Marital Relations

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Prairie212

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Is it a sin to have marital relations during your wife’s menstrural period?
 
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maendem:
For heaven’s sake, why would it be a sin?
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My understanding was that all maritial relations have to be open to the possibility of bringing life into the world. Can a woman get pregnant during the menstrural period?
 
A woman can’t get pregnant after menopause, but she can certainly still have relations.
 
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Prairie212:
My understanding was that all maritial relations have to be open to the possibility of bringing life into the world. Can a woman get pregnant during the menstrural period?
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No. Being open to life merely means you are not doing anything to deliberately thwart fertility with barriers, chemicals, etc.

Scott
 
It was prohibited under the Mosaic Law as “unclean”. The ritual law was abolished in the New Convenant.

It is no more sinful than eating Lobster or a Cheeseburger.
 
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StratusRose:
Yes. Google it.
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Strictly speaking, you cannot get pregnant during a true menstruation. You can get pregnant during or after break-through bleeding. But unless you are using NFP and charting when ovulation occurs, you have no way of knowing if it is a true menstruation or break-through bleeding. This happens more often during pre-menopause, but can happen at any time.

Although it could be possible if a women has a very long menstrual cycle and ovulation occurs early. In this case, I would look for ways of making cycles more regular.
 
Catholic2003 said:
St. Thomas Aquinas thought such relations were sinful, but I don’t think the Church believes this today.
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Aquinas associated it with a medieval notion of birth defects. He assumed the offspring resulting from a menstral union would decidedly result in a defected child.

If that was the case, yes the great saint would be correct in his assessment. Great Theologian, Yes, Great Biologist, uh No.

If a child could ever be concieved during menses, the child is no more likely to have birth defects than any other child. So the critical reason used by St. Thomas does not exist.
 
As long as both husband and wife are comfortable with it and you are not an orthodox Jew, what is the harm?
 
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Rascal:
Strictly speaking, you cannot get pregnant during a true menstruation. You can get pregnant during or after break-through bleeding. But unless you are using NFP and charting when ovulation occurs, you have no way of knowing if it is a true menstruation or break-through bleeding. This happens more often during pre-menopause, but can happen at any time.

Although it could be possible if a women has a very long menstrual cycle and ovulation occurs early. In this case, I would look for ways of making cycles more regular.
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Actually, menstruation is considered fertile time because until the bleeding stops you cannot detect any fertile mucus that may be present. If a woman has early ovulation in that particular cycle, intercourse during the menstrual cycle could result in pregnancy.
 
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Brendan:
It is no more sinful than eating Lobster or a Cheeseburger.
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What? You mean you eat lobsters and cheeseburgers? You filthy animal.
 
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1ke:
Actually, menstruation is considered fertile time because until the bleeding stops you cannot detect any fertile mucus that may be present. If a woman has early ovulation in that particular cycle, intercourse during the menstrual cycle could result in pregnancy.
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Actually, with the sympto-thermal method you know if it is true menstration (low fertility) or breakthrough bleeding (high fertility).

Under the Mercy,

Matthew
 
Scott Waddell:
No. Being open to life merely means you are not doing anything to deliberately thwart fertility with barriers, chemicals, etc.

Scott
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Scott,

The text of Humane Vitae says “per se destinatus” in the Latin…the Italian working copy that much of the first English was based off of appears to have contained what was construed as the phrase open to life when in reality it is “as it is ordered”…in other words…Do this the way God intended and don’t add.

Matt
 
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CatholicMatthew:
Scott,

The text of Humane Vitae says “per se destinatus” in the Latin…the Italian working copy that much of the first English was based off of appears to have contained what was construed as the phrase open to life when in reality it is “as it is ordered”…in other words…Do this the way God intended and don’t add.

Matt
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I’m glad you pointed that out because I think the teaching is easier to understand if you explain it “old-school”. That is, the purpose of matrimony “as it is ordered” goes:

Primary: beggeting of children
Secondary: licit satisfaction of the sex urge

So because the conditions for fulfilling the primary purpose are not always present by God’s own design of fertility, it smoothly moves to the secondary during the infertile time. Using contraceptive acts is a deliberate attempt to force the secondary to the primary, hence it is disordered, or undoing God’s order.

Scott
 
Scott Waddell:
I’m glad you pointed that out because I think the teaching is easier to understand if you explain it “old-school”. That is, the purpose of matrimony “as it is ordered” goes:

Primary: beggeting of children
Secondary: licit satisfaction of the sex urge

So because the conditions for fulfilling the primary purpose are not always present by God’s own design of fertility, it smoothly moves to the secondary during the infertile time. Using contraceptive acts is a deliberate attempt to force the secondary to the primary, hence it is disordered, or undoing God’s order.

Scott
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Although I do not have documents in front of me, I believe that the Church states the Secondary purpose of marriage as a little more inclusive than simply a licit orgasm. I think that this would be backed not ony by psychology, but also some recent research in physical biology. I assume you meant to include other aspects also?
 
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otm:
Although I do not have documents in front of me, I believe that the Church states the Secondary purpose of marriage as a little more inclusive than simply a licit orgasm. I think that this would be backed not ony by psychology, but also some recent research in physical biology. I assume you meant to include other aspects also?
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This is paraphrased from Ott’s Fundamentals and it is pretty frank. The CCC has it as something like spousal unity and rather long explanation. It is a good read, but I don’t recall it making very clear the order, which I think it is good to check out and makes it easier to argue because some people think the two purposes are equal and therefore are able to make a argument (albeit a tortured and erroneous one) that ABC is ok.

Scott
 
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