a. It is a love that is spontaneous, arising freely between two persons not previously conditioned to love each other by parental, filial, fraternal and other similar bonds.
b. It is totalizing in the sense the total and definitive self-donation to the partner.
c. It is fruitful or productive in the sense that it leads to the generation of children.
d. It is responsible, transcending the transitoriness of emotions and resolutely aspiring to and striving for infinity in the pursuit of the values specific to the relationship, in spite of the finitude of the partners.
2. Conjugal love embodies three realities:
a. Commitment - related to agape, the love of the spouse for the spouse’s own sake.
b. Intimacy - related tophilia the love of the spouse as a friends
c. Passion - related to eros, the love of the spouse for one’s own sake.
3. Marriage: the institutional dimension of conjugal life
a. Features of marriage as an institution:
i. It is based primarily on the given and permanent human reality of the distinction between male and female.
ii. As a cultural institution it promotes and defends the objectives assigned by human communities to the conjugal relationship.
iii. It is a structure which precedes individuals and which the latter are expected to accept.
iv. It is subject to variations imposed by historical and cultural differences.
4. Ethical guidelines regarding permanent values that ought to be defended and promoted in conjugal life:
a. Human sexuality and love are values in themselves, rooted in the characteristics of the human person. They should not be instrumentalized as if they are only a means to an end such as procreation. In this connection, sexual foreplay and variations in manner of expressing heterosexual love between conjugal partners are to be considered normal expressions of conjugal love. Therefore:
i. According to Catholic tradition, it is nor immoral to use oral sex or anal sex as a form of foreplay as long as such activity is not continued to the point of orgasm. Assuming both partners desire and agree to these expressions of love, oral and anal sex are morally legitimate means of foreplay serving as prelude to vaginal intercourse. Sexual climax, however, is to occur only after vaginal penetration.[1]
ii. In the event that a woman is multi-orgasmic and thus would not be unlikely to lose interest in the lovemaking episode should she achieve sexual climax before actual vaginal intercourse, it is acceptable that this could occur, for example, in an episode of oral sex.[2]
iii. Moreover, in situation where these same spouses have responsibly, honestly and prayerfully decided to employ some form of contraception, they are likely to wonder why they might not, on occasion, justifiably achieve sexual satisfaction and fulfillment by means of oral and anal sex that is turned to in place of contraceptive vaginal intercourse.[3]
iv. Should it happen that a woman fails to achieve sexual fulfillment in the act of sexual intercourse with her husband, she is morally permitted, according to the Church’s teaching, to seek to achieve orgasm by other means. The traditional moral view is as follows: “Although a woman is not obligated to do so, she may immediately after her his withdrawal after ejaculation in the vagina or immediately after his withdrawal upon ejaculation obtain her own complete satisfaction through her or her spouse’s efforts performed by means of touches or in some other manner.”[4]
v. A wife’s regular or habitual failure to achieve a desired orgasm through sexual intercourse would point to the need for better, more open, and honest communication between spouses concerning their sexual expressions of love. Given a woman’s generally slower response to sexual stimulation, it may be necessary for a husband to prolong the period of foreplay out of concern for his wife and her sexual fulfillment. At the same time, a wife should freely tell her husband what actions please her, and she should better inform him as to whether or not she is ready for initiation of vaginal intercourse.[5]
b. Human sexuality and love have a structure which should be respected in order for these to attain their authentic fulfillment. This means that human sexuality involves the whole person, and cannot be reduced to mere genitality. It has many aspects which have to be attended to so that human sexuality and love may achieve their ideal purpose.
c. Full sexual relations should be the expression of total, exclusive, and definite interpersonal love. If the kind of love involved does not have these qualities, it should not be expressed in sexual intercourse. To do so with a love that is lacking these qualities is to frustrate and alienate the sexual partner, to deceive one’s self, and to deceive society as well.
d. The fruitfulness or openness to life which should characterize mature human sexuality must be upheld in the conjugal relationship, in a specific manner appropriate to the latter. Thus the partners in a conjugal relationship have the basic though relative right and duty to a fertile marital union.
i. The actualization of this right and duty to have offspring may be forgone only by mutual consent, for sufficient reasons such as the avoidance of the transmission of grave hereditary diseases.
ii. Canon law (1096 par. I and 1101 par 2) considers a marriage invalid if it excludes in principle the right to a fertile union.
e. Acceptance by society forms part of the anthropological structure of heterosexual love. This is in consideration of the social nature of human beings and the socioeconomic consequences of conjugal relations. Although it is true that it is the interpersonal love between spouses that constitute marriage, this is only insofar as this is accepted and its expression regulated by the community. Any attempt to found marriage only on the basis of interpersonal love without referring to the sociojuridical aspect of the human person is doomed to failure. Sexuality and love are fully human only when historically and culturally institutionalized.
f. The institutional dimension of conjugal life is important but secondary in value to the interpersonal dimension in marriage. The scope of influence of the institutional dimension should be reduced to the strictly social aspects of marriage, respecting the reasonable privacy of the married couple.
g. There must be an appropriate balance between the interpersonal and institutional dimensions of marriage. Marriage as an institution should not be viewed one-sidedly such as believing that the institutional dimension is evil while the interpersonal dimension is good. We affirm that there is a functional reciprocity between them.
h. Marriage is an institution within the faith and has a sacramental character.
THE SACRAMENT OF MATRIMONY (CCCI6O1-1666)
1601 “The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament.”
1603 “The intimate community of life and love which constitutes the married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by him with its own proper laws. . . . God himself is the author of marriage.” The vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator. Marriage is not a purely human institution despite the many variations it may have undergone through the centuries in different cultures, social structures, and spiritual attitudes. These differences should not cause us to forget its common and permanent characteristics. Although the dignity of this institution is not transparent everywhere with the same clarity, some sense of the greatness of the matrimonial union exists in all cultures. “The well-being of the individual person and of both human and Christian society is closely bound up with the healthy state of conjugal and family life.”
MATRIMONIAL CONSENT
1625 The parties to a marriage covenant are a baptized man and woman, free to contract marriage, who freely express their consent; “to be free” means:
- not being under constraint;
- not impeded by any natural or ecclesiastical law.
1626 The Church holds the exchange of consent between the spouses to be the indispensable element that “makes the marriage.” If consent is lacking there is no marriage.
1627 The consent consists in a “human act by which the partners mutually give themselves to each other”:
“I take you to be my wife” - “I take you to be my husband.”’28 This consent that binds the spouses to each other finds its fulfillment in the two “becoming one flesh.”
1628 The consent must be an act of the will of each of the contracting parties, free of coercion or grave external fear. No human power can substitute for this consent. If this freedom is lacking the marriage is invalid.
1629 For this reason (or for other reasons that render the marriage null and void) the Church, after an examination of the situation by the competent ecclesiastical tribunal, can declare the nullity of a marriage, i.e., that the marriage never existed. In this case the contracting parties are free to marry, provided the natural obligations of a previous union are discharged.
V. THE GOODS AND REQUIREMENTS OF CONJUGAL LOVE
1643 “Conjugal love involves a totality, in which all the elements of the person enter - appeal of the body and instinct, power of feeling and affectivity, aspiration of the spirit and of will. It aims at a deeply personal unity, a unity that, beyond union in one flesh, leads to forming one heart and soul; it demands indissolubility and faithfulness in definitive mutual giving; and it is open to fertility. In a word it is a question of the normal characteristics of all natural conjugal love, but with a new significance which not only purifies and strengthens them, but raises them to the extent of making them the expression of specifically Christian values.”
The unity and indissolubility of marriage
1644 The love of the spouses requires, of its very nature, the unity and indissolubility of the spouses’ community of persons, which embraces their entire life: “so they are no longer two, but one flesh.” They “are called to grow continually in their communion through day-to-day fidelity to their marriage promise of total mutual self-giving.” This human communion is confirmed, purified, and completed by communion in Jesus Christ, given through the sacrament of Matrimony. It is deepened by lives of the common faith and by the Eucharist received together.
1645 “The unity of mamage, distinctly recognized by our Lord, is made clear in the equal personal dignity which must be accorded to man and wife in mutual and unreserved affection.” Polygamy is contrary to conjugal love which is undivided and exclusive.
The fidelity of conjugal love
1646 By its very nature conjugal love requires the rnviolable fidelity of the spouses. This is the consequence of the gift of themselves which they make to each other. Love seeks to be definitive; it cannot be an arrangement “until further notice.” The “intimate union of mamage, as a mutual giving of two persons, and the good of the children, demand total fidelity from the spouses and require an unbreakable union between them.”
1647 The deepest reason is found in the fidelity of God to his covenant, in that of Christ to his Church.
Through the sacrament of M.atrimony the spouses are enabled to represent this fidelity and witness to it.
Through the sacrament, the indissolubility of marriage receives a new and deeper meaning.
1648 It can seem difficult, even impossible, to bind oneself for life to another human being. This makes it all the more important to proclaim the Good News that God loves us with a definitive and irrevocable love, that married couples share in this love, that it supports and sustains them, and that by their own faithfulness they can be witnesses to God’s faithful love. Spouses who with God’s grace give this witness, often in very difficult conditions, deserve the gratitude and support of the ecciesial community.
Christian Sexual Ethics
Session 10
Problems in Conjugal life
1. Adultery
a. Adultery is the term for voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and someone other than his or her spouse.
b. Adultery is morally objectionable because it cannot fulfill the purpose of the full exercise of sexuality, which is total self-donation and union of life. Moreover it entails injustice to the other marriage partner.
c. It does not necessarily mean a complete rupture of the commitment to unity of life with the spouse. It may be a manifestation of a grave crisis in the conjugal relationship.
Pastoral Approaches:
Firmly urge the persons involved that they must end the relationship immediately. The following reasons can be used to appeal to the conscience of the persons involved:
o The affair is a grave sin and seriously diminishes and erodes one’s character.
o One becomes a cause of sin of the other partner.
o Marital vows are broken and injustice is committed against innocent spouses.
o There is the risk of grave scandal that would hurt the families involved, as well as the larger community
o The character formation and the psychological well-being of children in the affected families would be adversely affected.
o A married adulterer is being unjust to an unmarried partner making him/her settle for a second-class and immoral relationship when he/she properly deserves a committed and authentic relationship with a person who is free to marry. If one truly cares for this person, one should set that person free to find a real committed relationship.
When advising an unmarried participant in adultery, urge him or her to cease the relationship with the following reasons:
o “You deserve something better than this inauthentic relationship. You deny yourself authentic happiness and fulfillment because you settle for a relationship that violates your dignity as a person.”
o “Any promises of love from your married sexual partner are basically inauthentic if he or she is not free to marry.”
o “You may be a victim of exploitation and manipulation by being a sexual partner of a person who is not free to make a fill commitment to you.”
o “If you bear a child in this relationship, consider the harm it would cause to this child if he or she discovers the truth of your relationship.”
• If a married person ends an adulterous relationship and commits one’s self not to do it again, the person need not tell his or her spouse about the past adultery if this admission would only harm the marital relationship and hurt the spouse.
• If there are any marital problems that led to the adultery, professional marital counseling should be sought.
• If the present marriage is irreparable and there are grounds for a civil/church annulment, advise the person to get an annulment first before seeking a new relationship.
• If there are children from the adulterous relationship, some form of support, if possible, should still be provided by the biological father.
2. SpousalfMarital Rape
• Spousal or marital rape is non-consensual sexual assault in which the perpetrator is the victim’s spouse. It is a form of domestic violence.
[1] ‘Philip S. Keane, Sexual Morality: A Catholic Perspective (New York: Paulist Press, 1977), 117-118, cited in Genovesi, In Pursuit of Love, 242.
[2] Genovesi, In Pursuit of Love, 242
[3] Genovesi, In Pursuit of Love, 242-243
[4] See Nicholas Halligan, The ministry of the Celebration of the Sacraments. vol. 3, Sacraments of Community renewal: Holy Orders and Matrimony (New York: Mba, 1974), 199 and also Joseph Bird and Lois Bird, The Freedom of Sexual Love(Garden City. New York: Doubleday, 1967), 177-178, cited in Genovesi, In Pursuit of Love, 243.
[5] Genovesi, In Pursuit of Love, 243.
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