Female Impotence Questions

[1ke]

So what does it mean that the above can be an “impediment”?
If one of the couple cannot do the above, can they not marry?

Correct. If the impediment is perpetual and antecedent-- and known with moral certainty-- the couple cannot marry.

Or does it just mean they have grounds for an annulment if they choose?

If the impediment is not known or if there is doubt about the impotence or its perpetuity, the marriage can go forward. If it becomes certain, the marriage is invalid.

 

[1ke]

But does the priest actually ask these questions before you get married? To make sure? Do ya have to fill out some sort of form or something?

Yes, it is a part of the premarital investigation. The couple is asked these questions.

 

[1ke]

Someone please correct me if I’m wrong, but would impotency be cause to allow a couple to be married in a “brother and sister” relationship?

No. Impotency is an impediment to valid marriage. It cannot be dispensed.

Those undertaking a Josephite marriage are **capable **of consummation, but by mutual consent refrain from doing so for a time or indefinitely. The couple must be both willing and able to assume the duties of marital life if one of the spouses desires to begin the conjugal life. They cannot validly marry if they intend to withhold conjugal relations from their spouse. Remember, in marriage you are exchanging the right to marital intercourse. You can agree to not exercise the right, for a time or indefinitely, but you must be able to do so.

If so that might be an alternative path for someone who was impotent to choose from.

No.

 

[Nate13]

No. Impotency is an impediment to valid marriage. It cannot be dispensed.

Those undertaking a Josephite marriage are **capable **of consummation, but by mutual consent refrain from doing so for a time or indefinitely. The couple must be both willing and able to assume the duties of marital life if one of the spouses desires to begin the conjugal life. They cannot validly marry if they intend to withhold conjugal relations from their spouse. Remember, in marriage you are exchanging the right to marital intercourse. You can agree to not exercise the right, for a time or indefinitely, but you must be able to do so.

Thank you for the clarification

 

[Leegal]

I realize it’s a sensitive subject. Maybe too sensitive for here. Maybe it’s too medical or psychological to make comment.

As in post #5, the only other post that addressed the orgasm question in the female, I too would wonder why? I would add that it’s more Freudean misogyny – that letter or study. That author also has other questionable studies on the same topic; I had to be sure how far afield that Ph.D. would go to “publish or perish.”

And it’s not an empediment to marriage nor a reason to nullify an existing marriage because that study is junk science and not an “out” on a claim of female impotence.

 

[1ke]

If a couple got married and all was fine…and then a few years later, the husband had an accident and was maimed in the sex organ area, making it impossible to “fulfill his marital debt” in the way the church defines it…would the marriage then be no longer valid?

No. This is a misunderstanding of valid marriage. Nothing can dissolve a valid, consummated sacramental marriage or make it invalid.

The marriage is valid and will be valid until the death of one of the spouses.

Even if they kissed and hugged and he “took care of her” in other ways…

That would be a serious (mortal) sin against the Sixth Commandment. If he is no longer able to engage in intercourse, then the couple cannot engage in masterbatory acts.

and they loved each other and wanted to stay together…still, the marriage would no longer be “valid”?

No, this is not an accurate understanding of the indissoluability of a valid, sacramental marriage.

Would they be expected to separate?

No.

 

[1ke]

I didn’t mean “masterbatory”. I meant he’d do things for/to her he would have normally done before… just not intercourse.

That is masterbation, if you are meaning bringing her to climax without intercourse (which is what i took your “taking care of her” euphemism to mean). It is a sin against the sixth commandment.

Hugging and kissing, of course, would not be.

 

[Nate13]

Isn’t the sixth commandment, You Can’t Kill?

Yes, that’s what I meant.
Hold on there. Are you saying it’s a sin to make your wife climax in ways other than intercourse?
(But this is the only way many women can do it!)

vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a6.htm
ARTICLE 6
THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT
You shall not commit adultery.113

I believe Protestants and Catholics have different numbering? Don’t worry it confused the heck out of me the first time I realized as well haha.

1. You can bring your wife to climax within the arena of completing sexual intercourse, before or after the climax of the male.
2. No, penetration is not the only option available to bring your wife to climax. Oral/manual stimulation is allowed within the context of completing the marital act…foreplay…you get the idea. The Church realizes not all woman or even most woman can achieve orgasm via intercourse.

Before you ask, the reason there is a different standard for women as opposed to men is because of the inherent difference in purpose of the orgasm for a woman as compared to a man. The standard is equal though in terms of how natural law is applied, so in other words its one of those time where its unequal, yet equal. Complaining about the supposed “inequality” would be like complaining that woman have vaginas not penis’. It’s just how God created us, and recognizing and upholding the purposes he instilled is just as important as keeping the Ten Commandments.

 

[thistle]

No, I would hope that a man would relay that information to the woman before they tried to get married. If not and the woman found out afterwards, that would be cause for an annulment.

Someone please correct me if I’m wrong, but would impotency be cause to allow a couple to be married in a “brother and sister” relationship? I think I remember discussing this in another thread, but I cannot remember the answer. If so that might be an alternative path for someone who was impotent to choose from.

NO. Known permanent impotence does not allow the marriage to take place at all.

 

[TrueLight]

That would be a serious (mortal) sin against the Sixth Commandment. If he is no longer able to engage in intercourse, then the couple cannot engage in masterbatory acts.

Say what?

So an old man who can no longer get an erection cannot “take care” of his old lady wife?

 

[Buck_Crosswhite]

Married couples hug and kiss without any thought of sex all the time. Don’t assume that when a man kisses his wife goodbye on his way to work that it’s a sexual act.

 

[1ke]

Isn’t the sixth commandment, You Can’t Kill?

Yes, that’s what I meant.
Hold on there. Are you saying it’s a sin to make your wife climax in ways other than intercourse?
(But this is the only way many women can do it!)

no. The sixth commandment prohibits sexual sin. The fifth command,net is tho shall not kill.

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. it is a sin to replace intercourse with masterbatory acts to climax. It is not a sin to assist the wife within a completed marital act.

 

[1ke]

Say what?

So an old man who can no longer get an erection cannot “take care” of his old lady wife?

That is correct.

 

[Equites_Christi]

A thought on the OP:

Female impotence can’t mean inability to orgasm, because I don’t think there is any licit way for the female to know if she can orgasm or not outside of already being married (the male could know through having wet dreams).

 

[Buck_Crosswhite]

Hopefully the women go to a gynecologist before they get married to be sure they have no problems.

Is the author of the op a man or a woman?

 

[Castello]

Yet again, remember, God actually knows what He is doing, He designed sex and marriage - while our ideas may seem like an improvement, let’s leave it up to the Creator who determines what is and what is not sin.

 

[Nate13]

NO. Known permanent impotence does not allow the marriage to take place at all.

Double thanks, but your a step behind 1ke in clearing that up

 

[Nate13]

Oh, I trust God.
It’s some* people* I’m not trusting so much…

Complaining about the supposed “inequality” would be like complaining that woman have vaginas not penis’. It’s just how God created us, and recognizing and upholding the purposes he instilled is just as important as keeping the Ten Commandments.

 

[Buck_Crosswhite]

is the author of the op a man or a woman?

 

[1ke]

This sounds out of order.

If the procreating part becomes not possible for a husband and wife, you are saying the Church then takes away the unitive part, as well??

The procreative and the unitive cannot be separated. This is as God designed our sexuality. The Church takes nothing away. The Church proclaims Christ’s truth at all times.

So that nothing is left for the married couple?

For better, for worse; in sickness, and in health

To say “nothing” is left for the couple trivializes both the marital embrace and marriage as a whole. Certainly, there is much “left” for a couple who is no longer able to engage in sexual relations due to disease or infirmity.

I was told that one of the “gifts” God gives an older couple is that once the procreation part was done, they could then enjoy decades of “unitive” sex with each other on it’s own.

You were told incorrectly. That is a gave sin against God.

If that is the case, then it should be okay for a husband to “take care of his old lady” (LOL Truelight!) without intercourse.

That is a grave sin against God and the marital embrace.

And here’s another thought about the getting married question:

If a young couple loves each other and wants to marry, but there is some sort of physical problem that prevents them from having intercourse “to completion” and getting pregnant…what about if they adopt children!!!

The inability to have intercourse is impotence, and that is an impediment to marriage. We’ve arleady covered this.

That way, they take care of the “procreation debt”, do good works, give love and care for some of God’s orphaned children who are needing parents and a home desperately…and they have whatever “unitive” sex possible to forge a emotional, physical, and mental bond together as a couple.

Nope. You misunderstand the unitive and procreative elements of our sexual faculties. The unitive and procreative elements must be present *every time *we use our sexual faculties. The Church has no teaching on a ‘procreative debt’. That doesn’t even make sense.

God designed our sexuality in a particular way and we are not free to alter it or to disorder it. A sex act is disordered if it is not BOTH unitive and objectively procreative (meaning it is a completed act of vaginal intercourse, regardless of whether or not conception can or does occur).

Do you think God would object to that?

Yes. He has told us how we may and may not use our sexual faculties.