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ON THE GOOD OF MARRIAGE. Since every human being is a part of the human race, and human nature is something social and possesses a great and natural good, namely the power of friendship, for this reason God willed to create all men from one, that they might be held together in their society not only by likeness of kind but also by the bond of kinship. Thus the first natural bond of human society is husband and wife. And these too God did not create as separate individuals and join together as though strangers, but He made the one out of the other, marking also the power of their union in the side, whence she was formed when it was taken away. For those are joined to each other at the sides who walk together and together look toward the place whither they walk.
There follows the connection of society in the children, who are the one honourable fruit—not of the union of male and female, but of sexual intercourse. For in either sex, even without such commingling, there could have been a certain friendly and genuine union, the one ruling, the other obeying. Nor is there need now that we should investigate and, in that question, bring forth a settled opinion as to how the offspring of the first human beings could have come to be—those whom God had blessed, saying, 'Increase and multiply and fill the earth'—if they had not sinned, since their bodies earned the condition of death by sinning, and there can be no sexual intercourse except of mortal bodies. For many and divergent opinions have arisen on this matter;
and if it must be examined which of them best agrees with the truth of the divine Scriptures, it is a matter for lengthy discussion. Whether therefore, if they had not sinned, they would have had children without the embrace of sexual union, in some other way, by the gift of the most almighty Creator—who was able also to create the first ones themselves without parents, who was able to form the flesh of Christ in a virgin's womb, and (to speak now to unbelievers themselves) who was able to give offspring to bees without intercourse; or whether many things were there said mystically and figuratively, and are to be understood otherwise, namely what is written, 'Fill the earth and have dominion over it'—that is, that this should come to pass through the fullness and perfection of life and power, so that the very increase and multiplication whereby it was said,
'Increase and multiply,' should be understood as the advancement of the mind and the abundance of virtue—as it is set down in the Psalm: 'Thou shalt multiply me in my soul with strength'—and that this succession of offspring was not given to man except after the cause of sin was to bring about a departure in death; or whether a body not spiritual but at first animal was made for those men, so that by the merit of obedience it might afterwards become spiritual, in order to attain immortality not after death—which entered the world through the envy of the devil and became the punishment of sin—but through that change which the Apostle signifies where he says:
'Then we who are alive, who remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet Christ in the air'—so that we may understand that those bodies of the first married pair were even mortal in their first fashioning, and yet not destined to die unless they had sinned, as God had threatened (just as if one should threaten a wound, because the body was capable of being wounded, which nevertheless would not have happened unless what He had forbidden were done); and thus generations could subsist even through the intercourse of such bodies, generations that would have growth up to a certain measure, yet would not incline into old age, or at least not unto old age, nor yet unto death, until by that multiplication of the blessing the earth should be filled.
For if God preserved the very state of the Israelites' garments for forty years without any wear, how much more would He grant to the bodies of those who obeyed His command a certain most blessed temperament of a fixed state, until they should be changed for the better—not by the death of a man, whereby the body is forsaken by the soul, but by a blessed change from mortality to immortality, from an animal to a spiritual quality! Which of these opinions is true, or whether yet others can be carved out of those words, is a long thing to inquire into and discuss. This much we now say: that according to this condition of being born and dying, which we know and in which we were created, the marriage of male and female is something good;
whose covenant divine Scripture so commends that it is not lawful for a woman put away by her husband to marry another so long as her husband lives, nor for a man put away by his wife to take another unless she who departed has died. The good therefore of marriage—which the Lord also confirmed in the Gospel, not only because He forbade a man to put away his wife except for the cause of fornication, but also because He came, when invited, to a wedding—is rightly asked, wherein it consists. This seems to me to be not only for the sake of the procreation of children, but also for the sake of the natural fellowship itself in the difference of sex; otherwise it would no longer be called marriage in the case of old people, especially if they had either lost their children or begotten none at all.
But as it is, in a good marriage, even though an aged one, even if the ardour of youthful age has withered between male and female, the order of charity nevertheless flourishes between husband and wife; and the better they are, the earlier they have begun by mutual consent to abstain from carnal commingling—not that it should thereafter be a matter of necessity to be unable to do what they wished, but that it should be a matter of praise first to have been unwilling to do what they were able. If therefore the faith of honour and of the services mutually owed is preserved by either sex, even though the members of both grow languid and well-nigh corpse-like, the chastity of souls duly wedded nevertheless perseveres, and the more sincere the more approved, and the more secure the more tranquil. Marriages have also this good,
namely that carnal or youthful incontinence, even though it be faulty, is turned to the honourable purpose of propagating offspring, so that from the evil of lust the conjugal union may make something good; and further, because the concupiscence of the flesh is restrained and in a certain way glows more modestly, being tempered by parental affection. For a certain gravity intervenes upon fervid pleasure, when in that very act by which man and woman cleave to each other they meditate on being father and mother. To this is added that in this very thing wherein they render to each other the debt, even if they demand it somewhat intemperately and incontinently, they nevertheless owe faith to each other equally. To which faith the Apostle attributes so great a right that he called it a 'power,' saying:
'The wife hath not power over her own body, but the husband; and likewise also the husband hath not power over his own body, but the wife.' Now the violation of this faith is called adultery, when, whether by the instigation of one's own lust or by consent to another's, one lies with a man or woman against the marriage compact. And thus is broken faith, which even in bodily and abject matters is a great good of the soul; and therefore it is certain that it ought to be preferred even to bodily welfare, whereby this present life also is maintained. For although a scanty straw compared with much gold is almost nothing, yet faith, when it is kept sincerely in the matter of straw as in that of gold, is not on that account the lesser because it is kept in the lesser matter.
But when faith is employed for the committing of sin, it is a wonder if it should be called faith; yet however it may be, if anything is done even against it, worse is done—unless it be forsaken for this reason, that one may return to true and lawful faith, that is, that the sin may be amended, the perversity of the will being corrected. As if someone, since he cannot rob a man by himself, should find an accomplice in wickedness and make a pact with him, that they should do it together and share the spoil, and then, the crime having been committed, should carry off the whole alone. The other indeed grieves and complains that faith was not kept toward him;
but in his very complaint he ought rather to consider that faith should have been kept toward human society itself by a good life, lest an unjust plunder be made from a man—if he perceives how unjustly it was not kept toward him in the fellowship of sin. For he who was faithless on both sides is surely to be judged the more wicked. But if what they had done wickedly had displeased him, and for that reason he had been unwilling to divide the plunder with the partner of his crime, so that it might be restored to the man from whom it had been taken, not even the faithless man would call him faithless. So a woman, if, having violated conjugal faith, she keeps faith with an adulterer, is assuredly bad; but if she keeps it not even with the adulterer, she is worse.
Furthermore, if she repents of her disgraceful deed and, returning to conjugal chastity, rescinds her adulterous pacts and agreements, I should wonder if even the adulterer himself would think her a violator of faith. It is also wont to be asked, when a male and a female—he not being the husband, nor she the wife, of another—are joined together not for the propagation of children, but merely for the sake of incontinence, for the cause of sexual intercourse alone, with this faith intervening as a middle term, that neither he does it with another woman nor she with another man, whether they are to be called married.
And perhaps this might not absurdly be called wedlock, if it has been agreed between them to hold to it until the death of one of them, and if, though they were not joined for that cause, they nevertheless have not shunned the generation of offspring, so as either to be unwilling that children be born to them, or even by some evil work to act that they be not born. But if either both or one of these is lacking, I do not find how we may call this a marriage. For indeed if a man take a woman for a time, until he find another worthy of his rank or fortune, whom he may marry as an equal, he is in his very mind an adulterer—not with her whom he desires to find, but with this one, with whom he so lies that he has not with her the married partnership.
Whence she too, knowing and willing this, is joined to him unchastely, since she has no marriage covenant with him with whom she couples. Yet if she keeps faith of the bed to him and, when he has taken a wife, herself does not think of marrying, and prepares to abstain altogether from such work, I should perhaps not readily dare to call her an adulteress; yet who would say that she does not sin, when he knows that she couples with a man whose wife she is not?
But now if, from that intercourse, so far as pertains to her, she desires nothing but children, and whatever she endures beyond the cause of procreating she endures unwillingly, then she indeed is to be preferred to many matrons who, although they are not adulteresses, nevertheless for the most part compel even their husbands—who wish to be continent—to render the carnal debt, not from desire of offspring but from the ardour of concupiscence, using their own right intemperately; yet in whose marriages this very thing is good, that they are married.
For to this end they are married: that concupiscence, reduced to a lawful bond, should not float about deformed and dissolute, having of itself the unbridled infirmity of the flesh, but of marriage the indissoluble fellowship of faith; of itself the progress of immoderate coupling, but of marriage the measure of chaste procreation. For although it is base to use even one's husband lustfully, it is nevertheless honourable to be unwilling to couple except with a husband, and to bear offspring only from a husband. There are likewise husbands so incontinent that they spare not their wives even when pregnant. Whatever therefore the married do between themselves that is immodest, shameless, sordid, is the vice of the persons, not the fault of marriage.
Now even in that more immoderate exaction of the carnal debt, which the Apostle enjoined upon them not according to command but conceded according to indulgence—namely, that they should couple even apart from the cause of procreating—although perverse habits impel them to such intercourse, yet marriage defends them from adultery or fornication. For that act is not committed because of marriage, but is pardoned because of marriage.
Married persons therefore owe each other not only the faith of coupling in their own sex for the sake of procreating children—which is the first fellowship of the human race in this mortality—but also a certain mutual servitude of receiving each other's infirmity, for the avoiding of unlawful intercourse; so that, even if perpetual continence should please one of them, it may not be possible except by the consent of the other. For to this end also 'the wife hath not power over her own body, but the husband';
'and likewise the husband hath not power over his own body, but the wife'—so that what the one seeks from the marriage, or the other from the husband, not for the sake of begetting children but for the sake of infirmity and incontinence, they should not deny to each other, lest through this they fall into damnable corruptions, Satan tempting them because of the incontinence either of both or of either of them. For conjugal intercourse for the sake of begetting has no fault; but that of satisfying concupiscence, yet with a spouse, on account of the faith of the bed, has a venial fault; but adultery or fornication has a mortal fault. And through this, continence from all intercourse is indeed better than even conjugal intercourse itself which takes place for the cause of begetting.
But since that continence is of ampler merit, while to render the conjugal debt is no crime, to exact it beyond the necessity of begetting is a venial fault, and further to fornicate or commit adultery is a crime to be punished, conjugal charity ought to beware lest, while seeking for itself whence it may be more highly honoured, it do to the spouse that whence he or she may be damned. For 'whosoever putteth away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, maketh her to commit adultery.' To such a degree is that entered marriage bond a matter of a certain sacrament, that not even by the separation itself is it made void, since so long as the husband lives, she who has been forsaken by him commits adultery if she marry another, and he who forsook her is the cause of this evil.
But I wonder whether, just as it is lawful to put away an adulterous wife, so it is lawful, she being put away, to marry another. For holy Scripture makes on this matter a difficult knot, the Apostle saying, from the Lord's command, that a wife ought not to depart from her husband; but that if she depart, she should remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: since surely she ought not to depart and remain unmarried except from an adulterous husband, lest by departing from him who is not an adulterer she cause him to commit adultery. But to be reconciled to her husband she can rightly do either by tolerating him, if she cannot herself be continent, or perhaps when he has been corrected. But how there could be liberty for a man to marry another if he has forsaken an adulterous wife, when there is not for a woman to marry another if she has forsaken an adulterous husband, I do not see.
If these things are so, so great is the force of that social bond of spouses that, although it is bound together for the cause of procreating, it is not loosed even for the cause of procreating itself. For a man could put away a barren wife and take one by whom he might have children; and yet it is not lawful, and indeed in our own times and by Roman custom it is not lawful even to take an additional wife, so as to have more than one living. And surely, an adulterous wife or an adulterous husband being forsaken, more human beings could be born, if either she should marry another or he should take another. If nevertheless this is not lawful, as the divine rule seems to prescribe, whom would it not make attentive to consider what this so great firmness of the conjugal bond means for itself?
Which I by no means think could have such force, unless a certain sacrament of some greater reality were applied to it from this frail mortality of men—a sacrament which, though men forsake it and desire to dissolve it, would remain unshaken for them unto punishment, since indeed, even when divorce has intervened, that nuptial covenant is not abolished, so that they are spouses to each other even when separated, and commit adultery with those to whom they have been joined even after their own repudiation, whether she with a man or he with a woman. Yet only in the city of our God, on His holy mountain, is such the case concerning a wife. For who does not know that the laws of the Gentiles are otherwise? Where, a repudiation being interposed, without any guilt,
through some human retribution, both she marries whom she wills, and he takes whom he wills. To which custom Moses seems to have permitted something similar, because of the hardness of the Israelites, concerning the bill of divorce. In which matter there appears rather a rebuke of divorce than an approval of it. 'Marriage therefore is honourable among all, and the bed undefiled.' Which we do not call good in such a way that it is good in comparison with fornication; otherwise there would be two evils, of which one is worse;
or else fornication too would be good, because adultery is worse—for it is worse to violate another's marriage than to cleave to a harlot—and adultery would be good, because incest is worse—for it is worse to lie with one's mother than with another's wife—and until one arrives at those things which, as the Apostle says, it is shameful even to mention, all things would be good in comparison with worse ones. But who doubts that this is false? Wedlock and fornication therefore are not two evils, of which one is worse; but wedlock and continence are two goods, of which one is better—just as this temporal health and weakness are not two evils, of which one is worse, but this health and immortality are two goods, of which one is better.
Likewise knowledge and vanity are not two evils, of which vanity is the worse, but knowledge and charity are two goods, of which charity is the better. For 'knowledge shall be destroyed,' says the Apostle, and yet it is necessary for this present time; but 'charity shall never fail.' So also this mortal generation, for the sake of which marriages take place, shall be destroyed; but immunity from all intercourse is here an angelic meditation, and abides for ever. And just as the meals of the righteous are better than the fasts of the sacrilegious, so the marriages of the faithful are to be preferred to the virginity of the impious. Yet neither there is the meal preferred to the fast, but righteousness to sacrilege; nor here is marriage preferred to virginity, but faith to impiety.
For to this end the righteous, when there is need, take their meals: that as good masters they may furnish to their servant-bodies what is just and equitable; but to this end the sacrilegious fast: that they may serve demons. So to this end the faithful marry: that they may be chastely joined to husbands; but to this end are the impious virgins: that they may fornicate away from the true God. As therefore that was good which Martha did, being busy about the ministry of the saints, but better what Mary her sister did, sitting at the Lord's feet and hearing His word: so we praise the good of Susanna in conjugal chastity, but nevertheless prefer to her the good of the widow Anna, and much more that of Mary the virgin. Good was that which those women did who ministered of their substance the necessities to Christ and His disciples;
but better did those do who left all their substance, that they might follow the same Lord the more unencumbered. Now in these two pairs of goods, whether those which the former women did or those which Martha and Mary did, that which is better could not be done unless the other were passed over or left. Whence it is to be understood that marriages are not therefore to be thought evil because, unless one abstain from them, one cannot have widowed chastity or virginal integrity. For neither was that which Martha did evil because, unless her sister abstained from it, she would not do that which was better; nor is it therefore evil to receive a righteous man or a prophet into one's house, because he ought not to have a house who, wishing to follow Christ unto perfection, would do that which is better.
Assuredly it is to be seen that God gives us some goods that are to be sought for their own sake, such as wisdom, health, friendship; others that are necessary for the sake of something else, such as instruction, food, drink, sleep, marriage, sexual intercourse. For of these some are necessary for the sake of wisdom, such as instruction; some for the sake of health, such as food and drink and sleep; some for the sake of friendship, such as marriage or sexual intercourse, for from this subsists the propagation of the human race, in which friendly society is a great good. He therefore who uses these goods, which are necessary for the sake of something else, not for that for which they were instituted, sins—in some cases venially, in others damnably. But whosoever uses them for this,
for which they were given, does well. To him therefore for whom they are not necessary, if he does not use them, he does better. Accordingly, these goods, when we have need of them, we rightly will; but we better will them not than will them, because we are then in a better state when we do not have need of them. And through this it is good to marry, because it is good to procreate children, to be the mother of a family; but it is better not to marry, because it is better not to need this work for the sake of human society itself.
For the human race is now in such a state that, since others who do not contain themselves are occupied not only in marriages but many also run riot in unlawful intercourse—the good Creator making out of their evils that which is good—there is no lack of a numerous offspring and an abundance of succession, whence holy friendships may be sought out. From which it is gathered that in the first ages of the human race, chiefly for the sake of propagating the people of God, through whom both should be prophesied and be born the Prince and Saviour of all peoples, the saints had to make use of that good of marriage—not seeking it for its own sake, but of necessity for the sake of something else;
but now, when on every side, out of all nations, an abundance of spiritual kinship overflows for entering into holy and sincere fellowship, even those who desire to unite in wedlock only for the sake of children are to be admonished rather to use the ampler good of continence. But I know what they mutter. 'What,' they say, 'if all men should wish to abstain from all intercourse, whence would the human race subsist?' Would that all wished this—only in charity, out of a pure heart and a good conscience and unfeigned faith! Much more quickly would the city of God be filled and the end of the age be hastened. For what else does the Apostle appear to exhort, where he says, when he was speaking of this: 'I would that all were as I myself'? Or in that place: 'But this I say, brethren:
the time is short; it remaineth that both they who have wives be as though they had none; and they who weep, as though they wept not; and they who rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they who buy, as though they possessed not; and they who use this world, as though they used it not: for the fashion of this world passeth away. I would have you without anxiety.' Then he adds: 'He that is without a wife thinketh on the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. But he that is joined in matrimony thinketh on the things of the world, how he may please his wife. And the unmarried woman and the virgin is divided: she who is unmarried is anxious about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit; but she who is married is anxious about the things of the world, how she may please her husband.'
Whence it seems to me that at this time only those who do not contain themselves ought to marry—according to that saying of the same Apostle: 'But if they cannot contain, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn.' Yet not even to these is marriage a sin, which, if it were chosen in comparison with fornication, would be a lesser sin than fornication, but would nevertheless be a sin. But now what shall we say against the most evident voice of the Apostle, who says: 'Let him do what he will; he sinneth not; let him marry,' and: 'If thou take a wife, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned'? Hence surely it is now not lawful to doubt that marriage is not a sin.
The Apostle therefore does not concede marriage according to indulgence—for who could doubt that it is most absurd to say that those to whom pardon is granted have not sinned?—but he concedes according to indulgence that intercourse which takes place through incontinence, not solely for the cause of procreating and sometimes for no cause of procreating; which intercourse marriage does not compel to take place, but obtains that it be pardoned—provided nevertheless it be not so excessive as to hinder the times which ought to be set apart for prayer, nor be changed into that use which is against nature, of which the Apostle could not keep silent, when he was speaking of the corruptions of exceedingly unclean and impious men. For the intercourse necessary for the cause of begetting is blameless, and it alone is proper to marriage.
But that intercourse which goes beyond this necessity now obeys not reason but lust. And yet not to exact this, but to render it to a spouse, lest by fornicating he sin damnably, pertains to the conjugal person. But if both are subjected to such concupiscence, they do a thing plainly not of marriage. Nevertheless, if in their union they love more that which is honourable than that which is dishonourable—that is, that which is of marriage than that which is not of marriage—this is conceded to them, on the Apostle's authority, according to indulgence:
of which fault they have marriage not as exhorting them but as interceding for them, if they turn not away from themselves God's mercy—either by abstaining on certain days, that they may be free for prayers, and through this abstinence commend their prayers as by fastings; or by not changing the natural use into that use which is against nature, which is done more damnably in a spouse. For whereas that natural use, when it slips beyond the marriage compacts—that is, beyond the necessity of propagating—is venial in a wife, damnable in a harlot; that which is against nature is done execrably in a harlot, but more execrably in a wife.
So great is the force of the Creator's ordinance and of the order of creation that, in things granted for our use, even when moderation is exceeded, it is far more tolerable than a single or rare excess in those things that are not granted. And therefore in a permitted matter the immoderation of a spouse is to be borne, lest lust burst forth into what is not permitted. Hence it also comes that a man sins far less, however assiduous he is toward his wife, than he would in even the rarest resort to fornication. But when a man wishes to use a member of a woman not granted for this purpose, the wife is more shameful if she permits it to be done upon herself than upon another. The dignity of marriage, then, is the chastity of begetting and the fidelity of rendering the carnal debt: this is the work of wedlock, this the Apostle defends from every fault when he says: