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Section One - Conjugal Society

Chapter 1

The nature of conjugal society

983. The object of every right is some good,(3) and the value of every good is ultimately a gratifying feeling.(4) The object and matter of every right therefore is a pleasant feeling in human nature. This explains why right is called `natural'.

What then is the pleasant, natural feeling to which the rights of conjugal society are referred?

984. Human beings are not sufficient to themselves;(5) they continually feel the need to unite to themselves beings different from themselves. They do this in their own feeling, in which they themselves are the feeling principle. This FACT, furnished by interior observation, can be stated as follows: `Human beings seek to unite to themselves beings different from themselves.' Because every human being is one and identical, we see in each human being a continual tendency to reduce plurality to unity. Plurality reduced to unity pleases the contemplating understanding, relative to which it is called `beauty'; plurality reduced to unity in the feeling pleases the feeling, relative to which it is called `eudaimonological good'. Beauty is plurality reduced to unity in the world of ideas; eudaimonological good is plurality reduced to unity in the world of reality.

985. We want to unite with ourselves in the simplicity of our essential feeling all beings without exception. They can be classified as follows.

986. Some are simply things; others, persons and intellective natures. Uniting things to ourselves produces the particular fact of ownership;(6) uniting persons to ourselves produces the particular fact of society, especially conjugal society. Marriage unifies not things but natures and human persons. The character of this unification receives light from the following considerations.

987. Morality can tend only to intelligent objects. As human beings we communicate with God and our fellow human beings; both therefore are the objects of our moral duties.(7) These divine and human intelligent natures, the objects of morality, are also the natures we ceaselessly seek in many ways to unite to ourselves completely in order to make ourselves greater and achieve happiness. Union with the divine nature and its appurtenances constitutes theocratic society; the complete union of human beings with their fellows is the end of conjugal society. In both societies there is a feeling of happiness or of special contentment.

988. Granted this, we must compare these two societies and show how theocratic society, although absolute, allows for conjugal society on earth, and how, according to the Creator's plan, a very close association of the human race had to be formed through both.

989. How can theocratic and conjugal society, two basic societies arising directly from human nature, exist together?

990. The common good of theocratic society is universal being.

When joined to the spirit in the constitution of human beings, being is light. In it, everybody possesses the identical truth and the identical rule for reasoning and living. But this natural light, resplendent in all people and constituting their rule of thought and life, does not, despite its supreme dignity, proffer a real-infinite good. Consequently, society, which is founded in the community of this good, is initial and incomplete (cf. RGC, 668-678).

However, God wanted human beings to enjoy a complete society. For this purpose he graciously gave them a kind of perception of himself, raising them to himself and transposing them into a region superior to all nature. Being, as known by us by nature, that is, being solely in its ideal form, became feelable by us through grace, which is being in its ideal-real form, God. Hence, all those who receive this gift which is not only divine (like the first) but also deiform, possess in common the supreme good. In this way theocratic society attained its completion; the kingdom of God was founded (cf. RGC, 694-711). A true society was established between God and mankind.(8)

991. God, the infinite good, could certainly communicate himself to human beings so completely that all their activity would be absorbed in him. In this case, no other society would be possible. Human beings would find in God not only every hoped-for, final good but every immediate, present good. This is precisely what God does in heaven. Consequently conjugal society, which cannot be fully fused into deiform society, ceases; a human being in heaven is like an angel of God.(9) The Creator however did not wish to accomplish this all at once; on the contrary, because he wanted to communicate himself to human beings by degrees, he first placed them in a wayfaring state on earth.

992. Nevertheless, even on earth we see that whenever God communicates more of himself to human beings, conjugal society becomes less necessary relative to its material consummation; out of respect for deiform society it withdraws, as it were, from human beings. In the earthly paradise where God was close to humanity, the man did not feel the need to consummate his union with the virgin given him as companion. Similarly, in the Church of JESUS Christ, as soon as God had once more abundantly communicated himself to human beings, great numbers of them, of both sexes, magnanimously and with pure intention, made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven.(10) Conjugal society is possible only on earth because God does not spiritualise human beings sufficiently by communicating himself completely to them. Although he makes himself present to the intellect in a feelable way, he does so as in a mirror or enigma.(11) In this condition and state, human beings are united in their higher part to God while remaining material in their lower part. With the former they can adhere to theocratic society as to their end; with their lower part they can adhere to conjugal society, which, by offering many opportunities for practising virtue, becomes the meritorious means for their fullest union with God.

993. Conjugal society can in another way become a means for completing theocratic society. It is the source of the growth of the human species which, by consummating conjugal union, comes to subsist in many individuals. So the human race comes into being, and human nature enters, or can enter, into theocratic society with all the individuals in whom this society is destined to reveal and actuate itself. Thus, marriage contains something elevated that moved the Redeemer of the human race to raise it to the dignity of a sacrament.

994. According to God's intentions, as he has revealed them, the human race would not have been subject to death if it had not sinned. In this case, mankind, as first planned, would have formed not only a single, theocratic society, but a single, domestic society, a very suitable means to the theocratic society with which it would have ultimately merged, like a river flowing into the sea.(12)

995. Let us examine more closely the nature of conjugal society. I said that its foundation is the total union of one human being with another.
The union of one human being with another is the foundation and object of every friendship, even between persons of the same sex. But between persons of different sex, a fuller and altogether special union is possible. This union, effected exclusively between human persons of different sex, forms the object of love and the end of the conjugal society which results from it.

996. The intimacy and fullness of the union between one human being and another, as realised in conjugal society considered in its perfection,(13) is better clarified if we see that in it:

1. All the friendship and union possible, according to upright nature, between human beings of the same sex is first presupposed.

2. The intimacy and greater union which is possible between human beings of different sex but not possible between people of the same sex is added to the previous union. This final manner of union becomes the specific, characteristic difference of conjugal society.

Let us investigate both these elements.

997. According to upright reason, husband and wife are two human beings who unite with all the fullness realisable between persons of different sex. This is the true concept of marriage.

998. We note first therefore that sexual union, of itself, does not constitute conjugal society; sexual union requires and presupposes every other union possible between human persons.(14)

999. In order to understand clearly the exalted nature of conjugal society and have a correct, complete notion of it, we must use upright reason to examine the total extent of the union between two persons of different sex. In my effort to do this, I will first investigate the bonds which can bind one human being with another, even of the same sex; this will indicate the first necessary, preliminary element of marriage. I will then investigate the nature proper to the union of the sexes.

1000. Legitimate affections which bind human beings together can be fittingly classified into two groups: 1. inborn or spontaneous, which are calm and constant; 2. aroused, which are vehement and subject to change. Although we may hardly be aware of the first kind, they are sometimes suddenly aroused; for example, when someone who is the object of our habitual affections is in danger, we begin to feel our love: the thought of what may happen, the fear of loss, makes us reflect upon ourselves and we become very much aware of what we have, compared with what we may lose. Spontaneous affections are therefore the foundation and root of aroused affections. If the latter are not founded upon spontaneous affections as a development and further actuation of them, they flare up and die, or are the hypocritical, false product of selfishness; they are no longer generated by the great faculty of love, the modest mother of all true affection. I will list the inborn, spontaneous affections, therefore, in which aroused affections are included in embryo.

1001. The first good that human beings have in common is ideal being. From this being we are all free to deduce the same concepts, the same principles of reasoning, the same knowledge (cf. RGC, 641).

Furthermore, although this common good produces some kind of society of intellects united in identical truth, the society of human persons begins only when their wills are uniform in the same good (cf. RGC, 664-667).
Every human soul, however, has an inborn tendency to love known being, so that every entity becomes a degree of good for the soul.
Because we all have in common the knowledge of being, we all have love for it in common, and because loved being is a good for the one who loves it, all human beings have the same first good as object of their inborn affection.

In this way, as we said, an initial divine society is formed between all human beings. It is a divine society because the bond forming it (the light of truth) is divine.
The first foundation of conjugal society (cf. RGC, 662-663) therefore must be love of identical truth which reigns equally over the intellects of the spouses. Contrariwise, a will that opposes truth destroys the first golden link in the conjugal union.

1002. Human souls possess the same source of truth. This means that they have the same rules for making judgments and governing their lives, and can have the same knowledge. It is natural therefore for them to agree in their judgments about, knowledge of and affections towards known beings in proportion to the value of the beings. Diversity can arise in the way they deduce truths from the same identical first source and in the knowledge resulting from these deductions. But if, however, they strive uprightly and honestly for their intellectual and moral development as they should, no contradiction whatsoever is possible in their cognitions, affections and desires. Uniformity of thoughts and opinions together with agreement of affections and desires is for the soul a treasure of inestimable value. It is impossible to estimate the peaceful joy that can come from the possession of such a rich, totally spiritual treasure, or to realise how much minds and hearts may be intimately united in it.

1003. If this complete agreement, dependent simply on the fact that souls are united in this way, diffuses in them warmth of affection (pertaining to what we have called inborn and spontaneous affections), it is clear that people with this warmth and affections can nurture and increase them without limit, and change them into aroused affections, as we have called them, which form a second golden link uniting the spouses prior to their final union.

1004. Inborn, spontaneous affections are therefore necessary to conjugal society. Aroused affections, on the other hand, properly ordered, are good for it as accidental ornaments, and help in a wonderful way to increase the perfection and felt happiness of conjugal togetherness.

1005. Although human beings have the same source of truth in their minds, and in their hearts the same tendency to love everything, two or more individuals may not only differ in knowledge and affections (which does not however destroy their uniformity of thought and love) but contradict each other in opinions and affections. This makes full agreement impossible. The general cause is false reasoning which, instead of simply following the dictates of truth, acts waywardly and follows the dictates of passion. It is clear therefore on the one hand that virtue is necessary to conjugal society, and on the other that all vice and immorality harms, wounds or even tears apart this society which seeks the fullest union of two intellective, moral creatures.

1006. To understand this more deeply, we must recall that reason is guided by the will, as we have shown elsewhere. If the will is simple and pure, it leads reason to discover truth; if sunk in evil passions, it leads reason to invent falsehood for itself.(15) Reason (called `practical' in so far as it is moved by the will), generates of itself reasonable or unreasonable affections, and initiates good or culpable external actions. But because truth is one, and falsehood multiple, the legitimate course of reasoning unites spirits in agreement, while the illegitimate divides them by disagreement. Every moral defect and evil desire that vitiates reason prejudices the loving character of conjugal society which, as the most intimate and full union of two intelligent creatures, requires or tends to full agreement. Conjugal society therefore needs the state necessary for this agreement, that is, it needs uprightness in the wills which direct the understandings. From all this we can justly infer that conjugal society is essentially moral, and that whatever deviates from virtue reduces or removes the union between the two intellective beings.

1007. A person who with his will, that is, with his whole self, adheres to known beings in accord with their comparative worth, feels peace and has pure enjoyment in beings. Moreover, he feels himself enhanced by such simple, ordered affections. With his assent he receives into himself the order of beings, and lovingly conforms himself to it. His sharing in and love of this order, this innermost enhancement, is called moral dignity. All these good things which we acquire by practising virtue form therefore a new bond for two souls who posses them in common. Indeed, the thing that two virtuous souls possess in common is the same order of being, to which they adhere with their whole self. This order according to which they love beings is identical and therefore a unifying bond. On the other hand, the awareness of their uprightness together with the peace and joy that arises and, as it were, wells up in them from love of real beings in accord with the ideal order are not, properly speaking, identical good things because the feelings of one soul are, we must acknowledge, numerically distinct from the feelings of another. Nevertheless they are good things of the same species and are therefore enjoyed in common, in intimate society, according to their species. The same must be said about the moral dignity acquired by an intelligent creature through the practice of virtue.

1008. But this is not sufficient: these good things proceeding from virtue are indeed common in their species to virtuous friends, and proper numerically speaking to each friend, whose virtue produces them for himself. Lovers, however, have another way of enjoying them in common, whether these goods are considered identical, or proper to each lover (although they do not enjoy them in the same way). Here, we have something of great virtue and almost a miracle of love. As we have seen, intellective nature brings with itself a universal faculty of love, a faculty which relates to every being which, as being, is essentially lovable to the person who knows it. Consequently, it is clear that two intelligent beings can love each other. In this love, each loves all that is in the other, every part and every endowment of the other; every good and pleasure of the other is loved, together with the peace, joy and dignity proper to the other. All these things are loved in the beloved according to their intrinsic merit, that is, limitlessly. Hence, the love for one another's virtue and the resultant affections become the principle of the moral esteem found in lovers, and particularly in spouses, who are perfect lovers. This moral esteem is another sweet and powerful bond uniting their souls.

1009. All these tender bonds between human creatures proceed naturally from the possession of truth and the practice of virtue. The more they intermingle and strengthen each other, the greater the increase of the soul's willing adhesion to all real beings. This adhesion is in proportion to the comparative value of the real beings, which is revealed by comparing them to the order of being contemplated by the intelligent soul in the idea. Moral virtue is reduced to this adhesion. But among real beings there is a supreme being, relative to which all the others are nothing. Neither intelligence alone nor nature gives us direct communication with this being. Intelligence indicates it only negatively, as the necessary but totally inaccessible cause of the universe. But if it comes down, draws close to us and makes itself perceptible, we can really adhere to infinite Being. God becomes a completely social good, common to all, and those who possess him become one in the enjoyment of this good.

Here we have the religious bond, the complement of the previous bonds. Its function is to bind two human creatures who, united to one another by every possible union, finally fuse in the single union called marriage. Supernatural religion therefore elevates marriage above nature, binding spouses by the supreme bond, that is, by charity, and divinising their union. Through this bond God himself enters as a third member into their society: God becomes the common good both of himself and of the spouses. In this way, and granted the sublimity, nobility and consistency of the charity of Christ, the words of the great teacher of Hippo are justified:
With this love we love one another and God. Nor could we truly love one another without God. If we love God, we love our neighbour as ourselves. If we do not love God, we do not love ourselves.(16)

St. Augustine then adds that St. Paul makes charity a fruit of the spirit:

He sees the other things as issuing from and bound with this fruit: joy, peace, long-suffering, benignity, goodness, faith, gentleness, continence, chastity,(17) each of which is an invaluable good in Christian marriage.
Because the Christ of God came to give human beings the precept of charity and strength to fulfil it, it was also fitting that he should elevate to the nature of a sacrament the society intended to realise but unable to attain perfect love; it was fitting that his charity should divinise conjugal society and adorn it with sublime virtue.

Being (truth), the order of being as the rule of the affections (moral law), and God as perceptible to human beings are each a good of infinite value. People who love them in common are more united in soul than they are by mere accidents. Their souls, in their intellective and volitive parts, have a common centre, where intelligences have their true place. But communion in finite good also binds human persons together.

1010. First, human beings love themselves with subjective love, which reveals to them both what human nature is, and the goodness of that nature in others. They then love human nature as an object, which is always known as good wherever they see human nature, that is, in all their fellows. This second love is objective, evaluative love. But they love the human nature in their fellows also subjectively and instinctively, that is, they love their own likeness in them, they love themselves. This subjective love of others is spontaneous and natural; it colours and as it were gives flesh to the first love which is moral and virtuous. Hence, there is a double love, composed of the affection and virtue which we call `humanity', and the Greeks, filanqropia.

1011. If `humanity' means the affection human beings have for others in general, that is, if we limit the object of this affection to human nature considered in its essence and in the totality of its parts, the affection is unique and specifically different from all others.

1012. If however we group under `humanity' all those affections whose object is everything in human nature, including what is purely accidental, humanity is a multiple affection and applies not only to the whole of human nature in its totality but to individual parts. In addition to nature's essential conditions, humanity also loves what is accessory, that is, its acquired embellishments; it is, as it were, a trunk whose branches are different affections that reach to all the different parts and endowments of human individuals.

1013. An affection exists therefore which relates to the essence of human nature, common to all individuals; it is humanity in its strict sense of fundamental affection. There are also affections relative to the natural or acquired accidental endowments of human nature, either of soul or body, or of the whole human being composed of soul and body. These are affections stemming from humanity.

1014. The accidental endowments of soul and body, rather than simple human essence, provide matter for more excellent, stronger affections, because all the endowments meriting greater evaluation and love (even the moral virtues themselves) are simply endowments accidental to nature.

1015. Moral dignity, which we have already discussed, is one such endowment; it originates in either natural or supernatural virtue. The human being embellished by supernatural virtue shares in the infinite worth of God himself, and becomes worthy of divine love, compared with which other affections disappear like stars before the light of the sun. This explains St. Augustine's acute observation, quoted earlier, that `anyone who does not love God does not love himself.' Those who love God have within themselves an object worthy of true love, because it is not a means to another love; they can love God in themselves with ultimate love. On the other hand, those whose only love is humanity, have such a miserable object that their affections cannot legitimately find satisfaction in it; they are compelled to search elsewhere for a more worthy end. Hence those who do not love God do not love themselves, precisely because their affection cannot, according to reason, find satisfaction in themselves. They love their fellows still less therefore, because they are accustomed to loving them simply as they love themselves.

1016. Hence, if conjugal union must be the maximum union resulting from all possible unions between two human beings, the spouses must also be united by the affection and virtue of humanity throughout the trunk and branches; each must love in their consort human nature and its endowments whether these are already in the consort or in order that they may be there.

1017. In these and the previous affections we must distinguish between the levels of inborn, spontaneous affections and aroused affections. Indeed, every being together with its endowments, that is, human nature with its endowments, attracts and sets in motion a first level of affection solely by presenting itself to the human spirit through experience and knowledge, provided the human being is not perverted or wayward, nor posits an impediment. As we said, this level of affection is spontaneous.

Aroused affection is the fire ignited from this first spark: just as a great blaze can be made by blowing on smouldering embers, so spontaneous affection is aroused, intensified and increased infinitely.

We must carefully note however, as I have already said, that this kind of effected arousal, which affects the human heart so diversely, so tenderly, so powerfully and sometimes so forcefully is not necessary to the concept of conjugal society. All that is necessary is the first level of affection, aroused of itself according to the law of spontaneity to which human nature is subject. All additions to this are what distinguishes the different levels of feelable happiness produced by the union of the spouses. Often, however, these additions present the gravest dangers to human weakness by disturbing the tranquillity of reason; the weakness of the understanding is incapable of guiding the ship borne along by strong winds.

1018. We must speak about another class of affections, pure love, by which I mean love that loves itself. This is love at its most exquisite and consummated in the order of affections.

1019. Love loved by itself is passive and active, because the loving being loves to be loved, and to love.
The sweetness experienced by the lover aware of being loved by the beloved is inexpressible. But clearly its degree depends upon the greatness of the love with which the lover knows he is loved in turn, upon the greatness of the being by whom he is loved, and upon the love borne for that being.

1020. Loving to love, the lover becomes beneficent. This most noble affection continually induces him to diffuse good, to produce again and again lovable enhancements in others, for the very purpose of increasing for himself the objects of his love and the possibility of greater love. Both benevolence and beneficence derive their power from this source.

1021. Speaking of beneficence, we must distinguish between giving others the good of existence and the good which perfects them.(18) We can be drawn to give existence to a being by the inborn affection which makes us want to provide an object for our own love (this is the origin of the affection of philogeniture). On the other hand, when there is no question of giving existence to a being who already has it but of perfecting it (an accidental good), we are drawn by the natural love we have for subsistent being, or more accurately for its essence contemplated in reality, which shows us what is needed for its final endowment.(19) Because we naturally love every being, we naturally love that a being, or the essence we love in the being, attain the final state to which it is destined, without defect and with all its endowments.

It seems therefore that we are drawn by good nature to help and perfect beings in two ways:

1. By natural, essential love, which draws us to adhere spontaneously to all the entities we know. Hence our desire that the beings we know conform to their archetype, a desire which is accompanied by our effort and industry to bring them to their most perfect form, that is, to help them.

2. By our desire to have in them objects more worthy of our love, that is, more suitable for being loved by us, granted our connatural inclination as affective beings to love as much as possible.

1022. But these reasons which initially seem two are in fact one when considered more deeply. As we have indicated, the tendency to love proceeds from the ontological relationship between beings and spirit according to which `all beings are naturally lovable to intelligence'. This explains the general tendency, which however manifests itself under two forms: 1. the tendency to love already existent beings, and 2. the tendency to want them perfect, that is, more complete in their entity so that they are more lovable. Both these tendencies are reduced to the general tendency for loving or, as we have called it, our love of active love. Hence, two human beings who seek to be united in the most perfect, fullest union of all possible unions must be joined by this most pure affection considered under both forms, this affection which moves us to love solely for the sake of loving.

1023. Summarising all the kinds of affection we have discussed, we can reduce them to three branches, all drawn from a single source as follows.

Being is in itself lovable to the affective, intellective spirit to which it communicates itself. This relationship, which we have called ontological, makes being `good'. Being, however, has three primitive, inconfusable forms: ideal, real and moral. Hence the three basic tendencies and fundamental branches of all human affections.

1024. These basic forms however, although categorically distinct, are united in being itself. This explains the intertwining and mingling of the three different kinds of affection, which in turn generates other complex affections whose object is being, actuated in all its forms.

1025. Ideal being is truth and the source of:

1. The tendency to truth (ideality).
2. The tendency to knowledge (known realities).
3. The tendency to virtue (adhesion of the spirit to known realities according to the order of ideality).

1026. Real being is feeling and the source of:

1. The tendency to love ourselves in a felt way, and to love ourselves in proportion to our worth. Hence the capacity to love others in a felt way, which is founded in the capacity to love ourselves.
2. The tendency to love our fellows (humanity), and to love them in proportion to their likeness to us (affection for those who have fellow-feeling with us), and in proportion to the endowments they have (moral evaluation, etc.).
3. The tendency to love beings greater than ourselves, and to love infinite being known through the way of eminence.(20)

1027. Moral being is feeling regulated by truth. It is love in all its purity: universal, passive and active. Hence fellow-feeling, benevolence, beneficence, etc.

1028. Finally, absolute being is simultaneously ideal, real and moral. It takes up in itself the perfection and summit of every affection of intellective, volitive creatures. In Scripture it is called CHARITY.(21) It is the most sublime bond, the most exquisite union of human wills, which binds, perfects, and consummates all others.

1029. The affections discussed so far can be said to be of rational origin, although they consist of feelings whose effects reach down to animality through the wonderful identity, in human beings, of the intellective and animal principles.

Considering only the rational origin of affections, we could suppose the possibility of full consent and a perfect uniformity of thought between two human beings.(22) Now however we must consider affections of another nature, in which human beings cannot be equal and work in unison, as it were. Indeed, the accidental variations in our bodies depend not on us but on nature itself, and lack an immutable, uniform condition. It is the affections originating from the body that we now wish to discuss.

Human bodies certainly have a similar design and nature, making them all a single human species. But they also have many accidental variations: differences of sex and, within the same sex, of organisation, temperament and perfection of life. These variations, especially if further developed by education, alter the character, degree and composition of tendencies and inclinations common to the human race, and to some extent appearances. They also exercise extraordinary influence in the formation of the different characteristics in people. But do these variations, these instinctive, and as it were, contrary feelings among human beings necessarily reduce the intimacy of their union?

1030. We must distinguish. These differences, which stem from the physico-moral condition of human individuals, divide into three classes:

1. Those contrary to nature: defectiveness.
2. Accidental limitations to which nature is subject.
3. Those according to nature, that is, the different endowments and conditions of nature itself.

1031. If the differences among human beings are contrary to nature, they certainly do harm to others and consequently reduce per se the closeness of the union between people.

1032. However they do not always have the effect of reducing love. We must recall pure love which we discussed previously. We called its function `love of active love', which is itself either a merely spontaneous or an aroused affection. Clearly, defects in nature reduce love in those individuals who have only spontaneous love, but not always in those who have pure, aroused love. Aroused affection acquires indefinite virtue; thus, the lover can love the defective person with compassion, benevolence and beneficence in the person's very defects. I say `in the person's very defects' because such love finds an opportunity of exercise in the defects, for which it shows compassion and seeks a remedy.

1033. We see therefore how pure love is indispensable to the conjugal union, if the union is to be full. From such love the union derives mutual tolerance of and support for defects. This is often required by the mutual duty of human beings who must, and do wish to live together for the duration of life.(23)

1034. Accidental limitations considered on their own and taken individually tend to diminish love.

1035. This is not always the case if they are distributed differently between two individuals. Differences of limitations can cause discord, but also harmony. When two people unite, the differences harmonise excellently if what is lacking in one is present in the other and can be enjoyed by both. This can happen even when defects are present. For example, we can see the advantages when a blind person carries a cripple: the cripple indicates the way to the blind person who helps the cripple to walk. This can make them very close friends. A collective person therefore can sometimes be made perfect even when composed of imperfect individuals. The good possessed by one individual becomes a good for them all, and the gifts of some reciprocally correct the defects of others. This must indeed be the principal reason why human beings sense the need and value of human society. Divine Providence unites human beings by the variety of their gifts so that they are mutually helpful or necessary to each other.

1036. It seems therefore that it is this diversity which principally causes the hidden attraction shown between certain persons which makes one person happy to be with another, but not with everybody. Those concerned cannot explain the happiness to themselves because their extraordinary harmony is the result of many little endowments and defects which escape their consciousness. This harmony and affinity of feeling, when established between two persons, is produced by the combination of many other causes. The following are a few.

1037. Different needs require suitable objects for their satisfaction. If everybody had the same need, sufficient objects might be lacking. People would be unhappy together, stressed and suffering. On the other hand, if needs are different, no one commandeers the object required by another; individuals live peacefully together. For example, two dishes are prepared. One appeals to a particular person, the other to another. Both people are in total agreement because their appetites differ. If they both liked and wanted the same dish, and rejected the second, they would have to be satisfied with only half a portion each. Human feeling, we see, senses very early and, as it were, foresees the presence of an infinite number of very small defects or satisfactions in the company it may encounter; above all it would sense the presence of the mortifications and satisfactions of its self-love. These minute presentiments are present in the natural choice, affinity or harmony (or whatever we call it) of the feeling under discussion.

1038. The following is another cause of this preferential choice. As we have said, a relationship of appropriateness, not uniformity, exists between needs, and the objects suitable for satisfying the needs. A subject's disposition to enjoy a thing (tendency) or avoid a nuisance (need), and thus possess the relative object, presupposes a difference rather than an equality between the subject's defect and the object needed to remedy the situation. Appropriateness does not usually exist between equal but between unequal things which harmonise, just as a convex body fits into and is contiguous with a concave body. This is the case between two human beings made for each other. If one is to find himself in the other in such a way that his needs are satisfied, the other must possess certain qualities which, although different from those of the first person, must be proportionate and adapted to them. Thus, in things of the spirit, a person who wishes to command must derive pleasure from humble people ready to be commanded. On the other hand, those who feel the need to be directed by others are naturally content that someone more zealous and wise should command and direct them. Equivalent harmonious differences can be observed in animal tendencies: a strong person is more likely to be matched by a gentle person than another strong person, just as the gentle find more pleasure in the strong. The same can be said about other affinities and relationships; although arising from accidental differences, they are mutually appropriate.

1039. Agreement and disagreement can be found at different times among the variations caused by natural accidental limitations. As I have said, this results principally from feelings of propinquity or repugnance between individuals. However, some exquisite appropriateness is always present between variations integral to human nature. All these variations are directed by nature to uniting the persons who possess them.

Hence the different ages of human life temper each other very well. It is delightful to see old people join in the games of the very young, and have the comfort of robust maturity.
Sex is the chief amongst these different, natural conditions which make one person very suited to another; I must speak about it now.

1040. We have distinguished between affections of spiritual origin and those of animal origin. We examined the former one by one, but limited ourselves to noting that the second vary, and made a summary classification of their variations. We wanted to speak more specifically about them when dealing with the principal affection to which Providence has entrusted the maintenance of the human species.

1041. Affections that are partly or wholly of animal origin can be reduced to three classes: 1. feelable, 2. sensuous and 3. sexual affections.

1042. We reduce feelable affections to all those that combine something spiritual with something animal. The animal part, however, is so small that we are hardly aware of it. The spiritual part therefore is more dominant.

1043. These affections are:

1. Affections of pleasurable admiration generated by bodily beauty.

2. Affections aroused whenever we see in another's appearance or movements, as if in a mirror, a beautiful soul, dignified virtue, and loving, noble feelings. This kind of affection is nurtured particularly by courteous speech, which indicates more clearly the gifts of spirit shining through bodily forms, and by refined, humbly dignified, gracious manners. Affections produced by the attraction of `grace' pertain to this class.

3. Affections which are sometimes suddenly enkindled between two people through a kind of mysterious attraction drawing them to love each other without their being able to explain this attraction to themselves. They quickly feel a hidden, reciprocal appropriateness in each other. They feel themselves bound by tender emotions and conquered by a fusion of delicate, indiscernible feelings which are suddenly aroused by apposite, harmonious and sympathetic dispositions. Some of these affections belong to the two previous classes of 1. beauty (although relative, partial beauty, because one can fall in love even with deformed people) and of 2. the reflection of a beautiful soul seen in the features of the body.

1044. When all these mixed affections change from inborn spontaneous affections to aroused affections and reach a certain degree of intensity, they are called `love' in the strict sense, and constitute what has been called `platonic love'.

1045. This kind of love is certainly harmful to the perfection of virtue because, in the present human condition, it binds the soul, taking away from it the freedom to give itself to good wherever good may be. Instead, it restricts itself to a single object, and, blinded to better objects, fixes itself exclusively on it, as Petrarch observed about himself:

1046. This affection is caused not only by people of the opposite sex, but even by those of one's own sex. It explains the Greeks' esteem for love of children. This kind of love, even if considered safe from impurity (although it can easily become impure), is always defective, as I have said; it is a passion that clouds the understanding and binds the will unjustly to some small good. The lover of Alexis quite rightly exclaimed: `Ah! Corydon, Corydon, what madness has seized you!'(25) When such love becomes incontinence, forsaking its first genuine form, it is totally detestable to human beings.

1047. Feelable affection is co-terminous with sensuous affection. Consequently, when the former reaches a certain degree of intensity, the human being passes very easily to the latter.

1048. I call `sensuous' the affection engendered by mutual proximity and innocent physical contacts of persons of the opposite or same sex when in conversation with each other, or by their imagining the pleasure from such situations. The affection is reduced therefore to a desire or tendency to renew such pleasures.

1049. Not every pleasure caused by bodily contact is referred per se to the generative organs. In fact we can see that movements relative to generation are entirely sui generis. The animal arouses them in itself through a kind of spontaneous activity different from every other kind, so that the purely physical and mechanical movement of the sexual organs can sometimes be separate from the generative, organic movement, while at other times it is united with and serves it, according to the nature of the internal activity or the external force producing it.

1050. We clearly see therefore how this principle of generative activity, residing in the imagination, would be subject to the dominion of free will, granted that the human being is in an integral and perfect state in nature (even if he were not raised to the supernatural state). In this state, no external stimulus suitable for moving the genital parts physically could excite any generative movement against the will of the person himself. Such a person would not be prevented from carrying out all other necessary bodily movements, which would be incapable of causing disorder in him. I find evidence for this in the experience of continent persons who know very well how the dominion of their will can frequently not only deny consent to base sensations but very often directly obstruct the sensations themselves. The fact that people can sometimes, but not always, achieve this demonstrates that a dynamic, physical bond of seigniory and dependence obtains between the will and the generative movement. Because this connection is rather weak in the state of fallen, corrupt mankind, we must attribute to the original infection the present diminution of the power which the energy of the human will has over the lowest parts of our animality.(26)

1051. Bodily contact can of its nature give pleasant feelings different from sexual feelings, and the movement producing them need not pertain to generative movement. Acts of this kind are touches of the hand, embraces, innocent kisses, etc. There is mystery and communication of life in a kiss, but this is not the place to investigate it. We must carefully observe however that, although the above-mentioned sensations do not of their nature involve generative movement, they harmonise with it in such a way that they easily arouse its active principle to produce it, granted, as we said, the weakness of the superior part of the human being in his present fallen and feeble state. The path from sensual to sexual affection is therefore highly slippery, and sometimes inevitable.

1052. Whenever sensual affection (which is possible even between persons of the same sex) reaches a certain degree of intensity, it is called `sensual love' and is really a preparation for sexual or physical love. The preparation can in fact be so proximate that it generates the need for physical love, to which it stimulates the human being to blindly give way. Hence, between persons of the same sex it is disordered and wrong. It is also disordered and wrong between persons of opposite sex, unless they are bound or bind themselves by legitimate marriage.

1053. Finally, sexual affection unites the two sexes with the intention of generation. This affection is so proper to them that it is physically impossible between persons of the same sex.

1054. Every sexual movement therefore that does not have generative union between spouses as its immediate end is an opprobrious disorder, contrary to the intention of nature and to the Creator's will. It is abhorrent to human instinct itself (when this has not been debased and become degenerate) and is reproved by human and divine law.

1055. It may be objected, but vainly, that pleasures which are naturally possible must sometimes be allowed because they are established by a wise Creator who did not make anything useless in nature. I reply:

1. For the upright human being there are no sexual pleasures outside marriage. There may be pleasures for the animal, but not for the complete human being who is not only animal but principally rational and moral, and to whom every disordered pleasure is supremely hateful, abominable and painful. The hatred and pain overcome the pleasure so that they remove the nature of pleasure and make it a torment: as I said, every disordered pleasure is rejected by the moral-human instinct which loves the contrary virtue above everything else. Those who seek such pleasures are distorted and drawn outside their own nature.(27)

2. Sexual pleasures between persons of the same sex (which an upright person will never want) are a sort of necessary consequence of the sexual tendency, whose legitimate mode of satisfaction is however in honest marriage. This consequence results from the limitation inherent in animal nature. But, as we said, all the defects of this consequence considered physically are opposed in a human being by the existence of intelligence and of noble instincts, instincts which intelligence is born to produce and does produce, provided the human being is not damaged. In animals, however, who lack reason as a brake and moderating influence, the Creator provides that the sexual instinct does not suffer any misuse, except rarely, through some infirmity or damage to their physical inclinations.

1056. According to the Creator's most wise dispositions, the chief of all the different conditions of human nature is the difference between the sexes. The character of this difference is such that, far from impeding the full union of two human individuals through lack of uniformity, it accomplishes the union through diversity of form. The Creator has predisposed a wonderful appropriateness of form and organisation of one body to the other. The immediate cause of this cannot be found in a principle of reason but solely in the fact of animality, which according to its eternal concept is necessarily subject to such law and determination.

1057. The nature of sexual union, for which human nature is suitable in its lowest part, is not, I repeat, material, as if it could be achieved by the mere mechanical union of material parts. It is rather an activity of the active animal principle. This certainly operates in matter but with an action of its own that differs greatly from any mechanical operation.

1058. I remind the reader of what I have said elsewhere: the animal principle is simple, and is the soul itself.(28)
The act of sexual intercourse, in which generation takes place, is an act of the soul operating in bodies and through bodies.(29) The soul does not act through particular parts to the exclusion of others; the whole animal contributes to the act, especially the whole nervous system stimulated by the soul. The ancients themselves knew this.(30)

1059. In Anthropology as an Aid to Moral Science I gave as my opinion that the sensations (at least those of touch) which we have from an animate body are specifically different from those of an inanimate body. From the former we receive a communication of the soul itself which gives life to the body that produces the sensation in us.

1060. Individual life, it must be noted, has an expansive force communicable to the bodies it is able to invade. It certainly has a power to make them one with itself, as we see in nutrition and other phenomena.(31) We can have no great difficulty therefore in conceiving and admitting that a kind of communication of life takes place between two living bodies when they make contact; one body feels the very soul of the other body. This is particularly true in the case of lovers, where each would fuse totally with the other, if possible.

The channelling and communicating of life in this union is aided, or rather produced, by the spontaneous consent of the wills, that is, by the effort of the souls, the principles of animation. Sexual intercourse is certainly the most intimate of bodily unions: the two fundamental feelings seem for a moment to become one, so that the feeling of one is reciprocally the feeling of the other. No words can express this more effectively than those of Scripture which define marriage as: `And the two shall be in one flesh'.(32) Here the unity of the flesh must be understood as the unity of life by which the flesh is vivified and in which both individuals share. The union of the sexes is therefore a vital not a material union. In the act, which can last only a moment, life exercises the function by which it joins two living bodies in the way the parts of a single animated body are joined together: for example, the brain and heart of the same human being intercommunicate through organic, vital functions and make a single animal out of both.

1061. Although the other unions in marriage are presupposed and have even greater nobility, the sexual union is the final completion of marriage. The ordering of marriage to this union is the specific difference between it and all other unions possible to human beings.

1062. Ancient traditions said that the first parents of mankind were androgunoi(33) [androgynes] who were later separated. It was in fact logical that the propagated human species should consider its parents in the very act of generation, because in this act they are precisely androgunoi [androgynes], and generation and paternity begin.

1063. According to the eternal idea, the Creator so ordered animal nature that at the moment when sexual union reached its greatest degree of intimacy and the feeling soul of one partner tended with greater impetus to invade the bodily parts of the other, some particles should separate from the body of each, move towards one another and meet in a place suitable for maintaining their life. In the act of detachment, these particles are not only alive but at the highest degree of vital stimulation and, as it were, animated by double life.

After union they do not cease to live, even though partly divided from the individuals to whom they belong and from whom they were drawn by impetus of the souls that wished to unite. Through this division, the feeling preserved in them is no longer part of the feeling of the two individuals. They constitute therefore the first rudiments of a new animal destined to become a new human individual through communication of the light of God's face.(34)

1064. There is no more apt way of expressing this mysterious fact of generation than the phrase of divine Scripture in which the son of the parents is called their `spark'.(35)

1065. Conjugal society is a perfect union in accord with nature, a union between two human individuals of different sex. But one thing remains distinct in them: person. The spouses unite to form one nature out of two, but cannot form one person out of two. When God defined marriage saying that the spouses must be one flesh, he said simultaneously that they will be two in the one flesh, `THEY WILL BE TWO'.

1066. It is true that a kind of personal communication also exists between lovers, and therefore between spouses, in so far as one enjoys the personship of the other. But this kind of transfusion of persons neither intermingles them nor excludes their proper, inalienable being.

1067. If the affection we are discussing changes from a spontaneous to an aroused state, it produces a special loving phenomenon; it goes outside itself to the loved object. Petrarch indicates this:

1068. It is a mistake therefore to see in marriage only the lower, sexual part of the union. The good sense of ancient peoples had understood very well the totality of the union between two persons of different sex, that is, of marriage. The Romans wisely defined it: `The union of male and female, the sharing of all life, the communication of DIVINE and human right,'(37) and said that the wife `is accepted as companion in human matters and in the DIVINE HOUSE.(38) With wonderful foresight, the Romans included in marriage that divine society about which we have spoken and which we have posited as the foundation of marriage.

Notes

(3) Essence of Right, 252-255.

(4) ER, 332-339.

(5) Cf. Saggio sulla speranza in Apologetica.

(6) ER, 332-339.

(7) Principles of Ethics, 215-227.

(8) St. Thomas justifiably attributes the society of mankind with God to the supernatural order: `Nature loves God above all things in so far as he is the beginning and end of natural good. Charity loves him in so far as he is the object of bliss, and IN SO FAR AS MANKIND HAS A CERTAIN SPIRITUAL SOCIETY WITH GOD' (S.T., I-II, q. 109, art. 3, ad 1). Catholic theologians quite correctly therefore refer the friendship between God and human beings to the supernatural order. For example, Domenico Bainez expressly supports the thesis that `the only real and proper friendship between God and human beings is supernatural friendship' (Comment. in II-II, 23, 1).

(9) Mt 22: 30.

(10) Mt 19: 12.

(11) 1 Cor 13: 12.

(12) Although we can mentally conceive various results if Adam had not sinned, we must note that my reference to the first plan can be deduced only from the best we can think of happening to human beings created innocent by God. This best, this ideal, not only excludes the sin of Adam and his descendants but in some way supposes that Adam would never have entirely left his children until transported with them into the beatific vision at a time fixed by God, no matter how long any of them might have lived on earth. However, with St. Augustine we can also suppose the opposite, that is, Adam would have been glorified before his children (cf. De Genes. ad litt., bk. 9, c. 6; The City of God, bk. 14, c. 10), whether many families remained on earth or only one at a time. We can also conceive as possible that fathers, even after passing to eternal beatitude, could reveal themselves to and rule their children living on earth (as Christ did after his resurrection until his ascension into heaven) until all these were finally taken up into the same state of happiness.

(13) Plato acutely observed that in order to know the intimate nature of things we must always consider them stripped of all their accidental defects. Aristotle, and many others, made the same observation.

(14) To avoid misunderstanding, the reader should note that de facto conjugal society is not the same as obligating oneself to conjugal society. The person obligated to conjugal society, that is, already married, must live in conformity with that society and realise it in fact. Anyone failing this obligation (for example, a husband who does not love his wife, or viceversa) does not in any way cease to be married. To be married means `to have contracted the obligation to live in conformity with the demands of conjugal society'. Hence, spouses who fall short of the depth of union proper to the concept of marriage, do not lose their society de jure, although, through their fault, it remains de facto unfulfilled (cf. RGC, 638).

(15) Cf. Certainty, 1247 ss., and ER, 94-107.

(16) Tract. 86 in Jo.

(17) Tract. 87 in Jo.

(18) Cf. PE, 52-57, 197-199, 207-211.

(19) Ibid., 52-54.

(20) The way of eminence is the method of reasoning in which we strip our endowments of their limitations and ascend from them to knowledge of the divine endowments - cf. Leibniz, Theodicy.

(21) Deus caritas est (1 Jn 4: 16).

(22) Difference in education modifies human development and results in different opinions and customs even in the rational order. These differences however, unlike physical differences, do not depend on nature but on human will. A description of the ideal union of two human beings can therefore prescind from them.

(23) We are speaking here about involuntary defects, because in the ideal union under discussion willed defects are excluded. Nevertheless, we can also see the necessity of this generous, pure love which bears and tolerates among Adam's descendants the many defects resulting from the weakness of moral forces and even from malice in the will.

(24) P. 1, canz. 23.

(25) Virg. Ecl. 2, 69. - It must indeed be a cause for wonder how such a fine author as Giuseppe Taverna can praise the Greeks for their love of boys, as he does in his Lezioni morali a' giovanetti tratte dalla storia. This is one example of the defects I would like to see purged from a book so full of good, succinct instruction.

(26) It seems certain that some strong women, overcome by men, have sometimes prevented generation taking place solely by the force of their resistant will.

(27) The pagans themselves sensed this. The Pythagorean philosopher, Hipparchus, thought `immoderate desires were AGAINST NATURE' (De animi tranquill., apud Stobaeum).

(28) Anthropology as an Aid to Moral Science, 92-134.

(29) We should note the following words of St. Thomas where he is referring to much older teachings about generation: `Just as the parts of a human being are set in motion by command of the will, so a son is set in motion by the father through the generative power. Hence the Philosopher says that the father is cause of the child AS MOVER (Physics, bk. 2, com. 29). Bk. 2 of De generatione animalium states that in the seed there is A KIND OF MOVEMENT FROM THE FATHER'S SOUL which forms the matter into the conceived child' (De Malo, q. 4, art. 6).

(30) It is sufficient to read Aristotle's De generat. anim., 1: 17-19; Phis., 2; Problem., 4: 21. Hippocrates claimed that the sperma [sperm] was a distillation of all parts of the body, but principally of the brain (De genitura). Gallenus followed the same opinion. It is said that Plato made the spinal marrow the source of the sperm; Pythagoras, the most liquid, vital part of the blood, and Alcmaeon, the brain. This last opinion is followed today by Laurent (bk. 8, c. 2). Epicurus thought it was composed of soul and body. Cf. Plut., De placitis Philos., bk. 5, c. 3.

(31) AMS, 323-349.

(32) Mt 19: 5-6 [Douai].

(33) Plato, Conv. - Censorin., 4 - The same idea is found in Indian traditions. In the Mânava-Dharmasâstra, bk. 1: 32 we read: `When the sovereign lord divided his body into two parts, one half became male, the other, female.' The sovereign lord is Brahma in human form and represents the first human being.

(34) Cf. what I said at greater length about generation in AMS, 323-349, 812-831.

(35) Thecua's wife calls her son this, in the Second Book of Kings, claiming that they wish to kill her remaining son, she appeals to David: `They seek to quench MY SPARK which is left, and will leave my husband no name, nor remainder upon the earth' (c. 14: 7 [Douai]).

(36) P. 1, Son., 13.

(37) D., bk. 23, t. 2, 1. Modestinus' definition, bk. 1, Regul.

(38) C., bk. 9, t. 32, 4.

Chapter 02

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