taught that simultaneous polygamy, even under the New Law, was licit, and, with P. Melanchthon and M. Bucer agreeing, kindly granted Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, that while his lawful wife was still living he might marry another, Margaret de Saal. The Anabaptists defended the same error, and in our century the Mormons,³ who very recently nevertheless declared that they had taken leave of polygamy, so that thus they might submit themselves to the laws of the State. But on the opposite side Calvin contended that simultaneous polygamy, even under the Old Testament, was illicit, and therefore that the ancient Patriarchs, who had several wives at the same time, were guilty of adultery. To refute this calumny, some theologians said that polygamy is not opposed to the natural law, nor before the evangelical law was it prohibited by divine law. What we think the following proposition will declare.

² St. Thomas, Supplement, q. 65, aa. 1-2; Bellarmine, c. 10-11; Drouin, l. IX, q. III, c. 1; Billuart, diss. V, a. 1; Perrone, l. III, c. 1, aa. 2-4; Carriere, p. II, sect. 2, c. 1; de Augustinis, a. 7; Palmieri, th. 13 sq.; Billot, th. 40; Watkins, Holy Matrim., ch. IX, p. 591 sq.

³ Concerning the Mormons, who call themselves "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints," see Book of Doctrine and Covenant (1880), Book of Mormon (1881); Encyclop. Britan. with American Supplement; H. Lyon, A Study of the Sects, p. 187 sq.

2. The unity of marriage (unitas matrimonii), flows directly from the spiritual and moral nature of Matrimony.

105. - The unity and stability of matrimony. 1. The morally equal number in which each sex exists also proves, to say the least, that it is among the desires of nature that one man with one woman contract this bond. For only a few more powerful men will be able to practice polygamy without killing the other men or reducing them to abject servitude.

What of the fact that this unity, this full and mutual communication which love affects, is not properly made except between two persons; what of the fact that this "exclusivism," or this jealousy, indicated above in no. 40 among the marks of love, which shuts others out from this intimate union, itself commends monogamy? Again Ribbing writes very well, op. cit.: "In sexual life one cannot hand oneself over to another except under the condition that one himself acquire the other."

2. The stability, and even perpetuity, of matrimony is required on account of the offspring itself. For for a long time both parents, insofar as they have been fashioned into one, are necessary to the offspring; but they are always useful.

Moreover, children are bound by a perpetual duty of piety toward their parents, insofar as, having been made one, they generated and nourished them: they will perform this duty with difficulty if they find their parents divided by another marriage, as if made strangers to them. By a certain spontaneous estimation, a parent who, having spurned the prior bond, has attempted to admit another is judged to have done an injury to the spouse. But if both have entered a new matrimonial contract, they appear both guilty and victims of mutual injury.

Nor is the force of this argument diminished because it happens to the institution of matrimony that many marriages remain sterile.

For, since it is manifest that provision was made primarily through matrimony for the due multiplication of human beings, nature established its inviolable order concerning matrimony according to those things which this primary end required. And at the first intuition of common sense it is perceived that there cannot be different laws for a fecund marriage and for an infertile marriage: we all perceive what a path would be opened through this distinction of laws to the inventions of unbridled lust.

Add now that, through matrimony, after it has been consummated, the spouses have come together, as it were, into one human being, and that a mysterious communication of qualities has been effected ³.

³ Compare the cited dissertation of Dr. Desplats in the work L'Honnêteté conjugale (Mercier, Desplats, Vermeersch), or Matrimonio e Maltusianismo (Marconsini).

Wherefore, according to the testimony of St. Paul ⁴, the wife must be loved by the husband as a part of himself. The sayings which are likewise commonly repeated agree, in which a husband calls his wife half of himself; in which love is described as the egoism of two persons (un égoïsme à deux). Does there not belong of itself to that composite being the firmness of a singular human being, so that it is dissolved only by death?

⁴ Ephesians 5:28, 29, 31.

Moreover, consider what the mutual handing over of bodies has effected. Through it, it has come about that each person lost something of his own person and at the same time acquired something of the person of the other. This mutual handing over cannot be rendered void by a contrary restitution. This appears especially in the woman, who has irreparably lost her integrity through carnal intercourse. But it is also true in the man: he too cannot recover that which he communicated to the other. Nor can there be a valid renunciation or abdication here, since the matter concerns a part of a human person, but man does not possess that complete ownership of the person or of a bodily part of the person which would be required for alienation. Therefore, as long as that which one spouse acquired belongs to a living person, whose body must remain inviolate, that spouse cannot, as it were, transfer it together with himself or herself to another spouse. Only after death, when the soul has put aside the body, can this be done without injury to another ⁵.

⁵ It is useful to hear Kant himself concerning this matter. In sexual intercourse, since one uses the members and faculties of the other, a person hands himself or herself over as though a thing. But this is opposed to the inviolable possession of one's own person, unless one recovers from the person of the other that which the other yields from his or her own person, and thus, as it were, reintegrates one's own person. But this is not obtained except by matrimony, in which mutual possession of the body is handed over for life. (Rechtslehre, Das Eherecht.)

Therefore, considering nature alone, it is now established that matrimony, at least after offspring has been conceived, indeed already after the unity has been completed or consummated through the perfect use of marriage, has been withdrawn from the will of the spouses, so that it is intrinsically indissoluble.

Indeed, it seems that a marriage of this kind cannot be dissolved by any human authority. For this dissolution is opposed to the necessary relations between parents and children, and contains a certain partial disposition of the human person: but no human power can break or directly impede the necessary relations of persons, nor can it dispose directly of the human person.

659. The unity of matrimony or monogamy is the matrimonial bond between one man and one woman. For this reason, in the definition of matrimony above we said in the singular and not the plural: the marital conjunction of a man and a woman. Simultaneous polygamy and polyandry are opposed to the unity of matrimony; second nuptials after the death of either spouse, however, are by no means opposed to it.

Simultaneous polyandry, which is the marital conjunction of one woman with two or more men, exists very rarely among nations,²¹¹ and is not only contrary to the precept of Sacred Scripture: "They shall be two in one flesh," but also directly contrary to the natural law. For the primary end of matrimony is the generation and education of offspring. Moreover, experience proves that a woman who habitually has intercourse with several men is infertile, as is evident in prostitutes. But even if offspring should perhaps be generated, education would be almost impossible, since there would be no certain father, and consequently the bodily and spiritual care of the offspring would be most difficult.²¹²

²¹¹ Westermarck (History of Human Marriage, cc. 20-22) indeed brings forward several examples of polyandry among wholly depraved nations, but nevertheless one may suspect from his account that it is not simultaneous polyandry.

²¹² Cf. Suppl., q. 65, a. 1, ad 7.

660. Simultaneous polygamy (polygyny), which is the marital conjunction of one man with two²¹³ or more women, flourished before Christ not only among the nations, but also among the Israelites. In our times it still flourishes among pagans, and especially among Mohammedans.²¹⁴

Simultaneous polygamy is indeed contrary to the primeval institution of matrimony in paradise, but it was permitted to the patriarchs in the Old Testament.²¹⁵ That polygamy was not the primeval form of matrimony is a certain opinion. For Adam exclaimed, after Eve had been handed over to him as wife: "They shall be two in one flesh." Innocent III, explaining this text, says: "He did not say three or more, but two; nor did he say he shall cleave to wives, but to his wife."²¹⁶ From the words of Christ also, "But from the beginning it was not so,"²¹⁷ it is clearly inferred that polygamy was not the primeval form of matrimony. Lamech seems to have been the first who had two wives.²¹⁸

There are those who teach that polygamy was never lawful, and consequently that the wives of the patriarchs were called concubines; nevertheless, that the patriarchs did not sin formally by having several wives, because they were in good faith. This explanation, however, does not please, nor is it sufficiently proved. For it seems absurd that most holy men such as Abraham, Jacob, and others, who had miraculous divine revelations, should have erred in a matter of such great moment. Moreover, while David is vehemently reproached and punished because of the adultery committed with Bathsheba, he is never reproved because of the other wives of his own whom he had. The book of Deuteronomy, c. 21, vv. 15-16, seems to suppose the lawfulness of polygamy, decreeing: "If a man have two wives, one beloved and the other hated, and they have begotten children by him, and the son of the hated be the firstborn, and he will divide his substance among his sons: he cannot make the son of the beloved the firstborn and prefer him to the son of the hated." The same is confirmed from the law of the levirate,²¹⁹ by which the wife of a deceased brother (without children) had to be taken in matrimony by the surviving brother (although he was already married). But if women maritally joined to one man are called concubines in Sacred Scripture, it is not yet permissible to conclude from this that they were not legitimate wives, because frequently in Sacred Scripture by the name of concubine is signified a true and legitimate wife who was not married with such great solemnity. Thus Hagar, Keturah, Bilhah, and Zilpah are called now wives, now concubines of Abraham in the book of Genesis.²²⁰

The intrinsic reason, however, why simultaneous polygamy could have been lawful in the Old Testament consists in this, that polygamy is not opposed to the primary end of matrimony, namely, the generation and education of offspring. For one man suffices to fecundate several women and to educate the offspring born from them.²²¹ Nevertheless, it must be admitted that some men of the Old Testament committed excesses in the number of wives, for it is difficult to understand how, for example, Solomon could have had several hundred wives²²² without a mark of intemperance.

Authors commonly teach that the dispensation to have several wives was not granted by God until after the flood. Nothing certain can be said concerning this matter. Authors do not agree whether the same dispensation was granted not only to the Jews but also to other peoples; but there does not seem to be sufficient reason why a stricter discipline should be established for pagans than for Jews, and all the less because pagans, as lacking the Mosaic law, could observe the unity of matrimony with greater difficulty than the Jews.²²³ Thus Esther, a Jewess, was joined to Ahasuerus, who already had several wives; Mordecai, her adoptive father and a man fearing God, would neither have counseled nor approved this union if it had been gravely unlawful.

Simultaneous polygamy from the times of the New Law onward is unlawful and invalid for all, so that neither the faithful nor unbelievers any longer have the faculty of having several wives. For Christ restored matrimony to its primeval unity and called that man an adulterer who married another even after dismissing his first wife.²²⁴ Therefore, a fortiori, he is an adulterer who marries another while retaining his first legitimate wife. Innocent III argues likewise in the celebrated chapter Gaudemus:²²⁵ "If, therefore, after a wife has been dismissed, another cannot lawfully be married, much less while she is retained; from which it plainly appears that plurality concerning matrimony is to be rejected in each sex, since they are not judged according to unequal standards."

Although in the Council of Trent²²⁶ it was defined only: "If anyone says that it is lawful for Christians to have several wives at the same time, and that this is prohibited by no divine law, let him be anathema"; nevertheless it is by no means permissible to conclude from this that it is still lawful for unbelievers to have several wives; for plurality of wives is contrary to the primeval institution of matrimony, and the dispensation granted in ancient times was expressly revoked by Christ. Hence St. Thomas²²⁷ teaches: "To have several wives is contrary to the law of nature, to which unbelievers also are bound; and therefore the matrimony of an unbeliever is not true except with her with whom he first contracted."

Indeed, the Holy Office in an Instruction to the Apostolic Vicar of the Gallas, March 20, 1860,²²⁸ says: "It is most certain that simultaneous polygamy is altogether unlawful by evangelical law; hence, after Jesus Christ²²⁹ restored matrimony to its pristine sanctity, unity, and indissolubility, with the dignity of a sacrament added for the baptized, it was lawful neither for the faithful, nor for Jews, nor for any mortals to join several wives to themselves. Consequently, with monogamy thus divinely restored, that only one can be bound to one by a legitimate and valid marriage is held as an unshaken dogma of faith." If, however, some emperors are reported to have had several wives, as, for example, Constantius, Valentinian, and Lothair, Billuart²³⁰ rightly responds: "No law is established from deeds unjustly done. Constantius was an Arian; Pope Nicholas I (865) excommunicated Lothair with his concubine. Valentinian I, in order to avert from himself the disgrace of a double marriage, unjustly enacted this law."

²¹³ Such polygamy is properly called simultaneous bigamy.

²¹⁴ It is known to all that Luther gave his consent that Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, while his first legitimate wife was living, should marry another, namely Margaret von der Sale.

²¹⁵ Cf. Suppl., q. 65, a. 2.

²¹⁶ C. 8, X 4, 19.

²¹⁷ Matt. 19:5 ff. and Mark 10:2 ff.

²¹⁸ Gen. 4:19.

²¹⁹ Deut. 25:5 ff.

²²⁰ Cf. St. Thomas, Suppl., q. 65, a. 5, ad 2.

²²¹ Cf. ibid., a. 1; Billuart, De matrimonio, diss. 5, a. 1.

²²² Cf. 3 Kings 11:3.

²²³ Cf. De Smet, De sponsalibus et matrimonio, n. 306.

²²⁴ Cf. Matt. 19:3-9 and Mark 10:1-12.

²²⁵ C. 8, X 4, 19.

²²⁶ Sess. 24, can. 2, De matrimonio (Denz., n. 972).

²²⁷ Suppl., q. 59, a. 3, ad 3.

²²⁸ Collect. de Prop. Fide, n. 1188.

²²⁹ Cf. Matt. 19:5 f.

²³⁰ Loc. cit., diss. 5, a. 1.

661. Successive polygamy (which by ancient authors is customarily called simply bigamy) is lawful, and consequently among Christians constitutes a true sacrament. The same holds concerning third and further nuptials. Thus the Council of Florence, in the Decree for the Armenians given in 1441,²³¹ declares "that not only second nuptials, but third and fourth and further ones, if no canonical impediment stands in the way, can lawfully be contracted." The Code of Canon Law, c. 1142, decrees: "Although chaste widowhood is more honorable, nevertheless second and further nuptials are valid and lawful."

The lawfulness of successive polygamy is manifestly proved from 1 Cor. 7:39, where St. Paul says: "A woman is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband sleep, she is at liberty; let her marry whom she will, only in the Lord"; and ibid., vv. 8 f.: "But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: it is good for them if they so continue, even as I; but if they do not contain themselves, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn."²³²

The Montanists and Novatians taught that second nuptials were unlawful. Nicholas, Patriarch of Constantinople, contended that fourth nuptials were contrary to divine law. Since harm not rarely arises from second nuptials for offspring born in the prior matrimony, and since those contracting also often celebrate second or further nuptials for the sake of pleasure rather than for some other upright motive, some of the Holy Fathers, especially the Greeks, spoke more harshly concerning second nuptials. Thus, for example, St. Basil calls bigamy "chastised fornication," while he calls a third matrimony "a defilement of the Church." St. Gregory Nazianzen²³³ has similar things, saying: "The first [matrimony] is law; the second pardon and indulgence; the third iniquity; but he who exceeds this number is altogether swinish." Some particular Councils also, for example, those of Ancyra and Laodicea, inflicted penances upon those who entered second nuptials. Even in our times the Easterners do not permit second nuptials except after a previous dispensation of the bishop.²³⁴

Scholion. Those who live in notorious simultaneous polygamy are accounted public sinners, and consequently can be admitted neither to the sacraments nor to ecclesiastical burial. Moreover, they are gravely punished by almost all penal Codes in civilized regions.²³⁵

²³¹ Mansi, Ampl. coll. Conc., 31, 1741.

²³² Cf. also Rom. 7:3; 1 Tim. 5:14.

²³³ Orat. 37, 8 (Migne, Patr. graec., 36, 291).

²³⁴ Papp-Szilagyi writes concerning this matter, Enchir. iur. eccl. orient. cath., § 87: "The Easterners also reject successive polygamy.... For second nuptials there is indeed a prescribed rite in the Euchologia, but they reject those very nuptials after the forty-fifth year of age; third nuptials were subjected to ecclesiastical censure; but fourth nuptials were condemned as brutal.... According to modern practice, assistance is supplied through a dispensation of the bishop."

²³⁵ Cf. German Penal Code, § 171; Belgian Penal Code, art. 391.

S. Th., Suppl., q. 41 and q. 44, a. 1; II-II, q. 154, a. 2; c. Gent. III, 122.

752. State of the question. - Concerning the origin and essence of matrimony many have erred, denying that it has been instituted by nature and by God. This is denied by Materialists, Positivists, Evolutionists, who say that it is of merely human institution; whence they hold its laws as relative and mutable, and as not founded in nature.

1. The Evolutionists say that it is a relatively recent institution, which is the fruit of a longer evolution, which runs through three stages: a) in the first there was promiscuity of the sexes, so that sexual conjunction took place apart from every law: primitive man is an animal ruled by sexual instinct and seeking satisfaction in any case whatever; when moral consciousness had been aroused, rules began to be established: thus the union already became less transient, and it was prohibited among those near of kin, but it is not yet stable matrimony; - b) in the second stage succeeds matrimony by abduction, or from violence; - c) in the third, matrimony by purchase, not yet by consent. It also existed under a threefold form: a) first there existed matriarchy, in which the offspring exclusively bears the name of the mother and enjoys only the maternal inheritance; which is explained only by the uncertainty of offspring on account of promiscuity; - b) then there was polygamous patriarchy; - c) finally matrimony in monogamy.

These assertions are mere hypotheses proved in no way, or illegitimate generalizations.¹ But the facts which are objected by the Evolutionists do not necessarily suppose promiscuity.²

¹ This is clear from Westermarck himself, History of Human Marriage (Origine du Mariage dans l'espece humaine), who nevertheless is an Evolutionist; likewise from Howard, A History of Matrimonial Institutions, and from Leroy, La Religion des primitifs. Also from Durkheim, who nevertheless does not derive the origin of family life from matrimony as it is now conceived, but from the totem, in which the family group and matrimony were gradually formed. But ethnologists have shown that the theory of totemism contradicts the facts. - Cf. Dehove, Les theories de la religion chez Durkheim, in Rev. Ap., 1930.

² Thus, for example, sacred prostitution in temples, and also the right of the first night, or the practice of handing over one's own wife to guests, and other things of this kind, are abuses which arise from innate lust and a false concept of hospitality; but they cannot be called vestiges of pristine promiscuity. Thus the right of the first night, by which a prince, indeed, they say, in certain places a priest, could abuse a newly married wife during the first night, if it existed anywhere, would have to be reduced to a merely local and transient abuse, but it was never admitted as legally approved, neither among pagans nor among Christians. But what comes under this name can be understood in other true ways. 1. Among pagans, the virgin's chastity was considered consecrated to the divinity, and therefore the right of violating chastity, even by conjugal intercourse, had to be obtained from the divinity, from God's legate, namely, from the prince or from a priest, for example, by paying a price which was called the right of the first night. Sometimes the wife herself received some gift as the price of lost virginity, which again was called the right of the first night. 2. Among Christians, the right of the first night was understood in a threefold sense: a) the right of consummating matrimony in a certain determined place; b) a mere symbol of subjection toward the prince on the occasion of matrimony contracted by vassals; c) a license arising from dispensation to consummate matrimony from the first night, without observing the triduum which in the middle ages had to be passed in continence after the example of Tobias. Cf. Schmidt, Ius primae noctis; Eine geschichtliche Untersuchung.

2. Among the moderns, the more moderate admit that monogamy is more perfect than the other forms, and therefore is to be retained, but that divorce nevertheless is to be admitted more easily, so that, the spouses having been separated, access to new nuptials may lie open to them.

3. Naturalists, on the contrary, and Communists and many Socialists favor free union. They hold human nature as naturally good; whence man must follow natural inclinations in order that he may exist happily. Matrimony has mutual pleasure as its end, for which mutual love is required and suffices: if it cannot procure this, or if it ceases, it is to be dissolved by divorce; offspring also, if it obstructs pleasure or happiness, can be suppressed, but once born, with civil society taking care, it is to be nourished and educated without the intervention of parents.

Against all these, with Catholic doctrine, it must be affirmed that the stable union of matrimony has its origin in human nature itself, and that monogamy and indissolubility have been established by God.

753. Thesis I. Matrimony is not only of positive divine institution, but it is also natural to man and therefore of natural right. - It is certain from the encyclical of Pius XI Casti connubii, asserting: "Matrimony was not instituted or restored by man, but divinely; not by men, but by God himself, the author of nature"; whence, afterward speaking of the evil errors of today, he says: "their chief root is in this, that they vociferate that matrimony was not instituted by the author of nature... but invented by men."

It is said: a) matrimony, by which name is understood a union of the moral order, obligatorily stable and of itself perpetual, between man and woman.

b) is of positive divine institution. Genesis being witness, God instituted matrimony when after the creation of Adam he formed Eve for the consortium and help of the man: "It is not good," he says, II, 18, "for man to be alone; let us make him a help like unto himself"; and he instituted the diversity of sexes so that he might provide for the multiplication of the species, for as is said I, 27: "Male and female he created them, and God blessed them, and said: Increase and multiply and fill the earth." - Moreover the truly stable bond of matrimony in the unity and perpetuity of the conjugal bond is proposed in the words of Adam: "This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; wherefore a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh." - But that the union is to be constituted through a contract or convention of wills is clear from this, that that cleaving is not understood except as voluntary and free.

Wherefore the Council of Trent, sess. 24, teaches: the first parent of the human race, by the instinct of the divine Spirit, pronounced the perpetual and indissoluble bond of matrimony when he said: "This now is bone..." Therefore since Adam could say this only with God inspiring, Christ attributes those words to God himself and from them infers, Mt. XIX, 6: "Therefore now they are not two but one flesh; what therefore God has joined together, let not man separate."

c) it is also natural to man, not as if it were caused from the principles of nature by necessity, but because nature inclines to it, although it is to be completed by free will; whence human reason understands its necessity, and therefore it is of natural right. Hence Aristotle, Eth. VIII, c. 12: "man is more naturally a conjugal animal than a political one."

It is proved: God, by creating men endowed with reason, to his image and likeness, and at the same time diverse in sex and apt for generation, by that very fact, through human nature, showed that he wills that the human race be propagated by generation: not, however, by any generation whatever, but only by that which would have place in circumstances of themselves necessary for the good of offspring, and therefore in the matrimonial conjunction of man and woman. For 1. the good of human offspring of itself requires that parents be bound by a moral and stable bond which cannot be dissolved at pleasure: for offspring of itself needs parents in order that it may be well educated and led to the perfect state; 2. the same is required for the good of the spouses from mutual service in domestic life, since one of them does not suffice for himself in all things which regard life, but certain works are suitable to the man, certain to the woman.

Appositely St. Thomas, q. 41, a. 1: "Matrimony is natural, because natural reason inclines to it in two ways:

1. as to its principal end, which is the good of offspring. For nature intends not only the generation of offspring, but also the handing on and promotion of it up to the perfect state of man, insofar as he is man, which is the state of virtue. Whence, according to the Philosopher, we have three things from parents, namely, being, nourishment, and discipline. But a son could not be educated and instructed by a parent unless he had determined and certain parents; which would not be unless there were some obligation of the man to a determined woman, which makes matrimony.

2. as to the secondary end of matrimony, which is the mutual service rendered to each other by the spouses in domestic matters. For just as natural reason dictates that men dwell together, because one does not suffice 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 suitable to men, certain to women. Whence nature moves that there be a certain association of man to woman, in which there is matrimony."

It is confirmed from the Summa contra Gentiles, III, 122:

"a) For it must be considered that in animals in which the female alone suffices for the education of offspring, the male and female do not remain together after intercourse for any time, as is clear in dogs. But whatever animals there are in which the female does not suffice for the education of offspring, the male and female remain together after intercourse so long as is necessary for the education and instruction of the offspring, as is clear in certain birds... But it is manifest that in the human species, the female would by no means suffice alone for the education of offspring, since the necessity of human life requires many things which cannot be procured by one alone. Therefore it is fitting, according to human nature, that a man remain with the woman after intercourse and not immediately depart, approaching indifferently any woman whatsoever, as happens among fornicators. - Nor does it stand against this reason that some woman, powerful by her riches, is able alone to nourish the fetus; because natural rectitude in human acts is not according to those things which happen accidentally in one individual, but according to those things which follow the whole species.

"b) Again, it must be considered that in the human species offspring needs not only nourishment as to the body, as in other animals, but also instruction as to the soul; ... nor are those newly born capable of instruction of this kind, but only after a long time, and especially after they have arrived at the years of discretion. For this instruction also a long time is required; and then also, on account of the impulses of the passions..., they need not only instruction but also repression. But for this the woman alone does not suffice, but rather in this the work of the male is required, in whom there is both a more perfect reason for instructing and a more powerful virtue for chastising. Therefore in the human species it is necessary to attend to the promotion of offspring not for a little time, as in birds, but for a great span of life.

"Whence, since it is necessary that the male remain with the female in all animals so long as the work of the father is necessary to the offspring, it is natural to man that the man have, not for a short time, but a lasting society with a determined woman. But this society we call matrimony. Therefore matrimony is natural to man."³

³ Similarly in II-II, q. 154, a. 2: "We see that in all animals in which the care of the male and female is required for the education of offspring, in them there is not wandering concubitus, but that of a male with a certain female, one or more, as is clear in many birds; but it is otherwise in animals in which the female alone suffices for the education of the fetus, in which there is wandering concubitus, as is clear in dogs... But it is manifest that for the education of man there is required not only the care of the mother, by whom he is nourished, but much more the care of the father, by whom he is to be instructed and defended, and promoted in goods both interior and exterior. And therefore it is contrary to the nature of man that he use wandering concubitus; but it is necessary that there be a male with a determined female with whom he remains not for a little time, but for a long time or for the whole of life... But this determination of a certain female is called matrimony; and therefore it is said to be of natural right."

Briefly, "nature intends not only being in offspring, but also perfect being, for which matrimony is required," q. 41, a. 1, ad 4.

754. It is objected: 1. Therefore celibacy is against nature, as against natural inclination; and therefore it is a sin. - Resp. I deny the consequent: not everything which is against natural inclination is a sin, but that which is against natural inclination obliging from the dictate of reason. But reason dictates that matrimony is not necessary and obligatory for each one, especially on account of a greater good.

"Nor does it follow thence," says Haine, Th. M. IV, de Matr., q. 36, "that virginity and celibacy, as being against the inclination of nature, are therefore sins. For not everything which is against natural inclination is always a sin; but only that which is against natural inclination obliging from the dictate of reason. But now, the human race having been sufficiently multiplied, reason dictates that matrimony is not necessary in each one for this, and consequently natural inclination does not oblige to it. Moreover it is sometimes lawful to act against natural inclination for the sake of a greater good of the soul, as is clear in him who for the sake of mortification abstains from useful food and in some way necessary to the body, to which nevertheless there is a natural inclination."

2. Natural inclination is common to all; but an inclination to matrimony does not appear in all. - Resp. It is in all, but it does not put itself forth sensibly in all, because conservation of specific nature is sufficiently provided for by many.

Thus also the natural inclination to defend the common good and the republic.

3. Natural inclination is only to generation and is common to all animals; but this is not to a stable and indissoluble union or matrimony. - Resp. The inclination of nature on the part of the specific difference, insofar as it is rational, is only to generation, I deny; on the part of the genus insofar as it is common to animals, I distinguish: it is common in such a way that it is in all in a diverse way, I concede; so that it is in all in the same way, I deny.

"The nature of man inclines to something in two ways: in one way, because it is fitting to the nature of the genus, and this is common to all animals; in another way because it is fitting to the nature of the difference, by which the human species abounds from the genus insofar as it is rational... And just as the nature of the genus, although it is one in all animals, nevertheless is not in all in the same way, so also it does not incline in the same way in all, but according as it befits each. Therefore the nature of man inclines to matrimony on the part of the difference, as to the second reason assigned (namely, mutual service), whence the Philosopher assigns this reason in men above other animals; but as to the first reason (the good of offspring), it inclines on the part of the genus, whence he says that the procreation of children is common to all animals. Yet nature does not incline to this in the same way in all animals: because there are certain animals whose children, once born, can immediately seek food for themselves sufficiently, or for whose support the mother suffices; and in these there is no determination of male to female; but in those whose children need the support of both, but for a little time, some determination is found as to that time, as is clear in certain birds. But in man, because the son needs the care of parents up to a great time, there is the greatest determination of male to female, to which also the nature of the genus inclines," q. 41, ad 1.

755. Corollaries. - 1. Therefore those systems are false which assert that matrimony is of human institution.

2. Therefore the fundamental laws of matrimony are not relative and mutable, but absolute and immutable: they are from nature and from God. "Matrimony... by God himself, the author of nature... has been fortified with laws..., which laws therefore can be subject to no decrees of men, to no contrary agreement even of the spouses themselves"; "so that if anyone has once contracted matrimony, he is subject to its divine laws and essential properties." Thus Pius XI in the encyclical Casti connubii.

3. Therefore "it is essential to the union of male and female that it be ordered and tend, as to a primary end, to the propagation of the species, and not to private good and happiness, as the modern reformers of matrimony will." Thus De Smet, De Sponsalibus et Matrimonii, n. 77.

4. Therefore every use of the generative faculty, insofar as it does not preserve the due order of generation and education, is illicit by natural right, and indeed in such a way that St. Thomas did not hesitate to say: "after the sin of homicide, by which human nature already existing in act is destroyed, this kind of sin seems to hold the second place, by which the generation (ordered generation) of this nature is impeded," c. Gent. III, 122.

5. Nevertheless not every act of itself apt for generation is thereby licit and honorable, but only that which has place in matrimony, and therefore not only pollution and onanism, but also fornication is repugnant to natural right. Namely, the use of the generative faculty is reserved to matrimony. Cf. II-II, q. 154, a. 2.

6. To each capable person there belongs a natural right to matrimony, and indeed prior to every human society. Whence no human authority can prohibit it absolutely, i.e., with every person in perpetuity, to someone against his antecedent will, for this prohibition would be against natural right. "No human law," says Pius XI, "can take away from man the natural and primordial right of marriage, or in any way circumscribe the principal cause of nuptials, constituted in the beginning by the authority of God. Increase and multiply." And therefore he concludes that those are against the right of nature who either prohibit matrimony to those who labor under an infirmity likely to be transmitted to children, or render them sterile by surgical operation. And the Holy Office, to the question: Whether direct sterilization, whether perpetual or temporary, whether of man or of woman, is licit?, on Feb. 24, 1940, responded: In the negative, and it is prohibited by the natural law.

7. As to the opposed systems, let it be noted that the theory of evolution is a mere hypothesis, not scientifically proved. And indeed: a) primitive promiscuity is not demonstrated, since among the most primitive it is not found; b) for it is false that the peoples called primitive, or the wild tribes of Australia or central Africa, are in the same state as prehistoric man: from their own traditions it is clear that they are not truly primitive but degenerate; c) promiscuity is repugnant psychologically, on account of jealousy, which is the natural effect of love; d) among nations more ancient in culture, matrimony exists without any trace of evolution, as among the Chaldeans, Egyptians, Indians, Chinese, Greeks, Romans; e) specifically, matriarchy can be explained otherwise: from the more intimate bond of offspring with the mother, or from polygamy; f) matrimony by abduction is not proved to have been a legal stage in the evolution of marriage, since it is by no means everywhere, and is found only rarely; g) matrimony by purchase is so called because a price was given for the purchase of the house or of dominion, or as compensation or even as a gratuitous donation; but by no means from the purchase of the spouse from the parents against his or her consent.⁴

⁴ Besides the authors alleged, p. 737, n. 1, on this matter there can be consulted De Smet, o. c., n. 80-82; Tanquerey, o. c., n. 674 sq.; Dict. de Theol., art. Mariage; v. Scherer, Handbuch des Kirchenrechts; Leitner, Lehrbuch des Kath. Eherechtes; Schmidt, Der Ursprung der Gottesidee; Lemonnyer, Le Mariage et l'Evolution.

S. Th., Suppl. q. 65, 66 and 63; C. Gent. IV, 124.

810. State of the question. - The unity of matrimony consists in the conjugal union of one man to one woman; whence it is called monogamy. Polygamy is opposed to it, both improperly so called or successive, when one man successively takes several wives, or conversely; and properly so called and simultaneous, when it happens at the same time. This therefore is twofold: polyandry, or the marital conjunction of one wife with several men at the same time; and polygyny, or the conjunction of one man at the same time with several wives.

A. Simultaneous polygyny, before Christ, flourished among most peoples, and now still exists among certain unbelievers, as among Mohammedans, especially the richer, who can support several women. Polyandry existed only rarely or exceptionally among certain tribes, especially where there are fewer women than men. Sometimes, when a woman had married the firstborn, his younger brothers approached her successively according to certain predefined rules or customs; sometimes two or three men married one wife or even lived together with her: thus on account of poverty, or for security while, being absent successively, they returned to the same woman. Yet these cases were exceptional, so that among those tribes monogamy for the most part prevailed.¹

¹ Cf. Westermarck, op. cit., c. 20-22.

But in the Christian law, only monogamy is legitimate. Nevertheless Luther taught that polygyny, even under the new law, is licit, and permitted Philip of Hesse to have another wife. The Anabaptists propagated the same error, and for a long time the Mormons also. Conversely, Calvin contended that polygamy even under the Old Law had been illicit, and he held the ancient patriarchs who had married several wives at the same time guilty of adultery. To refute this, certain Catholics spoke more benignly, saying that polygyny is not opposed to natural law, nor before the evangelical law was it prohibited by divine law.

B. Successive polygamy, with the dissolution of the preceding marriage posited, is not against the natural or divine law.

Nevertheless the Montanists, to whom Tertullian and the Novatians adhered, condemned second and further nuptials as illicit by divine law; several Fathers held them as hateful and spoke more harshly about them. And among the Greeks, from the tenth century, by ecclesiastical law, fourth nuptials are held invalid.

Simultaneous polyandry is unlawful and invalid by the law of nature. Successive polyandry and polygamy is lawful and of itself honorable.

I. Polyandry is the conjunction of one woman with several men. It is simultaneous or successive. We teach that simultaneous polyandry is unlawful and invalid by natural law itself (concerning successive polyandry we shall speak on the following page). For that conjunction which positively excludes all the ends of marriage cannot be marriage; but such is simultaneous polyandry. Indeed, the first end is the procreation and education of offspring, and thus the good of marriage is offspring; the other end is the restraining of the concupiscence of each spouse, and thus the other good of marriage is the remedy of concupiscence; likewise the end is domestic society, which can be understood under the good of marriage which is fidelity; and besides, from divine institution there is the signification of the union of Christ with the Church; and thus, with the remedy of concupiscence included, the fourth good of marriage is sacrament (cf. Th. II). But the first end is excluded. And first indeed, although not altogether and always, insofar as a woman mingled with several men and using them in turn is, by the physical law of nature, generally infertile: "Several women can be made fruitful by one man; but one woman cannot by several: this is the force of the principles," says Augustine, de Bono coniugali, n. 20. Therefore the power over her body which a woman would hand over to several men, insofar as she hands it over to several, would of itself tend to this, that the woman should become infertile, and that the men should have a right to an act of itself impeditory of generation; but this directly conflicts with that power in whose mutual handing over and acceptance marriage is contained, for it is a power for an act whose primary end is the procreation of offspring. Then, moreover, from that power over her body handed over by the woman to several men, it comes about that the men have a right to that by which the father of the offspring is rendered uncertain, and by which therefore the offspring cannot be educated by the father. They have a right, I say, whatever may be the case about use; for marriage consists in a right. But that is of itself altogether repugnant to the end of marriage, which is the education of offspring. And so through this union the primary end of the use of marriage is excluded, and indeed positively, since the conjunction itself of itself is repugnant to that end.

Nor can a woman subject to several men satisfy all when they ask, so as to avoid their incontinence; nor can she be subject to several men enjoying equal right and independent of one another, and render the fidelity due: therefore this other good, which is the remedy of concupiscence, is at least very greatly impeded. But there can be no peace in a family in which there are several heads; for the woman, who is subject, cannot recall the men to unity. "For by a hidden law of nature those things which rule love singularity. But things subject are subject not only singly to single things, but, if natural or social reason admits it, even several to one, not without fittingness," Augustine, l. c. Wherefore this other end also is wholly taken away. But the union of Christ with the Church, which is of one with one, that is, of one head fitting one body to itself, so that it is one because the head is one, can in no way be represented by the union of several with one, that is, of several heads with one body. But that is repugnant to positive divine law. Therefore there is no marriage of this sort.

Therefore this conjunction is so contrary to the law of nature, and also to divine law, that not only is the marriage unlawful, but it is also invalid by that same law.

II. But what we say concerning invalidation must be explained a little; for the natural law seems indeed to have the force of prohibiting; yet it does not immediately appear how it is able also to invalidate. Certainly the law of nature prohibits homicide, and nevertheless a prohibited action, if it is done, is not invalid; moreover, as Suarez objects to himself (de Legibus l. 2, c. 12, n. 2), the efficacy of the law of nature is the same in all things, and it does not have special words by which it prohibits, so that on account of the diversity of those words we should say that sometimes it invalidates and not always, as can be said in positive law. Nevertheless, that there are certain things which the law of nature not only prohibits but also invalidates is easily agreed among all doctors, and this has the sense of the Church; for in this way, for example, a marriage between mother and son is judged null by the law of nature, and a contract entered upon through grave fraud is null, etc. It remains, therefore, that it be seen whether there are rules, and what they are, according to which it must be judged that something is not only prohibited by the natural law, but also invalidated.

And first it must be presupposed that the invalidation of an act has place not in the physical order but in the moral order. For the invalidation of an act comes back to this, that although the act (whether prohibited or otherwise) is done, nevertheless nothing is done, that is, it does not obtain its effect, just as if it had not been done; this cannot happen in the physical order, as is clear in the cited example of homicide, but it can have place in the moral order, when rights and obligations are at issue. For the effect which would be either of an acquired right or of an obligation undertaken, as in contracts, when an invalidating law intervenes, is null, although the interior and exterior action is done integrally, with the full will of acquiring the right or of binding oneself.

Now Suarez, l. c., nn. 4 seq., proposes chiefly two rules for discerning when acts are invalid by the law of nature. The former is: "when the act is prohibited by the law of nature because of a defect of power or because of the incapacity of the matter." And he gives an example in the donation of the same thing after a prior valid donation and the thing handed over; for power is lacking; and also in a contract entered upon through fraud touching the substance of the thing; for consent extorted by fraud is incapable of begetting an obligation. The other rule is: "when the act is prohibited on account of the indecency or turpitude found in its matter, and the same indecency or turpitude endures in the effect itself, or after the act has been posited." It is necessary that the same indecency persevere, and not cease or be diminished by the force of another law. He gives an example in marriage between blood-relatives in the first degree, where that natural indecency which makes such a marriage prohibited endures perpetually, if such a marriage endures.

Now opposition to the principal end of marriage is the greatest indecency and turpitude; but polyandry has such an opposition, and this same opposition endures if the marriage endures: therefore even the perseverance of this marriage is prohibited by the law of nature, which is the same as for the act to be invalidated: therefore.

You will say: by the law of nature marriage after a vow, even a simple vow, of chastity is prohibited, and its indecency remains, and yet it is not invalidated. Suarez answers in the same place, n. 6, that that vow has not taken away, but has bound, the power which a man has over his body, and that marriage contracted against it, insofar as it is an actual handing over, has a greater efficacy than a promise has, and can also have an honorable use, at least by rendering the debt; and therefore it can rightly be valid. Perhaps it is permitted to answer more simply that a vow of chastity is not properly repugnant to marriage, but to its use, and therefore there is no reason why by the law of nature marriage after a vow should be invalidated.

III. Polygamy is the conjunction of a man with several wives: one kind is simultaneous, another successive. Concerning this latter we speak first; and because the same reason holds in both, we also speak concerning successive polyandry. The question is whether to marry a second time and thereafter is lawful by divine law, so that successive unions are true nuptials by divine law and honorable of themselves. But it is necessary that they be true marriage just as the former one, if by divine law it is lawful to marry again, that is, to repeat nuptials, namely that which was previously done, which was true marriage. And so that successive polygamy and polyandry are lawful is clear from the words of Paul, 1 Cor. VII. 8: But I say to the unmarried and to widows: it is good for them if they so remain, even as I. But if they do not contain themselves, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn. And v. 39: A woman is bound by law so long as her husband lives; but if her husband has fallen asleep, she is freed; let her marry whom she wills, only in the Lord. It is clear, first, that the Apostle counsels widows to marry, and therefore to enter a new marriage, if they cannot contain themselves; because, namely, marriage is also a remedy of concupiscence. It is clear, secondly, in the other testimony, that the Apostle simply gives the woman whose husband has died the power of passing to second nuptials, and requires only this, that she marry in the Lord (cf. Augustine, de Adult. Coniug. c. 25). Moreover, what the Apostle counsels for an honorable end is certainly lawful by divine law; and that is likewise lawful which the Apostle grants as placed in our power, and which can be done in the Lord; but what the Apostle counsels is marriage, which cannot be among Christians unless divine law consents. Now, thirdly, the words of the Apostle are universal: I say to widows, the woman whose husband has fallen asleep, which are true both of widows for the first time and for the second time and thereafter. Therefore the following marital unions are both true nuptials and all of themselves lawful. "For who am I," says Augustine, de Bono Viduitatis, n. 15, "that I should think something must be defined which I do not see that even the Apostle defined? For he says: A woman is bound by law as long as her husband lives. He did not say: the first, or the second, or the third, or the fourth; but, as long as her husband lives; but if her husband has died, she is freed; let her marry whom she wills ... what can be added to or taken away from this sentence, so far as this matter is concerned, I do not know." But what the Apostle says concerning women belongs also to men by an equal reason; therefore successive polygamy and polyandry, both the first time and in other following instances, is certainly lawful.

Note that the first testimony of the Apostle is wrongly brought forward by Tournely (q. V. a. 1) to prove that the Church never recommended second and further nuptials. For in fact the Apostle does recommend them there, not indeed of themselves, but by reason of avoiding fornication; for this is the sense of those words: if they do not contain themselves, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn.

This is the doctrine of the Church. In the Profession of Faith prescribed by Innocent III to the Waldensians, you have these words: "We also believe and confess that a man with his wife can be saved, nor do we condemn second and further marriages." Eugene IV solemnly declared this in the decree for the Jacobites (Labbaeus, Tom. 18, col. 12, 19): "Since some are said to reject fourth nuptials as condemned, lest that be thought to be sin where there is none, since according to the Apostle, when the husband has died, the woman is loosed from his law and has the faculty of marrying whom she wills in the Lord, and he does not distinguish whether the first or second or third has died, we declare that not only second, but also third and fourth and further nuptials, if some canonical impediment does not stand in the way, can be contracted lawfully. Yet we say that those persons are more commendable if, abstaining further from conjugal union, they remain in chastity; because just as we judge virginity to be preferred to widowhood, so chaste widowhood is to be preferred to nuptials in praise and merit."

IV. Thus antiquity taught. And indeed, as to second nuptials simply, Epiphanius, Haer. 59, and Augustine, de Haeresibus, refer it among the heresies of Montanus and Novatian that they condemned second nuptials; but the Synod of Nicaea openly approved them. Indeed, the ecclesiastical law itself promulgated by the Apostle, which rejects digamists from sacred orders, supposes that it is lawful for Christians to enter upon second nuptials, just as Epiphanius rightly observed, n. 4, that the Novatians erred because "they judge that those things which, on account of the singular dignity of that function, have been attributed especially to the priesthood, pertain commonly to all." Therefore the doctrine of the Church in this matter is evident. Nor should the sayings of certain ancients move us, who, in order to commend the honorable character of Christians before the heathen, proclaim that which was proper to them, namely, that they were content with single nuptials, which could frequently be seen among Christians. "Everyone either remains as he was born, or in single nuptials," says Athenagoras, Legat., n. 33. And Theophilus of Antioch, L. 3: "Among Christians," he says, "monogamy is observed"; and Minucius in the Octavius: "we experience the desire of procreating either once or not at all." Cf. Cotelerius's note to c. 4, Mandate 1, book 2 of Hermas.

V. But as regards nuptials repeated more often, one may first bring forward the general sentence of Hermas, l. c., n. 4, teaching that "if the husband or wife of someone has departed (from this life, coll. n. 1), and one of those persons has married, he who marries does not sin; but if he has remained by himself, he will acquire great honor for himself before the Lord." Then Jerome, that greatest preacher of virginity, says, Epist. 30 to Pammachius: "I now proclaim with free voice that bigamy is not condemned in the Church, indeed not even trigamy, and that it is lawful to marry a fifth and sixth and beyond, in the same way as to marry a second husband. But just as these nuptials are not condemned, so neither are they proclaimed. They are consolations of misery, not praises of continence. All things are lawful, but not all things are expedient. I do not condemn bigamists, indeed not even trigamists, and, if it can be said, octogamists." So Augustine, de Bono Viduitatis, n. 5: "Concerning third and fourth and still more numerous nuptials, men are accustomed to raise a question. Whence, that I may answer briefly, I do not dare to condemn any nuptials, nor to take away from them the modesty of their number." And Epiphanius, Haer. LIX, n. 6: "For as the first wife was appointed by God, so the later one was granted to the weakness of men; but if he desires another besides, his weakness in this respect is tolerated." Fulgentius, de Fide ad Petrum, n. 43: "If it has happened to anyone first to be deprived of marriage, if he wishes to enter upon second or even third nuptials, he will have no sin from them, if he has kept them chastely." Cf. also the second Epistle of Clement to James, n. 7, and Hom. 3, n. 68.

VI. But in order that a certain disagreement which seems to have existed among the Fathers may be understood, a distinction must be made between the nuptials themselves and the affection which the one who seeks second and further nuptials bears, or is presumed to bear. Namely, he who enters second nuptials, and especially he who enters further nuptials, generally seems to pursue too much the pleasure of the flesh and to labor under an impotent lust. I say generally; for what if, after first nuptials have been contracted, the spouse should die shortly thereafter? What if no offspring has been had or none survives? Moreover that condition of the man indeed is not praiseworthy; yet nevertheless, by that very fact, it is honorable to enter nuptials, because they are a remedy of concupiscence. Therefore several Greek Fathers, considering further nuptials under that respect, that is, directing their mind to the affection of the contracting parties poured out toward lust and judging this not sufficiently congruent with Christian sanctity, repeatedly rush vehemently upon those nuptials, especially after second nuptials, so that they seem to reprove the nuptials themselves. Hence it is that Nazianzen, who in Orat. 39, in ss. Lumina, n. 18, approves second nuptials, in Orat. 37 on Matt. XIX, 1-17, n. 8, says that third nuptials are iniquitous and calls those who enter fourth nuptials swinish; then Basil, in the first Canonical Epistle to Amphilochius, can. 4, calls third nuptials constrained or moderated fornication, and in can. 80, Epist. 3, says that polygamy seems to him a sin greater than fornication. Already the author of the Apostolic Constitutions (a Greek man, l. III, c. 2) had taught that "third nuptials show intemperance, and that any marriage after third nuptials is manifest fornication and indubitable wantonness." From this it came about that in the Greek Church, which in this matter was more severe than is fitting, it subjected trigamists and indeed even bigamists themselves to penance, though those thus joined were not separated; which is an indication that those nuptials were held to have been valid and also lawful, although less honorable and therefore deserving of some compensation. Notice that those who exceeded the measure of bigamy were called polygamists by the Greeks. Cf. Basil in the cited places and Balsamon in the same place. Moreover concerning trigamists Basil says in the same place, can. 4: "By custom we have received a segregation of five years for trigamists, not from the canons, but from the usage of those who preceded." Therefore he says: "That they ought not altogether to be driven away from the Church, but to be deemed worthy of hearing (it was a grade of penitents) for two or three years, and after this to permit them indeed to stand together, but to abstain from the communion of the good, and so, after they have shown some fruit of penance, to restore them to the place of communion," no mention of separation having been made. But in canon 50, which is the last of the second canonical Epistle, the same says: "There is no law of trigamy. Wherefore according to law a third marriage is not contracted.

And indeed we consider such things as defilements of the Church; nevertheless we do not subject them to public condemnations, because they are more eligible than loose fornication." Balsamon and Zonaras think that for trigamy not to be publicly condemned is the same as not to be dissolved; the Maurist editors with Aristenus judge otherwise, for they judge it to be the same as not being placed in the place of the prostrate or penitents, by comparison with can. 1 of the same Basil. But whatever may be the case concerning this question, it is certain that trigamists were not held as fornicators by Basil in this canon. But in the third canonical Epistle, can. 80, he established something else concerning trigamists and those following: "Polygamy (namely trigamy and thenceforth) the Fathers passed over in silence, as beastly and altogether foreign to the race of men. This seems to us to be a sin greater than fornication; wherefore it is fitting that they be subjected to the canons, so that, after they have wept for a year and have been prostrate for three years, they may thus be received." Moral malice, namely, is supposed and reproved in the affection, which is judged greater than some act of fornication; but in reality there is still no certain mention of nullity and separation. Basil followed the ancient Greek canons. Indeed, in can. 1 of the Council of Laodicea, second nuptials are called legitimate; nevertheless the spouses are ordered to pray and fast for a certain time. Likewise in the Council of Ancyra, can. 19, some penance constituted for digamists is supposed. The same also is established concerning digamists and polygamists in cann. 3 and 7 of the Council of Neocaesarea. Cf. Arcudius, de Concordia, L. VII, c. 28.

VII. Yet the Greek Church easily advanced so far that in the tenth century it was wholly unwilling to tolerate fourth nuptials and forbade them under penalty of excommunication, wishing them themselves to be invalid, though not with all Greeks consenting, nor was this decree ever received as certain and immutable. Basil the Macedonian had already prohibited fourth nuptials by imperial authority as invalid by the law of God (Novel: that it is not lawful to enter fourth nuptials), abrogating the law of Justinian, who had permitted them according to his clemency. But his son Leo, surnamed the Wise, not content with these things, also prohibited third nuptials, yet for others, not for himself, who, after his third wife had died, since he lacked offspring, took a fourth. Thence in the year 906 arose a scandal and schism in the Greek Church, chiefly through the work of Nicholas Mysticus, Patriarch of Constantinople, which was finally removed by the Tome or Decree of union, first indeed issued in the Synod under the same Patriarch and under Constantine, the son of Leo, in the year 920, and afterwards, when all fully consented, published and accepted under Constantine and Basil in the year 996. That decree established that third nuptials indeed should be permitted under certain conditions; but fourth should be altogether prohibited, those contracting them being excluded from ecclesiastical communion so long as they remained in such a conjugal union, from which it is understood that the nuptials were held to have been null and invalid. Several letters of Nicholas Mysticus, Patriarch of Constantinople, report the same sense; he, having reproved the fourth nuptials of Leo, had stirred up that storm and therefore had been driven into exile; afterwards, however, he was restored, and under him the decree of union was composed. But although in his earlier epistles to the Roman Pontiffs he represents fourth nuptials as null by force of divine law, nevertheless in later letters to John X he signifies clearly enough that he judges that those nuptials can be entered upon by dispensation of the Church (read his letters edited by Angelo Mai in Migne, P. G. Tom. CXI). From this certain persons gather not ineptly that the reprobation of fourth nuptials among the Greeks rested upon custom and upon an ecclesiastical law invalidating these nuptials.

Therefore, lest you think that this persuasion concerning the nullity and malice of fourth nuptials from divine law had adhered to the Greeks, notice what John Veccus, Patriarch of Constantinople, with his Synod, professed in letters given to the Roman Pontiff John XXI in the year 1277. For after he had narrated that the union of the Greek Church with the Roman, begun under Gregory X, had at last been completed in the Council of Lyons, he immediately issued a profession of faith especially concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit and the primacy of the Roman See, and concerning the seven sacraments; among these he has this: "we receive marriage, concerning which the Roman Church herself holds that neither one man is permitted likewise to have several wives nor one woman several husbands at the same time; but when the law has been dissolved by the death of either spouse, it says that second and third and thereafter nuptials, legitimately made successively, are lawful." Comparing this profession of Veccus with the profession issued by Emperor Michael Palaeologus in the Council of Lyons ("second," he says, "and third successive nuptials the Roman Church says are lawful"), Joseph Simon Assemanus suspects that something has fallen out from this by which other nuptials besides third nuptials were affirmed to be lawful. For this is the doctrine of the Roman Church, which the emperor says he reports and follows.

VIII. Certainly the Roman Church never approved the doctrine of the Greeks in this matter, although formerly, when that decree of union was made, it tolerated that practice for the good of peace. For both the Roman Pontiff Sergius III, at the request of Leo the Wise, had approved his fourth nuptials; and Innocent IV, before the Council of Lyons, in letters to the Bishop of Tusculum, his legate in the Kingdom of Cyprus, orders the Greeks to hold this concerning nuptials: "Because, according to the Apostle, when the husband has died the woman has a free faculty, let the Greeks not in any way reprehend or condemn second and third and even further nuptials, but rather approve them among persons who otherwise can lawfully be joined to one another in marriage." Thus also Eugene IV established, as we have seen, with whom Benedict XIV agrees in the Constitution Etsi pastoralis given for the Italo-Greeks. Cf. the cited Assemanus, Bibliotheca Iuris Orientalis, Lib. I, c. 13.

Nevertheless the Church does not impart a blessing to the nuptials of bigamists, especially if even the woman alone is bigamous (c. Cappellanum 1 and c. Vir autem 3, de Secundis Nuptiis; cf. the Roman Ritual on the Sacrament of Matrimony; also canon 7 of the Synod of Neocaesarea), which blessing is customarily given within the celebration of Mass at first nuptials; because although, considered in themselves, they are a perfect sacrament, nevertheless, considered in order to the first nuptials, they have something of a defect of sacrament, because they do not have the full signification, since, the prior nuptials having been posited, there does not perfectly exist the union of one with one, as St. Thomas says, q. LXIII, c. 2; for this reason, that one is found to have adhered to several in fact, although successively; and this defect of the signification of the sacrament is the cause of irregularity.

Certain Latins, that is, Spaniards, seem to have enacted a severe law, when in the Council of Toledo, in the year 683, they prohibited the widow left by the King from marrying another, ordering her to be handed over immediately to a monastery of virgins; but this was established to avoid disturbances of the Kingdom, to which law the royal wives, when they entered marriage, subjected themselves spontaneously. The same custom seems to have prevailed among the Hebrews, as the learned judge. Cf. 3 Kings II. 13-25.

IX. From the things said it is clear that second and further nuptials are lawful by divine law and therefore are honorable; for what the Apostle grants, what he counsels, what the Church forbids to be condemned and teaches to be lawful and says to be less commendable only in comparison with a greater good, that is honorable of itself.

But the reason is evident: for when the spouse has died, the surviving spouse is of his or her own right and fit for marriage no less than before; the end of marriage likewise can be intended and obtained; and the remedy which it furnishes for concupiscence can itself alone be a reason why it is again entered. Nor should you say that this argument is called a sophism by Chrysostom (in Serm. ad iuniorem viduam de non iterando con-

iugio, n. 2). For the holy Doctor does not reprove this very thing which we infer, but that argument by which certain persons, from the fact that it is honorable to marry the first time, inferred that it is likewise honorable to do this a second, third, and thereafter, indeed that the one who uses marriage more frequently is to be praised by a stronger right, as if the state of marriage surpassed widowhood. For the rest, the same Doctor, at the beginning of this sermon, after he had said that second nuptials are lawful, but nevertheless that one marriage far surpasses repeated marriages, had admonished that in this comparison, when we say that one thing surpasses another, no one should think that this very thing which we say holds the lower place is a vice.

Simultaneous polygamy is unlawful by divine law and invalid for Christians.

I. Now concerning simultaneous polygamy. Moreover, this is the doctrine of the Council of Trent, can. 2: If anyone shall say that it is lawful for Christians to have several wives at the same time, and that this is prohibited by no divine law, let him be anathema. And among the diriment impediments of marriage is the impediment of bond. Moreover, that the law is divine, and that it effects no marriage with another woman or another spouse while the prior spouse is living, is proved first from the words of Christ, Matt. XIX. 9: Whoever shall put away his wife, except for fornication, and shall marry another, commits adultery; and he who shall marry her who has been put away commits adultery. These words of Christ Innocent III explains thus, c. Gaudemus, de Divortiis: "If therefore, once a wife has been put away, another cannot be married by right, still more while she herself is retained; through which it clearly appears that plurality in either sex, since they are not judged by unequal standards, is to be reproved with regard to marriage." This principle must be held in the matter of marriage, which Innocent here reports, namely that the man and the wife are equal, not indeed in all things (cf. Thomas, q. LXIV, a. 5; q. LXII, a. 4), but with regard to power over the body of the other and the obligation corresponding to it, according to the words of Paul: the woman does not have power over her own body, but the man; likewise the man does not have power over his own body, but the woman, 1 Cor. VII. 4. And so, that we may return to the text of Matthew, lest we anticipate questions not necessary here, we note that a multiple interpretation of those words except for fornication has been devised: that is, unless it be a fornicatory union, not a true conjugal union; or unless on account of the adultery of the wife, with which posited it is lawful to dissolve the marriage; or unless on account of the adultery of the wife, on account of which at least it is lawful for the man to separate himself from the wife. Which of these is the true interpretation and consonant with the tradition of the Church we shall dispute afterwards. For now let it suffice to note that, with the first interpretation admitted, any bringing in of another woman in addition, even when the former one has been put away, is called adultery; but with the other interpretation admitted, to that extent adultery would not be had, insofar as the prior union had been dissolved, and thus there would be no place for polygamy; but with the third interpretation admitted, we can reason concerning the bond of marriage according to the sentence of Christ just as if those words did not exist, which is also valid in the first interpretation. Therefore Christ teaches that he who, having put away his wife, marries another, not only acts badly, but also acts invalidly; for he commits adultery. But adultery is not marriage; namely, the prior bond remains, which impedes a bond with another; otherwise it would not be adultery. But if he commits adultery who, the former wife having been put away, from whom separation can at times be lawful on account of some causes, marries another, therefore he will commit adultery, and much more, who, retaining the former wife, brings in another besides. But if that conjunction is adultery, then there is no conjugal bond, which is impeded only by the prior bond remaining. And indeed, if polygamy were lawful and valid, he who, having put away one, marries another could not be said to commit adultery; for the right which he previously had of marrying another would still remain; whence there would be no adultery. Wherefore by the law of Christ there is altogether no second marriage.

II. Paul teaches the same thing, from whom we receive these two things: a) 1 Cor. VII. 4: The woman does not have power over her own body, but the man; and likewise the man does not have power over his own body, but the woman: namely that the power of each over the other is equal, and that each enjoys an equal right, as Innocent III in the chapter cited above admonished and Augustine declared, L. XXII, contra Faustum, c. 31: "For who does not know that a wife ought to serve her husband as lord? But as to the members of the body, by which sex itself is distinguished, the Apostle says: Likewise also the man does not have power over his own body but the woman; so that, although in the other acts pertaining to human peace the woman owes service to the man, in this matter, by which each sex is discerned by the lot of the flesh and is concerned in carnal commingling, the man over the wife and the wife over the man have in themselves a like power." Nazianzen teaches the same thing in the cited Orat. 37.

b) Ibid. 10, 11: But to those who are joined in marriage I command, not I, but the Lord: that the wife not depart from the man (μὴ χωρισθῆναι); but if she has departed, that she remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And let not the man put away his wife. But Χωρισθῆναι, as is customary, has the active signification of departing; for the discourse is about the passive separation of the woman in the last words. And so divine law commands that the wife not depart from the man, and if she departs, that she remain unmarried and be joined to no one, unless she wishes again to return to the man. The discourse here is about a wife who of her own accord separates herself from the man; for one of this sort is properly she who departs. But she who is cast out by the man is called dismissed in the Scriptures, and besides the discourse concerning a woman dismissed by the man is in what follows.

Moreover, this woman who departs from the man is she who has a just cause of departing, for example on account of the fault of the man. This is proved evidently. For if she departed without cause, Paul would not permit her the option either of remaining unmarried or of reconciling herself with the man, but would command her to be reconciled and to return to the man; for it is the law of the Lord, as the same Apostle says, that the wife not depart from the man, and since the man has power over the wife, he cannot without injustice be deprived of his right without cause. Therefore the discourse is about a woman who justly departs from the man. But no option of any other thing is left to her except these two: either let her remain unmarried, or let her be reconciled to the man. Other nuptials are altogether interdicted: let her remain unmarried. But the Apostle testifies that this is of divine law: I command, not I, but the Lord. Wherefore the woman, if she separates herself even justly from the man, must by divine law remain unmarried, that is, not marrying another. But the same must also be said of the man, that he must remain unmarried, that is, not marry another wife, if he separates himself from his wife. This indeed is clear both from what follows: And let not the man put away his wife, which words, immediately joined to the preceding, seem in a more contracted discourse to command the man that same thing which was commanded to the woman; and it is also clear from that principle established earlier, that there is an equal right and equal obligation of one to the other as regards power over the body. Therefore he also, even if he justly dismisses his wife, must by divine law marry no other; much less, therefore, must he do this when no reason for separation exists. And so a man can never marry another wife while the former is living. Moreover, a woman (Rom. VII. 3), while the man lives, shall be called an adulteress if she has been with another man: therefore divine law, prohibiting second nuptials for the woman while the former man exists, so prohibits them as to invalidate them; for an adulterous conjunction is no marriage, and therefore God does not join what man would wish to join. Therefore the man will be an adulterer if he has been with another wife, and this other conjunction, while the former exists, is invalid.

Besides, when Paul makes mention of a man and wife, he always speaks of each in the singular: 1 Cor. VII. 2: let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband; 39: A woman is bound by law so long as her husband lives; but if her husband has fallen asleep, she is freed; Eph. V. 23: The man is the head of the woman, as Christ is the head

of the Church; 28: he who loves his own wife loves himself; 33: Let each one love his wife as himself, but let the wife fear her husband.

III. It is established secondly from Tradition, whose witnesses are Tertullian, in Apolog., n. 15, saying: "A Christian is born a male for his wife alone." Clement of Alexandria, Strom. l. III: "But the same man and Lord (Christ) no longer grants polygamy. For then (in the Old Law) God required that, when the people had to be increased and multiplied. But He introduces monogamy on account of the procreation of children and the care of the house to be borne, for which the woman was given as a helper." Ambrose, de Abraham l. 1, c. 7: "It is not lawful for you, while your wife is living, to marry a wife. For even to seek another, when you have your own, is a crime of adultery." Augustine, de Nupt. et Concup. l. I, c. 10: "This is preserved in Christ and in the Church, that the living one with the living one be separated by no divorce forever. The observance of this sacrament is so great ... in the Church of Christ ... that although women marry or wives are married for the sake of procreating children, it is not lawful to leave a sterile spouse so that another fertile one may be married. But if anyone has done this, not by the law of this world, where, with repudiation intervening, it is conceded without crime to join other marriages with others ... but by the law of the Gospel, he is guilty of adultery, as also she is if she has married another. And the rights of nuptials once entered upon remain between the living to such a degree that those who have been separated from each other are rather spouses between themselves than with those others to whom they have adhered. For with others they would not be adulterers unless they remained spouses with respect to one another." The Second Council of Milevis, can. 17: "It pleased us that, according to evangelical and apostolic discipline, no one dismissed by his wife, nor one dismissed by her husband, be joined to another, but that they so remain, or be reconciled to one another. But if they have contemned this, let them be reduced to penance." Therefore you have from the Fathers that second nuptials while the prior spouse is living are both prohibited by God and are adulteries, and therefore are no matrimonial conjunctions. The Roman Pontiffs teach the same thing: Innocent I, Epist. 4 to Exsuperius: "Those who, while the wife is living, although the conjugal union seems to have been dissociated, have hastened to another coupling, cannot be seen not to be adulterers." Nicholas I, to the responses of the Bulgarians, c. 51: "Neither does the very origin of the human condition admit having two wives at one time, nor does any law of Christians permit it." Cf. also in the Decretals the Title de Sponsa duorum.

IV. Nor in all antiquity is any document to be found by which simultaneous polygamy was not only approved, but even permitted.

For this question must be distinguished from that one, whether on account of the adultery of the wife it is lawful to dissolve the conjugal union. Nor ought we to be troubled by the edict of the elder Emperor Valentinian, which Socrates reports, Hist. L. IV, c. 31, because it is not credible. For that abhorred the usage and law of Rome. Cf. the treatise of Barnabas Brissonius, de Iure connubiorum, in the Thesaurus Antiquitatum Romanarum of Joannes Georgius Graevius, Tom. VIII. There is reported there the saying of Plutarch (in the Comparison of Demetrius and Antony, n. 3), that "Antony had two wives at the same time, which no one of the Romans before had dared." But the same Brissonius disputes thus: "But whether a concubine (who nevertheless would be a true wife, although in second place) could be joined to a wife by Quiritary law, I know is doubted. Certainly Justinian writes that neither the ancient laws nor his own concede this (therefore Valentinian did not concede it), l. ult. c. Communia, de Manumissionibus. Ulpian also says, l. ult. at the end, ff. de Divortiis, that if a patron who had married a freedwoman had brought a concubine to her, from this the conjecture was to be taken that he did not wish to have her as married; since a concubine could not be had together with a wife. The constitution of Constantine the Great prohibited the very same thing, l. unica c. de Concubinis: 'Let license be granted to no one, while marriage stands, to have a concubine with himself.' Wherefore Gellius shows that she who was joined and accustomed with him in whose hand and mancipium another was by reason of marriage was held shameful by the law of Numa (N. A. l. 4, c. 3), and he reports in the same place that these women who mingled their body with him who had a wife were called concubines." Read the refutation of Socrates in Baronius at the year 370, who notes that Valerian and Gallienus had already prohibited having two wives (l. 18. C. ad legem Iuliam, de Adulteriis), and Diocletian and Maximian (l. 2. C. de Incestis Nuptiis), and then Theodosius the Great had prohibited the same thing to the Jews (l. 7. C. de Iudaeis).

V. But what of the response of Gregory II to Boniface (epist. Desiderabilem): "For as to what you proposed, that if a woman, seized by infirmity (another reading: corrupted), should not be able to render the debt to the man, what shall her spouse do? It would be good if he so remained, so that he might be free for abstinence. But because this belongs to the great, let him who cannot contain himself rather marry; nevertheless let him not withdraw the works of support from her whom infirmity impedes and not detestable fault excludes." Sebastian Berardi (Gratiani Canones genuini, Tom. II, p. 2, c. 68) judges that Gregory was treating of marriages contracted by Germans before baptism in unbelief, which, as he himself believes, even after baptism do not become ratified, and that he answered, with the law of the Gospel set aside, according to the norm of natural honesty, which of itself did not prohibit that. This latter point indeed we cannot approve, since at the beginning of the epistle Gregory affirms that he will respond to Boniface's questions not from himself but "by His grace who opens the mouth of the mute and makes the tongues of infants eloquent," and that he will hand down "the doctrine of apostolic strength." Besides, we judge (cf. Appendix after Th. XI) that a marriage contracted in unbelief becomes ratified when baptism has been received. Nor did it befit the Apostolic See, questioned according to the prerogative of its magisterium, to respond according to the opinion of men, not according to the sentence of Christ. What then? Since we lack the epistle of Boniface asking the question, it is not permitted to bring forward an evident declaration of the matter. But from elsewhere the certain opinion of Gregory II is established: namely, that simultaneous polygamy is unlawful (in the Instruction given to his Legates in Bavaria); moreover, the Roman Church has always reproved the dissolution of a consummated marriage, as his successors bear witness. Therefore we answer that probably the matter concerned a marriage not yet consummated, which therefore was either null from impotence, as Celestine III seems to interpret this response of Gregory, c. Laudabilem, De Frigidis, or, since it was only ratified, the Roman Pontiff dissolved it by his power, and so permitted the man to enter other nuptials by right, yet advising him to take care of the one left behind, who was being separated without fault.

Finally, it is permitted to add that, if it had once been believed that simultaneous polygamy was lawful, no reason would appear why a certain aversion and sure horror would have occupied many persons toward successive polygamy. This fact, namely, supposes that it was believed that one should be joined simultaneously only to one.

VI. It is established thirdly from the thing signified. For marriage is a sign of the union of Christ with the Church, so that the man ought to love his wife and adhere to her, just as Christ loved the Church and adhered to her; but Christ transferred His whole love to one Church, so that one should adhere to one; therefore in this way also the Christian man ought to love his wife so that he does not divide marital affection among several wives, but that one be joined to one. Namely, the likeness between Christian marriage and the conjugal union of Christ with the Church consists not only in this, that a man and a woman are united into one and become one flesh or one principle of generation, but also in the manner in which the man adheres to the wife, loving her as Christ loves the Church. But Christ so loved her that He loved her as one. This reason holds for any marriage, because this signification was instituted from the beginning. Cf. those things which we shall say in the following Thesis. But because actual signification is from the institution of God, nothing prevents God at some time, before the completed union of Christ with the Church through the incarnation, from having dispensed from the law of simultaneous monogamy, as we shall see hereafter.

VII. From the doctrine of Scripture and the Fathers you have that second simultaneous nuptials are condemned and declared invalid even in the hypothesis of separation or divorce; indeed these are chiefly and directly reproved, whence we have gathered that all are simply proscribed. Therefore those second nuptials which Christians contract after a divorce made by civil law, while the prior spouse is still living, are shameful concubinages.

Polygamy, compared with natural law, is not contrary to its first precepts, by which the things that are essential are commanded; but it is contrary to those by which the things that are congruent are urged.

This is the doctrine of St. Thomas, Suppl. q. 65, a. 1: "Everything which renders an action unsuitable to the end which nature intends from some work is said to be contrary to the law of nature. But an action can be unsuitable to the end either principally or secondarily." Therefore there can be a twofold end which nature intends from some work, and therefore also from marriage: a primary and a secondary. The primary end is that which nature chiefly intends in the work, namely that to which the work has been adapted by nature before its other works; the secondary end is a good for the attaining of which the work is indeed ordered by nature, yet lacking the prerogative of the former. The holy Doctor proceeds: "If the action is unsuitable to the end, as if altogether prohibiting the principal end, it is directly prohibited by the law of nature through the first precepts of the law of nature, which in practical matters are like the common conceptions of the mind in speculative matters. But if it is unsuitable to the secondary end in some way, or even to the principal end as making arrival at it difficult or less congruent, it is prohibited, not indeed by the first precepts of the law of nature, but by the second, which are derived from the first, just as conclusions in speculative matters have their credibility from principles known through themselves; and thus the said action is said to be contrary to the law of nature." Now weigh what he has in the same place in the response to the second: "Those things which the natural law dictates as derived from the first principles of the law of nature (which are those that in the body of the article were called second principles), do not have coercive force by way of an absolute precept except after they have been sanctioned by divine and (perhaps: or) human law."

The unity of Marriage is placed in this, that Marriage is the conjunction of one man with one woman. Moreover,

1°. It is certain that polyandry conflicts with the natural law, because it is opposed to the principal ends of Marriage, namely the generation of offspring and their good education.

2°. It is certain that simultaneous polygamy is prohibited in every case, at least by the positive divine law of the New Law, as is established from Luke xvi, 18: "Everyone who puts away his wife and marries another commits adultery." It is likewise established from the Council of Trent, sess. 24, can. 2.

3°. It is certain that second and further nuptials are licit both for the man and for the woman, even under the Evangelical law. It is established from the authority and practice of the Church, and also from sacred Scripture, I Cor. vii, 39: "A woman is bound to the law for as long a time as her husband lives; but if her husband has slept, she is freed: let her marry whom she wishes, only in the Lord." - Cf. De Augustinis, Thes. 7, p. 254. Although chaste widowhood is more honorable, nevertheless second and further nuptials are valid and licit, with the prescription of Can. 1069, § 2, remaining firm (Can. 1142).

I. Three are the properties, or goods, of matrimony, namely fidelity, offspring, and the sacrament. Fidelity is here taken for that faithfulness by which promises are fulfilled, and it is a part of justice. Spouses violate fidelity if they know another man or another woman. Offspring is the end of matrimony. The sacrament signifies and confirms indissolubility. In fidelity therefore the conjunction of one with one is understood.

II. To the oneness of matrimony there is opposed simultaneous polygamy, or a plurality of wives. It is agreed among all that the polygamy by which one woman should marry several men is against natural right, both primary and secondary. It is disputed only concerning the polygamy by which one man takes several wives, whether it be adverse to natural and divine right.

III. The common opinion of theologians is that polygamy is adverse to natural right. It is nevertheless to be adverted that natural right is of one kind invariable and immutable, of which sort are the first universal principles which regard the primeval end of nature. In these no dispensation, no interpretation falls. For the things which are forbidden by this right are intrinsically evil. Another is natural right obnoxious to variation by reason of times and circumstances. This variety God alone, the founder of the right of universal nature, and its most wise comprehender and moderator, knows. Therefore he alone can dispense, or rather interpret and declare, when and how man is obnoxious to this right.

IV. Hence you have how God in the old law dispensed with the holy Patriarchs that they should have several wives at once. The name of wife nevertheless is taken in two ways in holy Scripture: 1. In its proper signification, under which comes the first wife led in with solemn rite, who was named mother of the family, was endowed with special honour, and whose sons succeeded to the paternal inheritance; 2. In the broader signification, according as they were second wives, who lacked the aforesaid privileges, and were called also concubines.

V. Christ the Lord in the New Testament took away this privilege of having several wives, as the perpetual and universal tradition of the Church teaches, and Trent defined, session 24, canon 2.

VI. The Montanists, to whom Tertullian accedes, condemned successive polygamy, or second nuptials. Catholics and the Church have never forbidden second or further nuptials. In the first centuries of the Church nevertheless the Greek Church subjected bigamists and trigamists to severe penances.

204. Polyandry is destructive of the very idea of order in domestic society, because, if man is to retain his natural headship of the family, it would give several heads to the same family. Besides, polyandry defeats both the primary and the secondary ends of marriage. Even if in this condition of affairs children were born, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to tell who was the father of each particular child, so that the education of such practically fatherless offspring would be incomplete and neglected. And can we imagine that domestic peace and love could find place in such a household? Consequently, polyandry is entirely opposed to the natural law.