Chastity in Marriage

Vatican II

Excerpts from Gaudium et Spes: The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World.

CHAPTER I Fostering the Nobility of Marriage and the Family

§ 47

The excellence of this institution is not everywhere reflected with equal brilliance, since polygamy, the plague of divorce, so-called free love and other disfigurements have an obscuring effect. In addition, married love is too often profaned by excessive self-love, the worship of pleasure and illicit practices against human generation. ...

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The intimate partnership of married life and love has been established by the Creator and qualified by His laws, and is rooted in the jugal covenant of irrevocable personal consent. Hence by that human act whereby spouses mutually bestow and accept each other a relationship arises which by divine will and in the eyes of society too is a lasting one. For the good of the spouses and their off-springs as well as of society, the existence of the sacred bond no longer depends on human decisions alone. For, God Himself is the author of matrimony, endowed as it is with various benefits and purposes.1

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Frequently Asked Questions about Marital Relations

Q: Why is it that two people of the same sex who love each other cannot get married?

A: They do not have complementary bodies and cannot produce children by a natural sexual act. Married couples should love one another (not having the proper sexual desire and personal affection for one's partner may be grounds for an annulment), but that is not the essential foundation for marriage policy in the eyes of the Church.

Q: Aren't heterosexual couples who sterilize themselves by surgery or other artificial methods engaging in the same kind of hedonism as same-sex couples?

A: Yes. Those who separate sexual pleasure from the potential for procreation by surgery, medication, barrier methods, anal sex, oral sex, mutual masturbation, early withdrawal, and the like, are, like those who engage in same-sex behavior, acting contrary to nature.

Q: Are heterosexual couples who are incapable of conceiving children prohibited from having sex?

A: No. All couples eventually become sterile through the natural processes of aging. All couples go through sterile phases during every cycle of fertility and infertility. Married couples may legitimately use the non-fertile times to express their love for each other and to re-create the marriage bond so long as the sexual act itself retains its integrity (the husband ejaculates within the wife's vagina, with no artificial barriers to conception).

Q: Does the Church demand that couples use the missionary position?

A: No. Anything goes for foreplay and for afterplay; no sexual postures, times, or places are prescribed or prohibited before or after consummation of the natural act using the sexual organs appropriately (ejaculation within the vagina). Care should be taken not to scandalize children or neighbors, of course; the intimate activity between husband and wife is for their eyes and ears only.

Q: So married couples can't substitute oral or anal sex for vaginal sex?

A: No. Oral sex in foreplay or afterplay is acceptable so long as the consummation of play is natural. The sole biological purpose of the clitoris is to make women feel good. The wise and loving husband should find out what pleases his wife and should be sure to make sex as enjoyable for her as it is for him. "Happy wife, happy life."

This is the theme of the second part of Bishop Karol Wojtyla's book, Sex and Responsibility (Wojtyla later became Pope John Paul II). He notes the finding of sex therapists that, as a general rule, men get aroused and reach climax far faster than women. Men tend to be satisfied quickly and focus on genital activity; women tend to want an engagement of the whole person (body, mind, and feelings). For most women, intimate conversation is as essential to them as bodily pleasure is to men.

Q: Doesn't the Church teach that every act of married love is infected by sin?

No. Consummation of the vows is essential to the sacrament of marriage. The gift of married love is from God--He designed us "male and female," in His own image and likeness (Gen 1:26-27), and intended the pleasure of union between husband and wife to make them "one flesh" (Gen 2:??).

St Augustine, a man who had two mistresses and who fathered a child out of wedlock with one of them, understood from personal experience that there is always a temptation to take one's own pleasure in a selfish manner at the expense of the good of one's spouse. Spouses know this reality from their own experience. Achieving real love in the act of love requires growth in selflessness. Growth comes from "learning by doing." Practice makes perfect, and the act of love proper to marriage is something that is good even when it is not perfect.

It is true that all human beings, with the exception of Jesus and Mary, are born in a state of Original Sin. This is not a consequence of obeying God's command to "be fruitful and multiply" (Gen 1:??). God designed the human body for intimate relations and crowned the marriage act with the power to bring great joy to the couple. It is not sinful for the couple to enjoy God's gift of bodily union nor is Original Sin caused in the children by the pleasure of their parents in conceiving them.

Q: Do couples have to strive to get pregnant every time they have intercourse?

No. This is a straw man used by anti-Catholics to discredit the Church's authentic teachings (cf. Monty Python, among many others).

Every act of married love must be a natural act. It must be open to procreation. If the couple chooses to express their love during a fertile time, they accept that there is a good chance that a child will result from their union. However, they may also become aware of the natural cycle of fertility and infertility and use the naturally occurring infertile periods to re-create and intensify their bond of union. Taking pleasure from one another and giving pleasure to each other is a proper use of the power of sex in marriage.