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Section One - Conjugal Society

Chapter 5 (Part 2)

Duties and rights of spouses - continued

1319. A consequence of the notion of marriage, which I have made to consist in `a full union between man and woman befitting human nature' is that marriage entails only one man and one woman. The union would not be full `if the woman did not give herself totally and exclusively to the man' or `if the man did not give himself totally and exclusively to the woman', but each had many carnal affections.

1320. The union of the sexes is the specific part of conjugal union. If the woman is not entirely the man's, she cannot render the resulting debt according to his will; the man therefore is not owner of the woman's body. Similarly, if the man is not entirely the woman's, he cannot render the debt according to her will; she is no longer owner of her husband's body. This contradicts the concept of marriage.

1321. Moreover, there is a union of persons between spouses. Although persons are unique and incommunicable, they do have a way of possessing each other. This, however, is so exclusive that a person cannot be possessed unless only one person is possessed by one person. This unicity produces the most exquisite feeling possible from the love of two persons of different sex.

1322. If in addition we observe the feelings of human nature, we will be convinced that it is constituted and ordered in such a way that only an exclusive union between one male and female will satisfy it. One of these feelings is jealousy. I will analyse this extraordinary feeling because feelings are the facts in which, as I have said, rights are founded.(150)

1323. Jealousy is a feeling which is for the most part subjective. Thus it does not have the moral nobility of purely objective feelings.

1324. But what is its place among subjective feelings?

Jealousy arises from the feeling of exclusive possession. The spouses' reciprocal feeling of exclusive possession has two parts:
1. The natural desire of each to possess the other exclusively.
2. The claimed right of each so that offence is given if one withdraws from the other's exclusive possession. The consequence is jural resentment (cf. RI, 489).

1325. This feeling of jealousy is the fear in one spouse that the other may perhaps withdraw from full possession. It is a fear that the desire for exclusive possession of the other may be frustrated, with violation of the right they each feel they have to full possession.
Jealousy is therefore a feeling of fear which can change into grief, anger, etc., in which are mingled two other feelings: that of exclusive possession and of jural ownership.

1326. Each of these two feelings can be analysed further. An analysis of the right of ownership is found in individual Right (cf. RI, 921-975), where we saw that this right is formed of two elements: ownership as feeling (fact of nature) and ownership as right (fact of nature, regulated and limited by law).(151)
The first and essential characteristic of ownership as feeling is exclusivity (cf. RI, 947). Consequently, the feeling of ownership of a spouse's body is itself truly exclusive. In other words, it is constituted by the feeling which naturally speaking accompanies and establishes every kind of ownership.

Ownership as right is de facto ownership to the extent permitted and protected by the moral law. The moral law neither forbids nor limits the mutual exclusive ownership of spouses; on the contrary, it protects this ownership and invests it with the dignity of right.

1327. Moreover, the feeling of exclusive possession of one's spouse has an exclusivity of its own, different from that which it derives from the aforementioned exclusivity of ownership. The exclusivity tied to such possession arises from the nature of the double object: 1. personal union, and 2. sexual union. These two objects are the extreme parts of the full union of man with woman; other parts may not require exclusivity, but, as we have seen, these two certainly require it.

1328. Personal union, in addition to being a most intimate union, is also the noblest of subjective feelings; it unites the subjects at the level of their higher and more excellent activities.

Sexual union is a less noble union and not the principal one; it is a spontaneous consequence of the union of persons clothed in flesh.

1329. These two exclusive unions produce the feeling of exclusive possession in the spouses, a feeling that has therefore both a noble and ignoble element. Thus, the fear that the feeling might be frustrated (jealousy) is a mixture of something noble and something material and ignoble. It is similar to human nature, one part of which touches heaven, the other, earth.

1330. We see therefore:

1. That the phenomenon of jealousy is not manifested when human beings seek carnal delight only.(152) As the feeling diminishes, behaviour gradually deteriorates and people find interchange amongst spouses less abhorrent.

2. On the other hand while upright morality makes exclusive possession of one's spouse more precious and therefore causes jealousy, it also diminishes the fear of losing exclusive possession because each spouse is sure of the other's fidelity. This causes the reduction and even the cessation of jealousy.

3. Again, jealousy is less apparent where the intellectual faculties are less developed, because intellectual development greatly increases the union of persons; it opens the way to many aroused and stimulated affections, stirring up jealous doubts in the imagination, that most evil of fabricators.

4. Jealousy increases as the strength of sexual love increases, provided this love is united with the noblest of loves. As we said, possession in the sexual union is, of its nature, exclusive.

5. Feeling and objective affection modify and limit subjective affections which are not as noble as objective affections. Thus, where there is great charity, jealousy does not exist or is suppressed and even totally prevented from expressing itself.

1331. We conclude. Jealousy is a natural feeling. This feeling shows that human nature is so constituted that, wherever it is not totally depraved, it requires unicity of the spouses. In this unicity, spouses find the most desirable and exquisite good of their union; without it marriage does not bring contentment.

1332. In all nations, the conjugal union of man and woman has always been effected by an oath of mutual fidelity, with an appeal to the divinity as vindicator of the fidelity.

1333. The duty of mutual fidelity, therefore, acknowledged in all regions and throughout time, shows that, in keeping with the deepest and most upright feeling of the human race, marriage must be between one man and one woman.

1334. The practices opposed to the rational, natural law of the unicity of the spouses are polyandry and polygamy.

1335. Those who maintained that polygamy was not forbidden by natural law began from a very imperfect concept of this law. I believe that natural law results from the fusion of all the feelings of human nature.(153) However, these feelings have a varying degree of exigency and, because of the defective actuation of nature, also have some exceptions when suppressed or weakened, or altered in a whole people,.

1336. In fact, a defect of the Hebrew people (and not only of the Hebrews), sklhrokardia [hardness of heart], made the plurality of wives tolerable. But Christ added charity to the human will and refined the heart. Thus, ever since his time, the defective condition which can justify and excuse the practice of polygamy no longer exists in baptised peoples [App., no. 8].

1337. Hence, Benedict XIV quite rightly reproved the opinion of some theologians(154) and philosophers who maintained that polygamy was not alien to natural Right:

1338. The evils consequent upon polygamy are very great, as several writers indicate. Meli says:

Just as love is monogamous, so polygamy pertains to lust(158) or certainly to an affection different from love.

1339. Polyandry is even more contrary to nature because it is an impediment to the begetting of offspring, and involves the servitude of men to women, just as polygamy means the servitude of women.(159) This would be so monstrous that it could never have any foundation, not even where disorder and corruption reign. Finally, polyandry deceives and frustrates the natural desire of the man to be certain of offspring to whom at his death he can commend his memory, ideas and feeling, all the goods he has. This feeling is the man's particular natural title to the chastity of the woman whom he has chosen as wife precisely for that purpose. But I will say more about this later.

1340. Catholicism however is not content to keep inviolable the unicity of contemporaneous spouses. It adds some imputations and penalties to a second marriage contracted after the death of the first spouse.(160)

1341. This feeling, proper to good nature and clearly manifest even among pagan nations, is proof itself of the immortality of the soul through the immortality of affections.(161)

1342. The third principal duty derived from the notion of marriage which I have defined as `a full union between a man and a woman', is life together.

1343. This must be a ceaseless exercise and a perpetual exchange of beneficence that the spouses carry out between them. It must be the mutual, continual concern of each to lighten the other's hardships and increase the other's innocent satisfactions. The man must support the woman as the elm supports the vine, and the woman, whom the Creator calls `helper given to man, like unto him', must bear delicious fruit for the one who supports her.

1344. `A man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall be two in one flesh.'(162) The two spouses have vowed to each other that full, upright union which accords with nature. Whatever forcefully divides them after consummation of this union, unjustly despoils them of the rights they have through their contract of marriage, and moreover wrongly attempts to deprive their sexual union of its necessary dignity. Such a division also sins against them by preventing the fulfilment of their moral duty of cohabitation and reciprocal help; it violates the law of God, and, in the Catholic Church, is sacrilegious because harmful to the sacrament.

1345. Philosophers and jurists are divided regarding the community of external goods between spouses.

Philosophers favour perfect community. Kant deduces the community of goods from the necessary, undivided interest of the spouses.(163) Fichte says `that if a wife did not allow her husband to dispose of her acquired goods, it would mean that in her eyes the dominion of the goods would have more value than her own personship which she unreservedly transfers to her husband by the marriage contract.'(164) C. S. Zaccaria also upholds the community of goods in marriage provided there are no agreements to the contrary.(165)

1346. Jurists however generally maintain `that by virtue of the principal contract the spouses obtain reciprocal rights only over their persons, not their acquired goods', and that they `equally have a proportional right to what they acquire in common during the marriage. The expenses of the shared house or family must be sustained by shared contribution. Other goods acquired by them individually before or during the marriage are objects of the distinct ownership of each.'(166)

1347. Consequently, positive legislations have distinguished the wife's goods into the following classes:

1. The dowry given to the husband for the support of his marriage responsibilities.
2. The contra-dowry made by the husband to the wife as security or recompense for her dowry.
3. Donations between spouses.
4. The gift, called `Morgengab' by the Germans, given by the husband to the wife on the day after the wedding as a `payment-in-kind' for her virginity.
5. Nuptial gifts made by parents and friends to the new spouses.
6. Acquisitions in common during the marriage.
7. Paraphernalia, or supra-dowry goods, which the wife brings in addition to the dowry and does not retain for herself.
8. Reaccepted goods(167) retained by the wife.
9. The endowment or widowed state, that is, the goods or their usufruct determined by the husband for the wife after his death.

1348. What causes such a diversity of opinion between philosophers and jurists regarding the communion of goods between spouses?

Philosophers consider human nature in itself, and perfect marriage as it befits two perfect individuals of human nature. They have no doubt that marriage in such individuals is also de facto the fullest and most perfect union. This explains the communion of goods, which arises spontaneously and necessarily from this true concept of marriage. We have seen that external ownership is a psychological phenomenon; the soul by means of its unitive force joins external things to itself, that is, makes them part of itself.(168) Clearly, if these things are identified with person, two persons uniting in marriage and giving themselves to each other must unite what has become part of them, and out of these things make one single mass which belongs to the new collective person formed by their union.

1349. Jurists consider human nature with all its defects, and attempt to forestall the disorders of human malice and weakness by legal dispositions. Such understanding of the laws moves them to acknowledge an external ownership separate from the two spouses, a separation which only slightly harms the concept of the full union of the spouses. For them the principal part of the union is the personal, natural part; the goods joined to person are merely accessory, like clothing over the body.

1350. Note, moreover, that whenever legislations originate from the basics of philosophy, or the perspicacity of legislators arrives at the ultimate reasons derived from the essence of human nature, they seem to sense very clearly that the communion of all external goods is a spontaneous consequence of conjugal union.

We can see many indications of this in different legislations.(169) Modestinus' definition of marriage quoted above leaves us in no doubt.(170) Even among jurists, those who studied Roman legislation more deeply for the sake of deriving from it a Right of nature, saw how fitting was the community of goods between spouses. Among them it is sufficient to name Samuel Cocceji, who in contrast to his father, Henry (a narrow-minded jurist who lacked high moral feeling, although his son was happy to refer to him always as `blessed parent') maintained the community of goods of spouses. He says that the woman enters the husband's house for two ends: 1. `to share her whole life with her husband' and be joined to him in a single manner of life, and 2. `to procreate offspring for him and him alone'. From the first of these two ends, clearly indicated in Roman laws, he deduces the community of external goods.(171)

1351. If the principles laid down earlier concerning the nature of the union of spouses are applied to the question of the communion of their temporal goods, they reconcile in a beautiful way the noble dictate of philosophy with the prudent circumspection of legislators.

The principles are:

1. That on the one hand the spouses have the greatest possible union befitting two individuals of human nature of different sex, and on the other, the union does not destroy their individuality in such a way that they are no longer different subjects of rights (cf. 1065).

2. That the absolute owner must be distinguished from the relative owner. Granted that the head of the house is the absolute owner and that the other members of the family, particularly the wife, are relative owners, the head of the house has a jural obligation not to prejudice the latter. I refer the reader to what I said on this matter (cf. RI, 1267-1293).

1352. In conjugal union we must distinguish between an habitual, continual part which, properly speaking, forms the state of marriage(172) and an actual, transitory part which constitutes, as it were, its exercise.(173)

1353. The habitual union and the actual union of a man and a woman must `befit human nature'. In the previous section I discussed what the habitual union must be if it is to befit human nature. In this section I will deal with what is needed by actual union if it is to befit nature.

1354. Union between spouses, in so far as it can be common to all human beings even of the same sex, is union of souls and of companionship of life. Union of souls is exercised through acts of esteem and mutual affection. Undivided companionship of life, as we have said, furnishes a series of mutual benefits. Hence the following duties:

1. To avoid everything that might diminish mutual esteem and affection, and
2. To strive for the opposite things.
3. To avoid everything that might diminish the satisfying, harmonious life of the spouses, and
4. to pursue everything that can preserve concord, increase peace, attain unanimity of will and action, help each other to bear the burden of the day;(174) mutually reduce the evils and troubles of life; increase each other's goods and comfort one another in difficulties.

1355. The most elementary of these duties pertains to the husband: he must provide for his wife from the common ownership. The most sublime duty, pertaining to both spouses, is to further their common moral perfection.(175)

1356. Although these duties are common to both spouses, the difference in characteristics and gifts, which distinguishes the human male and female, makes the difference of sex impart a special character (a physiognomy of its own, as it were) to the mode of exercising them. Fichte is wrong when he says: `Unlimited love on the part of the woman and unlimited generosity on the part of the man constitute the essence of marriage'.(176) These virtues constitute the perfect actuation, not the essence of marriage. We must however let ethics and anthropology determine in greater detail the modes and forms of this duty, when fulfilled by the gentle or the strong sex.

1357. The duties and rights of spouses relative to sexual union can be reduced to the following:
1. The right to request, and the obligation to render the conjugal debt.
2. The right and duty to carry out sexual union in a way befitting human nature and dignity.
3. The right and duty to respect the conceived foetus so that it experiences no harm from the behaviour of the woman or her husband.
4. These give rise to the duties and rights of raising and educating offspring born into the world.
These duties are so well dealt with by moralists and jurists that any further discussion seems to me unnecessary.

1358. I will mention here a lesser known, more mysterious duty: the duty of the spouses, especially of the husband, to be virtuous in order to procreate children who are more perfect.

1359. As I have said, the work of procreation of children is principally an act of the soul (cf. 1055-1060). In the human being the soul not only feels, as in animals, but is also intellectual and moral.(177) The intellectual and moral part is most intimately connected with the feeling part, so that they identify in the common principle. Thus, these three faculties - animal feeling, intelligence and will - pertain to the human subject at its most simple.(178) The state of the intellective, moral part must therefore have an influence on the feeling, instinctive part. If the moral dispositions of the human being are good, they must communicate some analogous dispositions and modalities to the feeling. The feeling, therefore, as we can see, generates with dispositions completely analogous to the moral or immoral dispositions, and the term of generation, that is, the foetus generated by the animating principle possessing these dispositions, receives in its animal part dispositions and aptitudes similar to those of the generating principle. The depth of the impression made on the foetus is in proportion to the efficacy and fullness of the generating action.

1360. It will be helpful to confirm this important teaching with an opinion of Aristotle,(179) which Aquinas accepted and expounded as follows:(180)

1361. The dispositions of which we spoke as suitable for communication to children by generation are those alone which the vice and virtue of the genitor leaves imprinted on the animality, as it were, of those generated. Properly speaking, these dispositions are not moral in themselves but ordered to the soul's moral nature; I call them `analogous to the moral dispositions'. In other words, the body which has these dispositions disposes and inclines the soul to morality or immorality. In this way a father communicates a certain disposition to his son which influences the morality of all the generations.

1362. St. Thomas teaches that this is precisely the way original sin is communicated. Original justice, and its loss through the fall, affected the body also; it flowed as it were from the soul into the body. Thus if the first father had remained innocent and perfect, he would, in the act of generation, have communicated to the bodies of his children dispositions analogous to his original perfection and justice. But after sin and his own ruin, he communicated to his children dispositions analogous to injustice and disorder. These inclined the children's will to evil, which constitutes an immoral element.(183)

1363. Although the other sins of fathers do not pass into the offspring, it seems proven 1. that the parents' immoral state greatly influences the animality of the children, imprinting on them dispositions analogous to paternal defects, and 2. that certain vices affect generation more than others.

1364. Hence Scripture speaks about races cursed in a particular way. When Noah curses the son of Ham, he is simply declaring depraved the generation of a person who treated his father abominably by mocking his nakedness.(184) The expression used in Scripture, taken literally, attributes depravity or goodness to the seed, to which it unites divine curses and blessings.(185) Finally it says that God punishes the sins of the fathers till the third and fourth generation, and rewards their virtue to a thousand generations.(186)

1365. In fact, perusing the history of human opinions, we see that always and everywhere people believed in varying degrees that children were blamed or praised for the crimes or magnanimous actions of their fathers; it was a kind of presumption either for or against them. Entire lineages have always been considered marked and characterised by the generosity of their ancestors or the ignobility of their base predecessors. Hence outstanding children are expected from a line of outstanding character according to the hidden law mentioned by Horace:

On the other hand, common sense considers offspring born different from their father a rare exception to this constant law. Everyone is amazed and calls the children `degenerate' and `depraved'

1366. That eloquent theologian, Bossuet, writes:(188)

1367. Moralists and doctors are therefore fully justified in recommending the practice of moral virtue to those who must generate lest they deprave and poison the line of human generations originating from them. An ancient precept required anyone immorally disposed to abstain from the conjugal act; only when the spirit was in a holy state, well disposed and practised in virtue was the act to be performed.(190)

1368. But we have another and new reason. The Redeemer of the world sanctified marriage and established a special grace for purifying and sanctifying spouses. This explains the happy marriage of Tobit (and the marriages of the ancient patriarchs) who remained faithful to the angel's directives.(191) Finally, it explains why the new Church, following in the same spirit of the old, warmly recommends spouses to prepare themselves for conjugal intercourse by prayer and temperance,(192) to use it chastely, with noble thoughts and the intention of generating children for God rather than for themselves, and of providing believers for the Church of JESUS Christ rather than successors for their own family.

1369. So far we have considered spouses in their union; we must now consider them in their individuality.

Considered in their union, spouses constitute a collective person, a third jural person (cf. RI, 1650) whose only rights and duties are those in which both share. But considered in their individuality, they become subjects of distinct duties. This distinction is simply numerical when they are considered as equal but numerically distinct subjects; it is specific when they are regarded in their unequal part.
Spouses are distinguished numerically by personship (cf. 1235); nature distinguishes them specifically by sex. I call `distinctive' those duties and rights which pertain to spouses as specifically different subjects.
Before expounding the duties and distinctive rights of spouses, I will summarise the duties and rights common to each as numerically distinct. I say `summarise' because these rights pertain to individual Right, where I have dealt with them.

1370. Because spouses are equal but numerically distinct persons, it follows that:

1. Connatural rights relative to freedom pertain to both (cf. RI, 48-51, 87-127). Hence the obligation of each to leave the other entirely free in the means for acquiring truth, virtue and happiness. Indeed each must reciprocally promote moral perfection both in self and in the other.
2. The right of innate ownership pertains to both (cf. RI, 53-58, 128-133).
3. Both can be subjects of rights (cf. 1235), that is, they are able to acquire new rights (cf. RI, 284-285), except for the wife's deference to her husband as head of the family; he has the obligation to keep her rights of ownership distinct from his, minister them to her and use them reasonably (cf. RI, 1277-1293).

1371. From all this we can conclude that:

1. Each spouse is an end, not simply a means, and as such must be respected by the other.
2. The woman cannot be forced into marriage but must give and submit herself to her husband with her free consent (cf. 1181).

3. The woman is a companion,(193) not a bond-servant of the husband. Each spouse has equal right to require the other to observe the natural, obligatory laws of conjugal union. These laws are: their full union, conjugal fidelity, cohabitation, mutual aid and the other duties listed above.

1372. If in conjugal society spouses form a single collective person without destroying the individual persons, each spouse must be respected by the other as a subject of rights, and, in so far as person, respected as end (cf. RI, 52). But granted sex as an unequal element in nature, the sphere and mode of the rights of the spouses differ greatly:

1. relative to the sphere of their rights, because the extent of the matter and therefore the titles of the rights differ;
2. relative to the mode of their rights, because the rights of the wife are under the protection and authority of the husband.

1373. Authors offer different reasons for giving preference to the husband in the conjugal union and declaring him head of the house. Some are satisfied with the greater strength of the husband. Grotius is content to say that the husband is head of the family ob sexus praestantiam [because of the superiority of his sex].(194) Certainly the reason for his jural superiority lies in this quality. Nevertheless the quality must be explained in such a way that the real jural titles of conjugal power are found within it. This is what I propose to do.

1374. Every society results from the consent of its members, although the consent may be obligatory or free. In the case of a man and a woman who unite in conjugal society the consent is free. Thus, the first source of the real rights of a man over a woman who becomes his wife is mutual consent.

1375. However, the object of this consent, ideal right, is not arbitrary but determined by nature (cf. 1076-1089). Hence, granted consent in the first place, the rights and duties of the spouses no longer depend on their free will but on the object of their society defined by the laws of nature and reason, that is, they depend on the ideal right they intend to realise.(195) I repeat, therefore, that we need to know the distinctive rights and duties of the husband and wife in the natural diversity which conditions their full union (cf. 1039). In a word, we must search the nature of the individual human male and female for the titles of the mutual rights posited in being by their marriage.

1376. Titles of rights can result from nature or from society. Thus, we can call them individual and social.

The fact of society can produce two jural effects:

1. It can give nature the opportunity to posit certain individual titles of rights.
2. It can give rise to titles, social titles, proceeding not from the nature of the individual person but from the collective person (cf. RI, 1020-1021, 1023).
These two effects are more evident in conjugal society, which results from a natural and from a conventional, social element.

1377. The source and origin of individual titles is natural feeling; the source and origin of social titles is the end of society. The prevalence of the husband over the wife results from a double individual, social title; it is required simultaneously by a natural feeling and by the end of conjugal society. Let us see how.

1378. Marriage is desired by human beings for the sake of two goods:

1. The good of conjugal society itself (conjugal society is indeed a good);
2. The good present in offspring, the natural effect of conjugal society (cf. 1063).

1379. Both these goods are legitimate ends of marriage. In the history of humanity we see one prevailing over the other at different times. Consequently, marriage itself takes on a different characteristic, and changes take place in the customs of peoples and in their laws.

1380. Both ends were present in God's original institution of marriage. The first, the good to be found in conjugal society, was made the basis and foundation of the other when God himself pronounced the solemn words: `It is not good for man to be alone; let us make him a help like unto himself.'(196) These words express man's need for society, and the good to be found in this society, but without any mention of children. It is true that the `help like unto himself', which God gave Adam amongst other goods, helped him to have children but this benefit was wisely fused and mingled by the divine Lawgiver into the complex of goods which the woman (indicated by the words `a help like unto himself') had to bring to the man.(197) The benefit from children was not, however, proposed as a distinct, immediate end. Hence the true, original end of marriage is simply the good which man finds in the full, stable and perfect union with someone like himself but of another sex.

1381. The exquisite good of an intimate society presupposes a most noble feeling, a most affectionate heart. The first man was given this, but he did wrong. After sin, the exquisite feeling, the intensity and breadth of affection in man's heart were diminished. Consequently, the first, immediate, natural end of marriage gave way to the second, the possession of children.

1382. The prevalence of the second, partial end of marriage soon became so dominant that it seemed the only one. Conjugal society declined to a state of means, as if its sole value were children procreated through it. Nearly all laws were drawn up to regulate this end. Soon human dignity in the use of sex was considered to be completely assured `when conjugal society was ordered to generation for founding a house or lineage'.

1383. The consequences were extremely serious: the procreation of children as the sole end does not in itself exclude polygamy, of which Lamech was the first example.(198) Nor, in an exceptional case, does it exclude limited polyandry, different from promiscuous concubinage and prostitution, which was never considered upright.(199) Only the first, full end of marriage subjects it to those noble laws which exclude all defects and bring about its natural perfection. Here, however, I want to limit the discussion to this second end and draw from it the jural superiority of the husband.

1384. A parent desires to generate children as his successors in whom a great part of himself may live on(200) and to whom he may leave some record of himself, with his own affections and external goods. He is head and origin of his successors. But this desire does not develop in the same way in a man and a woman. In a man it is an active feeling, urging him to associate himself with a female companion who can help him in the task. In a woman it is passive; she lets herself be associated with a man and enjoys helping him in his intention. The man's desire for offspring for himself is absolute; the woman's desire to give heirs to her husband is relative. Because the woman loves her husband in all simplicity, the first and greatest end of marriage (the fullness of union) is preserved more in the woman than in the man; in him the second end is prevalent. Hence adultery was always regarded as a sin opposed more to the nature of the woman and more serious in her than in the man. Although polygamy could at times be tolerated, polyandry could not, except perhaps on rare occasions and in a very limited way.

Again, although the woman loves her children simply, as the most precious portions of her body, her maternal love finishes in them. Strictly speaking, it does not have the entire line, the foundation of future, prosperous and glorious progeny, as its object. Her thoughts extend to future generations only as a result of sharing in the desire she sees in the man she loves, and to whom she gives offspring.(201)

1385. Woman therefore considered relative to man's philogony takes on the notion of means, of help (`a helper like unto him'), and man, the notion of end. In this sense St. Paul says that `man was not created for woman but woman for man.'(202)

1386. We see then just how great was the desire of the first human beings to found a house, to start a line of descendants. The most longed-for glory was to become father of a great lineage. Such a desire was supreme in all those men in ancient times who did not go astray and debase themselves with lechery. The force of philogony, greater at that time than now, was indeed providential at the beginning of the world when all nations had to issue from few men, and was quite natural in the circumstances in which they lived. The following are some of the principal reasons:

1. Now that generations have been multiplied, and civil societies founded, many of them still uncivilised, the objects of glory to which human beings can aspire have become innumerable. The means for handing on to descendants one's name, feelings, opinions, the best part of one's very self, are infinite. When nations began, however, all these means were reduced to natural succession alone. All glory lay in becoming the head of a numerous, glorious line of descendants. Populations had to be created therefore for the sake of a glorious name; a human being cannot have a name and fame in solitude.

2. When the earth was still empty, maintenance of children cost nothing. On the contrary, the more children, the more wealth for the family. Many offspring could take possession of the most extensive lands. Power also increased when limbs, that is, physical force, were the prevailing, dominant element.(203)

3. Children could not find beguiling distractions and pleasures where civil society was either not yet constituted or little developed. Consequently they necessarily grew up very much attached to their parents, their only teachers (hence the proverb: `A wise son hears his father's instruction'),(204) from whom they received and expected every good. This explains the divinisation of ancestors introduced into all ancient nations. Ancestors were given far greater honour after their death than during their life. Their ashes, their memory (duly embellished by feeling), their solemn pronouncements, their practices were all religiously preserved. They were looked upon as supreme models for their whole lineage; their statements and desires were extremely holy and venerable laws. Such a great feeling of filial piety, much exaggerated at those times, could only make children dearer to their parents, who confidently expected longed-for renown from them. Conversely, children sought their own glory in paternal greatness, a feeling expressed in the book of Proverbs as `Grandchildren are the crown of the aged, and the glory of sons is their fathers'.(205) This intimate union of feeling between the common origin and all the descendants was necessarily supported by another reason:

4. A fuller and more perfect generative power in the first human beings. This greater generative power allowed the parent to put his stamp, as it were, much more vitally on his offspring. He left his imprint indelibly on all his descendants in accordance with the above-mentioned law that the genitor communicates himself more faithfully to the offspring in proportion to the energy of the generative act.

1387. At the beginning, these and other reasons must have rendered the instinct of philogony extraordinarily powerful in the human being. In particular, the last reason produced a profound feeling in the father who saw himself reproduced and increased in his children and his most distant descendants. This feeling is indicated by many expressions in Genesis, the oldest book of all. God says to Abraham: `I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.'(206) This is the same Abraham who will become a great nation and acquire the desired glory not just of a great father (Abram) but much more, of a father of many nations (Abraham).(207) Again: `To your descendants I will give this land',(208) indicating the paternal substance in the children. And again: `All the land which you see I will give TO YOU AND TO YOUR DESCENDANTS for ever';(209) God promises to give him the land because he promises it to his descendants.

The holy patriarch expresses so effectively the greatness of his natural desire for descendants when he says to the Lord: `Behold, you have given me no offspring; and a slave born in my house will be my heir.' The Lord replies: `This man shall not be your heir; your own son shall be your heir.' God reveals that Abraham will possess the land after four hundred years because he was considered as living in his descendants.(210) Expressions such as this are frequent in the sacred books. Descendants are always given the father's name, as if the father himself were diffused in them.(211) Furthermore, the practice is not exclusive to Abraham's descendants; on the contrary, all nations bore the name of their founder, which afterwards became the name of the countries where they settled.

1388. If, then, this feeling of philogony is PROPER to the male but not the female in marriage, it becomes a title of superiority for the man because, as we have shown, right is rooted in that which is proper. The universal principle of the derivation of rights lies `in an activity PROPER to a person',(212) and is one of those facts of nature constituting titles to rights (cf. RI, 293-295).(213) Thus, if the wife wanted to take for herself, against nature, the quality of origin and head of the family, she would injure the husband by violating and usurping his natural ownership (cf. RI, 343).

1389. The right given in every age to the man to be origin, head and prince of the descendants is therefore strictly natural because founded on a natural feeling. On the other hand, the woman's feeling of subjection is natural - as natural as the feeling of surrender to her husband as a help and means for him to satisfy his upright, natural desire to procreate children. The woman's good lies in this subjection and assistance; it is a necessity for her, just as it is a necessity for the man to be superior. It has been said most appropriately that the natural condition of the wife is posited in her selfless love for her husband and in sacrifice. Anything contrary in the woman would be waywardness, not nature; it would not be the feeling of the species but individual, false feeling which does not in any way form right because every jural title is founded on the feelings of common, well ordered nature (cf. 982).

1390. The different character of spontaneous feelings in man and woman informs marriage, imparting to it a kind of mysterious, dignified quality. Because of this difference, a man enters conjugal society to find satisfaction for all his natural desires which can be fulfilled in marriage; among these desires is that of becoming the founder of a progeny. The woman herself enters it at the same level, that is, to find satisfaction for her desires, among which is that of subjecting herself to her husband and pleasing him, helping, honouring, loving and serving him, and receiving in exchange protection, honour, happiness. These are the inborn, legitimate desires of the two sexes and the different titles of their rights. The husband's task, according to the fittingness of nature, is to be head and master;(214) the wife's task, which suits her well, is to be a kind of accession to and complement of her husband, totally consecrated to him, and called by his name.(215)

1391. The feeling which urges a man to be founder of a line of descendants relates not to marriage itself, the union, but to the effect of marriage, the offspring.
Nevertheless even if we consider the union, we clearly see that it cannot be full and perfect unless the husband is the head and directs communal living, and the wife is protected and directed, and serves the husband and his house.

1392. This is because full union means happy union. Furthermore, conjugal society is one of those universal societies which include everything (cf. 134-135, 141). Hence when the members enter it, they undertake to use all possible upright means of making their society prosperous and happy.

Nature however distributes the means differently to the two sexes: one sex is given certain aptitudes denied to the other, with the result that they need each other. The aptitudes are so wonderfully distributed that when they are united they form the most exquisite accord and produce a single result, a satisfying, happy communal life.
The man's natural gifts are precisely those which render him suitable for exercising authority: courage, strength, activity, firm mind (or certainly a more developed mind due to his kind of life), an instinct for action, for business, government and command.

The woman has all the natural gifts which render her suitable for obeying and satisfying the proclivities of the man: demure sweetness, gracious weakness, attentive docility; she is delicate, calm, homely, patient and refined - precisely what is required for internal family duties. Moreover, she has a very special need to keep herself withdrawn to avoid dangers, to prevent illicit desires in others, and not to cause jealousy in her husband.(216) These very dutiful requirements often prevent her from dealing freely with external affairs. Finally, nature has placed in her heart that selfless affection we have spoken of by which she takes pleasure in the husband's good and in being his glory.(217)

1393. Marriage is a society. The common contribution is the human individuals themselves of different sex who place themselves in common together with all they can dispose of. Individuals of different sex have a different character, different faculties and aptitudes, different proclivities and needs, which are all part of the common contribution.
If the man has an aptitude, proclivity and need to be the founder and governor of a family, this cannot be destroyed; on the contrary it must have its place in conjugal society. This, however, is not seigniory; it is a right, and a socio-natural office.

1394. Likewise, if the woman has an inclination and need to cling to her husband, like the vine to the elm, or a limb to the head, and if she has a very fitting aptitude to help her husband become a father, to be his trusted minister in the home, his comfort in hardships, his companion in joys, and finally a sweet, noble and willing instrument of all his upright intentions, then all this must unfailingly be brought into act. Once more, this is not servitude but a right, a socio-natural office.

1395. We have seen how servitude differs from social office. The end of servitude is the master; the end of social office is not the good of one member only of the society but of the whole collective person, that is, the good proportionally divided among all the individuals composing the society. Hence the only end of both the superiority of the husband and the practice of subjection of the wife is the full satisfaction of both people, the prosperity and success of the common family.

1396. Many authors limit the subjection of the wife `to marriage and family concerns'.(218) They do so because they examine only the external end of marriage, the procreation of offspring, and give little attention to the immediate, internal end, which is the natural good sought and found by two beings made for each other in their full union.
I have explained that the whole theory of conjugal society must be deduced `from the concept of the perfect union of two human beings of different sex'. From this I inferred that the spouses place themselves totally in their society with all their possessions in a manner befitting nature.

1397. A consequence of this teaching is that the husband's superiority and the wife's subjection extend as far as the fullness and happiness of the union require.

1398. In general, I have deduced the husband's right to superiority from `the duty of the spouses to contribute, each on their own part, to the greatest possible happiness of both, which is the end of the society'. Because the happy perfection of the conjugal society and of the entire family requires that one mind and will govern reasonably, and the other be upright and responsive, each spouse must co-operate with good will to produce this effect. If one must govern, it must certainly be the one who knows how to govern, can and wishes to govern, and whose government causes no trouble for the family. These conditions are verified solely in the husband. The wife therefore must be subject, precisely because she must want the end of the union and of the family, that is, because of the duty she has in common with the husband.

What then are the limits of this respective superiority and subjection? Generally, nature has not determined them; I mean, human nature as it is at present has not determined them. Nature has not made all women and all men with the same stamp. Just as certain men have more of a masculine character than others, so certain women have more of a feminine character than others. Hence the husband and the wife must exercise their respective superiority and subjection with the temperament suggested and indicated by equity, a sense of reasonableness and an instinct free from obstinacy. Immutable boundaries cannot be assigned to this kind of opposing social offices; they cannot be measured precisely. But the aim of producing the greatest good of the family and the mutual love of the spouses can and must determine them.

If there is an obligation to come to an adjustment whenever the rights of two persons seem to collide (cf. RI, 462, 501, 1026), a much greater obligation exists when two persons must form only one person. The adjustment must not only seek to remove the occasion of the disagreement, but to obtain the closest concord and deepest agreement possible. Thus, whenever the husband is per accidens less suitable for government, he must proportionately limit the exercise of his superiority. And if the wife is very strong and has in fact some male characteristics, he must make use of her gift for the good of the home. She may also act spontaneously for this purpose, provided she does not exceed the limit laid down by jural resentment in her husband (cf. RI, 580-581), which she must not arouse in any situation or under any pretext.

Notes

(150) ER, 252-255 where I showed that the third constitutive element of right is feeling. Cf. also ER, 332-339 and RI, 387.

(151) Note, ownership as right produces opinion of right which arouses feeling of right. Feeling of right is thus a rational feeling, caused by some conception in the intellective principle. On the other hand, feeling of de facto ownership is an animal feeling arising from the unitive force or unifying faculty of the animal. Cf. AMS, 455-483.

(152) I said that the feeling of jealousy involves a feeling of possession and an opinion of right. Corruption of behaviour causes the feeling of possession to diminish but not the opinion of right. The phenomenon of jealousy therefore is modified according to the proportion of its two feelings of possession and right. Among the Malayan peoples of the archipelagos of the great ocean, the husbands often prostitute their wives. This shows the total absence of the feeling of exclusive possession. The infidelities of wives, however, committed without the husband's command, are punished by death (Bougainville, deuxième partie, c. 3, t. 2, p. 58). Here, the existence of the feeling of exclusive right is evident. The same is true about the jealousy shown by the North American savages, a bronze-coloured race (Mackenzie, Premier voyage, t. 1, p. 282-283; Deuxième voyage, t. 2, p. 199-200; Hearne, Voyage à l'océan du Nord, c. 9; S. Long, c. 10; La Pérouse, t. 2, bk. 7; Fleurien, Voyage du capitaine Marchand, t. 2, c. 4; Charlevoix, N. Franc, bks. 3 and 8; Hannepin, Moeurs des sauvages de la Louisiane, p.38). Some explorers have written that the feeling of jealousy is totally absent from the Indians of lower Canada, California and the tropics. If this is true, it would mean that these people have fallen to ultimate degradation. Cf. Lahontan, t. 2, p. 139; La Pérouse, t. 2, c. 11, t. 4, p. 61; Azara, t. 2, c. 10.

(153) By nature I do not mean defective nature (cf. 982); St. John Chrysostom states: `You must not take opinions and judgments about things from those whose spirit is corrupt'.

(154) Durandus and the theologian of Avila.

(155) S.T., Suppl, q. 65, 1; Bellarm., De sacr. matr., bk. 1, c. 10 ss.; Estius, In L. 4 Sent., Dist. 33, §q1 ss.; Sylvius, in Suppl S. Th., q. 65, 1 ss.

(156) De Synodo Dioec., bk. 13, c. 21.

(157) Sulla Monogamia, sul Matrimonio, Domenico Meli, in Raccolta Medica, Bologna, 1830, t. 10. An argument in favour of polygamy is that in some places the number of female births exceeds that of males. Meli replies that this excess is precisely the effect of polygamy, that is, of the lassitude produced by polygamy in the genitor. The observations of Cav. Dr. Bellingeri confirm this. The tragic effects of polygamy are also described in Euripides' Andromachus, v. 177 ss.; v. 464 ss.

(158) Hence, wherever polygamy has been introduced, vices contrary to nature hold sway. Montesquieu says: `One cannot believe that the majority of women incline to this love which nature rejects; one vice is always accompanied by another. During the revolution at Constantinople which deposed the sultan Ahmed, it is reported that the people who pillaged the shah's home did not find a single woman. At Algiers the point was evidently reached where there were no women in the majority of harems' (De l'Esprit des Lois, 16: 6).

(159) The prevalence of women has a smaller role when polyandry is not chosen but necessary, as it was among the ancient Bretons. According to Caesar, several Bretons adapted to being content with only one woman, because women were so scarce. Some people, deceived by the superiority of the male, wrongly grant men the right to have several wives but refuse a woman several husbands. The fact that a man is superior in strength does not give him a right to be disordered. In the moral order, man and woman are two EQUAL beings. Even the pagans saw this truth. In Mercator, Plautus argues that there can be only one wife for precisely the same reason that the husband must be only one:

(160) Bigamists are irregular, and the Church does not give its blessing to the second marriage.

(161) Roman laws attached certain penalties to those who married a second time. Some of the penalties exist in a few modern legislations, for example, Bavaria (Cod. Civ. Bav., pt. 1, c. 6, §47, 48). In Virgil, Dido speaks as if marrying Aeneas (a thought that occupied her mind) would be a lack of fidelity to Sicheus, her first husband:

Dante expresses the same sentiment when he says of Dido:

(162) Gen 2: 24 [Douai]; Ps. 44: 11.

(163) Jurisprud., §26, 157.

(164) Grundlage des Naturrechts, pt. 2.

(165) Principii di diritto privato filosofico (Leipzig, 1804), §90.

(166) Zeiller, Diritto privato, §160.

(167) The Latin expression, bona receptitia, used in the precise meaning of the verb recipere, describes the goods retained by the wife after she has, as it were, given them to her husband and received them back. The expression shows how it was originally thought that all the wife's goods had to be consigned to the husband.

(168) ER, 332-339.

(169) For example, in the Code (bk. 5, tit. 14), under the title of the emperors Theodosius and Valentinian, the 8th law combines both the philosophical reason and the jural view: `It was good that the woman who COMMITS HERSELF TO HER HUSBAND together with her things be governed by the same will. Nevertheless, because IT IS FITTING that the founders of laws UPHOLD EQUITY, we want the husband to have no involvement whatsoever (as has been said) in the paraphernalia, if the woman forbids it.' The equity spoken of here is the jural view intended to defend the freedom of the woman against her husband's despotism.

(170) `The union of male and female is THE SHARING OF ALL LIFE, THE COMMUNICATION OF DIVINE AND HUMAN RIGHT'.

(171) Dissertat. Proem. in Grot., Diss. 12, bk. 3, c. 4, Sect. 3. It will be helpful to quote the consequences which, under the guidance of Roman law, this outstanding jurisconsult deduces from the first of the two ends:

`1. The wife becomes a member of the husband's family, and shares his divine and human rights (bk. 1 ff. Rit. nupt, bk. 22, §7 Sol. matrim.; Goth. ad Leg., 12 Tab. tit. 17, §3; Foveat. 10, c. 5. - this is found among all peoples, Just. 23, 2;. Tac., De Mor. Germ., 18, and 12; Ann. 5, c. 3; Liv. 1, c. 19).

2. She shares in the husband's dignity even after his death, as long as she does not re-marry (bk. 8, bk. 10, C. Rit. nupt; bk. 13, C. De dignit.) and bears his name and insignia.

3. She follows the domicile (bk. 5, bk. ff. Rit. nupt.), civil standing and town of her husband (l. p. ff. juris d. 1, f. §3 ad Municip.; l. f. c. de incol.)

4. She is in a certain way mistress of her husband's goods (bk. 1, ff. Rer. am.; bk. 4 & 5, C. Crim. expil. haer.; bk. 52, de re jud.) of which, after her husband's death, she acquires half. This communion of goods is practised today in several regions. In ancient Roman Right the wife was considered as a daughter and succeeded to her husband as his necessary heir, like the other children (Dion. Halic., bk. 2, Antiq. p.m. 41).

5. The husband cannot repudiate or abandon his wife without just cause (ff. de divortiis et repud.)

6. When the wife's goods are acquired by the husband and she is left without anything of her own, the husband must maintain her, whether he has received a dowry or not (bk. 22, §8, Sol. matr.; bk. 2, ff. injur.). If she has no goods of her own (d. l. 16), he must bury her at his own expense (bk. 16, ff. Relig.).'

(172) The habitual union is composed of affections (factual union) and rights (contractual union). We considered affections in two states: natural spontaneity and stimulation (cf. 1000). We said that first-level affections are sufficient for the fullness of the union which forms marriage. Second-level affections are not needed because the matter concerns a fullness of species, not a fullness of level. In other words, the union can be specifically full despite greater or lesser levels of intensity. Moreover, the distinction between inborn affections and aroused affections must be applied to both habitual and actual union. The distinction is a subclassification of both habitual and actual affections.

(173) Cf. SP, 545-573 where I explained how human beings are a potency in this life and cannot maintain themselves in a continuous, full act.

(174) Cf. Engelhard, Saggi sulla vera idea del matrimonio, Casal, 1776, c. 1.

(175) Cf. Tasinger, Sistema del Diritto naturale, §46.

(176) Principj del Diritto di natura.

(177) A very ancient opinion maintained that intelligence had a part in human generation. Creuzer, in his description of the ancient inhabitants of Samothrace, says: `In this system, fire is the primitive force of nature, the generative principle of beings. Below him are Mars and Venus whose union, with the help of a fourth person, Hermes or INTELLIGENCE, produces the great work of generation' (t. 2, p. 1, p. 293 ss.).

(178) In AMS, the human being is defined as `a volitive (moral), intellective, animal SUBJECT'. The human being is a single principle. Cf. the Conclusion [906] in AMS.

(179) Cf. De Animalibus.

(180) De Malo, 4, 8; De Veritate, 25, 5.

(181) `Univocal' means that which generates beings of the same species.

(182) This teaching alone, consistently professed by St. Thomas, that acts of intelligence are not done by means of some corporeal organ, is sufficient to show how mistaken people are who believe they can list the holy doctor among sensists.

(183) De Malo, 4, 8.

(184) Apparently Noah's curse was more a reflection on than a punishment of the insult he had received as a sign of Ham's depravation. It predicted evil for his offspring. Similarly the patriarchs foresaw perhaps the destinies of their descendants; with divine help they read these destinies partly in the character of their leaders and founders at a time when generation was supremely effective and had enough power to transmit even individual accidents to children.

(185) Daniel calls the shameless elders: `Seed of Chanaan and not of Juda' (chap. 13, 56 [Douai]), and Ezekiel reproves the disorders of the people of Jerusalem by telling them: `Thy father was an Amorrhite and thy mother a Cethite' (chap. 16, 3 [Douai]).

(186) Deut 5: 9; 7: 9. [App., no. 9].

(187) The addition of the word `good' could be seen simply as a makeweight, but not if understood of moral good.

(188) Défense de la tradition et des saint Pères. Cf. also De la Connaiss. de Dieu, etc., c. 4, §11; Disc. sur l'hist. univ., pt. 2, c. 1; Elévation sur les myst., serm. 7.

(189) Enchir, 46, 47.

(190) Cf. the fine observations made by Conte de Maistre on this matter in Veglie di Pietroburgo, veglia 1 and 2. People commonly believe that the disposition of the male has a much greater influence on the character of the progeny than that of the female. Columella notes that `a wild ass mated with a mare generates an untamed mule which, in keeping with savage behaviour, is ferociously stubborn' (bk. 3, c. 37). However, I have always noted that the woman has more influence than the man over the intellective faculties. I have always seen children produced with great intelligence when the woman, but not the man, was highly intelligent. I suspect that the opposite happens relative to the moral faculties, and my suspicion coincides with the opinion of antiquity which must have had more decisive examples before it. In the Code of Manu we read: `The person generated by an honourable man and a base woman can become honourable through his qualities. But the person generated by a noble woman and a despised man must be considered base. This is the decision' (bk. 10: 67). Nevertheless, in antiquity we find different opinions about the greater influence of the father or mother on the child, possibly because no distinction had been made between the intellective dispositions due more to the mother and the moral dispositions due to the father. The Code of Manu says: `Some wise men value the seed more than the field; others value the field and seed equally. The decision is the following: seed sown on unreceptive ground is destroyed without producing anything; good earth over which no grain is sewn remains bare. But because, through the excellent virtue of their fathers, even the children of wild animals became honourable, glorious and holy men, the male value prevails' (bk. 10: 70-72).

(191) Tob 6: 16-22.

(192) For the benefits to be expected by spouses from temperance and sobriety in the generation of children see Plutarch, De liberis educandis, Columella, bk. 3, c. 37. We also recommend the Memoria of Cav. Bellingeri, Della influenza del cibo e della bevanda sulla fecondità e sulla proporzione dei sessi nelle nascite del genere umano, Turin, for Alessandro Fontana, 1840.

(193) Although Roman authors greatly favoured the power of the husband, they constantly called the wife `companion'. Titus Livy adds that marriage is `A SOCIETY OF ALL FORTUNE (1: 9). Justinus defines it as `entering into a SOCIETY of bad as well as good fortune' (23: 2). Tacitus says the wife is `COMPANION in any fortune whatsoever' (Ann., 3: 15 & 34); `the wife is COMPANION in good and bad times' (Ann., 12: 5); `COMPANION in labours and dangers' (De Germ. mor., 18).

(194) De J. B. et P., bk. 2, c. 5, §1, a. 8.

(195) In this way the opinion of those who maintain that the subjection of the wife depends on her consent is reconciled with the opinion of those who say she is subject without her consent. Baroli writes: `It has been demonstrated that the subordination of the wife arises from an intrinsic, connatural fittingness for this society. Consequently this dependence must be classified among those natural duties for whose efficacy no consent or covenant of any kind, expressed or understood, is required' (Diritto naturale-privato, §226). Consent to the subjection was given with the consent by which the woman freely entered the conjugal state.

(196) Gen 2: [18 (Douai)].

(197) In calling woman like unto man, God indicated the part in which she is equal to man, that is, rationality and morality; when he called her a help, he showed that she was unequal and a bearer of happiness to man.

(198) If it is true that the queen of the Amazons, Thalestris, invited Alexander the Great to give her a son by him, she evidently did not see it as shameful or wrong, granted the end of having a son by so great a hero. The same is said of queen Saba: she desired and obtained a child by Solomon. It was not lechery that induced Lot's two daughters to commit incest with their father, but the desire for offspring. After the massacre at Sodom they were afraid that no male would be left to perpetuate their line. Consequently, they wanted to go into their father `that we may preserve offspring through our father' (Gen 19: 30-38). Leah, because of her upright desire for many offspring, found it even less unbecoming to buy from Rachel the company of her husband and invite him to lie with her when he returned from the fields (Gen 30). Cesare Cantù says of the Spartans: `Divorce with a sterile woman was easy and legal, but the husband could also bring a stranger into his wife's bed for the sake of procuring descendants (Xenophon, Lacon., 1: 7; Plutarch, c 15; Müller, p. 199). Marriage however was not considered any less holy, and adultery was very rare' (Legislazione No. 2, §16). Sometimes several brothers had a common wife. The Spartans' conscience was not disturbed by these disorders because, once the noble human feeling for perfect union had weakened, the end of having good descendants was, in their opinion, the only practical purpose left in marriage.

(199) No nation considered sexual pleasure alone as an upright end of marriage. When this most base end of the use of the two sexes is the sole end, it destroys marriage, removing the union of man and woman from all the holy laws which earned it the noble name of marriage. Indeed, the very name given to marriage recalls the second end, not the first, because it comes from the concept of mother.

(200) In the most ancient documents this concept is expressed with great sensitivity. We read in an ancient Indian book that the husband is reborn in the form of a foetus, and that the wife who has conceived is called Djaya because her husband is born (djayate) in her a second time (Mânava-Dharmasâstra, 9: 8).

(201) The cases are rare where we see the woman's love for offspring prevail over possession of the husband. Nevertheless, Sarah's act of bringing the bond-servant to Abraham because `it may be that I shall obtain children by her' (Gen 16: 2) seems to indicate that even in the woman there can be a prevailing love for offspring (cf. Gen 17: 13-17). But it is more true to say that Sarah shared the feeling of her sorrowing husband because he had no child, and because of her love gave up what must have been most precious to her.

(202) 1 Cor 11: 7, 9.

(203) Cf. The Summary Cause for the Stability or Downfall of Human Societies, 127-143.

(204) Prov 13: 1.

(205) Ibid., 17: 6.

(206) Gen 12: 1[-2].

(207) Ibid., 17: 5-6.

(208) Ibid., 12: 7.

(209) Ibid., 13: 15.

(210) Ibid., 15: 2-21.

(211) Gen 17. `And I will make my covenant between me and you, and WILL MULTIPLY YOU exceedingly And I WILL MAKE YOU exceedingly FRUITFUL; and I WILL MAKE NATIONS OF YOU and kings shall come forth from you And I will give TO YOU, and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojournings.' The same form can be found in Gen 18: 18; 21: 13; 22: 17.

(212) Cf. ER, 332-341.

(213) Cf. ER, 76.

(214) `The husband is the head of the wife' (Eph 5: 22-23; Col 3: 18.

(215) God called the first man `Adam' (Gen 2: 19). He then took the woman from Adam and wanted her to have the same name. `So God created MAN (ADAM) in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them' (Gen 1: 27). `This is the book of the generation of ADAM. in the day that God created man (HUMUS, ADAM, earth)he made him to the likeness of God. He created them male and female; and blessed them; and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created' (Gen 5: 1-2). This foundational law was universally preserved in the nations. The woman enters the house of the husband and takes his name and dignity. The Digest says: `The use of the masculine in the text applies mostly to both sexes' (Dig., bk. 5, t. 16, l. 195). Cf. also the Code of Justinian, bk. 5, t. 4, l. 10.

(216) The Romans praised the wife and gave her the title of domiseda [one who stays at home], as can be seen in an ancient inscription (cf. Fabretti, c. 4, n. 35). The following passage from Samuel Cocceji illustrates this necessity in the woman of keeping to the home: `When the master of the house wants to propagate his kind and produce beings like himself, he chooses a companion, a female who offers the use of her body for that end. This intention of the master indicates that he seeks a companion in order to procreate children from his seed. To his children, as true parts of his body, he can pass on all his rights; he can leave the children as successors of his family. Because the sole end of this transaction is that the master has sons from his seed, it necessarily follows that he wants to be the certain, undoubted father of those born. But this certainty can only be had by just marriage, that is, by that union of male and female which "contains a single manner of life". Consequently, when a woman promises the use of her body to her husband alone and enters his household for that end, she is by this very fact constituted under his supervision and guardianship. Hence the rule of nature is: "He is a son whom just marriage indicates" (bks. 19, 24, De stat. hom., bk. 4, bk. 6, ff. his, qui sui, etc.). And Julian says: "It is intolerable that he who has lived continuously with his wife may not wish to acknowledge his son as though he were not his own" (D., bk. 6)' (Dissert. Proem. in Grot., 12, bk. 3, c. 4, 141). The same reason explains the duty imposed on women by the Apostle of being silent in church, and of questioning the husband at home about religious truths; in short, all the rules of modesty, reserve and submission.

(217) `But woman is the glory of man,' says St. Paul (1 Cor 11: 7).

(218) Cf. Grotius, bk. 2, c. 5. He grants the husband `the right to choose the domicile' and adds, `if some other right is granted the husband, such as that in the Hebrew law of annulling the wife's desires, and among some nations, the right of selling the wife's goods, such right does not come from nature but from positive institution.'

Chapter 06

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