Marriage vows mention "conjugal act" as "obligation"?

[francisca]

As far as I know it says “… love… for better and for worse”

Anyway, I just realized that the other threads were closed (“The so-called marital obligation” and “Many 40 something husbands unhappy…”).

 

[JimG]

I guess I didn’t read the other threads. You are right the vows don’t specifically mention the conjugal act. They don’t have to. The husband says “I take you for my lawfully wedded wife,” the wife says “I take you as my lawfully wedded husband.”

In a world of rampant fornication and cohabitation, we may have forgotten, but the terms wife, husband, and marriage, imply an exclusive right to each other’s body’s for marital rights–yes, that means sex.

 

[Lancer]

Amen Jim!..and for sure…Alleluia!

 

[AthenaC]

I didn’t think it had anything to do with what the vows themselves said. I thought it was just the overall concept of treating sex within marriage as a “debt” or an “obligation.” Because before your married, sex is “dirty” and “abusive,” but after marriage, it’s magically transformed into a “debt” or an “obligation.”

We have such healthy views on sex! I can’t imagine why we have the sex-related issues we do in our culture.

 

[EasterJoy]

I guess I didn’t read the other threads. You are right the vows don’t specifically mention the conjugal act. They don’t have to. The husband says “I take you for my lawfully wedded wife,” the wife says “I take you as my lawfully wedded husband.”

In a world of rampant fornication and cohabitation, we may have forgotten, but the terms wife, husband, and marriage, imply an exclusive right to each other’s body’s for marital rights–yes, that means sex.

Yes, it is implied by the vows and the canon laws that articulate what the terminology means. For instance, the couple agrees to join in marriage; canon law defines what marriage is, and that all parties are to know what that is before they marry. The nature of marriage is not for DIY definition, each couple as they see fit.

Before the couple is asked to state their intentions, the priest also says, “…you have come together in this church so that the Lord may seal and strengthen your love in the presence of the Church’s minister and this community. Christ abundantly blesses this love. He has already consecrated you in baptism and now he enriches and strengthens you by a special sacrament so that you may assume the duties of marriage in mutual and lasting fidelity…”

In the statement of intentions, it asks, “N. and N., have you come here freely and without reservation to give yourselves to each other in marriage?” and also “Will you accept children lovingly from God, and bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?”

Note, however, that the duties are talked about in the context of a seal of love. That is implied, too, of course; that is, that this is not like the obligation to pay your taxes. The duties are in the context of a relationship of free and mutual giving, which is unlike how we might see other “legal” obligations, which are imposed not by the nature of what we set out to do, but by some authority that decides for us what our obligations are.

 

[Em_in_FL]

Part of Canon Law on Marriage says:

Can. 1096 §1. For matrimonial consent to exist, the contracting parties must be at least not ignorant that marriage is a permanent partnership between a man and a woman ordered to the procreation of offspring by means of some sexual cooperation.

§2. This ignorance is not presumed after puberty.

 

[EasterJoy]

We have such healthy views on sex! I can’t imagine why we have the sex-related issues we do in our culture.

Yes, because the people with the “healthy” views have marriages that are so much better and sexual mores that make everyone so much happier! Human nature left to operate without sexual mores, unfettered by the concepts of fidelity or duties towards others is such a great enterprise, I can’t imagine why these rules were ever invented!

 

[mommamaree]

EasterJoy,
I wish you had explained it this well in my earlier thread!

Also, CAF regulars need to be aware that many Catholics are converts and were not married in the church. That was certainly the case for me and my husband. It has taken a lot of reading and talking and tears to begin to figure all of this out.

I am glad other people want to explore this and understand it from a Christian perspective. Hopefully, more attention paid to this can help those (including myself) who are hurting and are initially put off by terms that sound legal rather than loving.

 

[mommamaree]

Yes, because the people with the “healthy” views have marriages that are so much better and sexual mores that make everyone so much happier! Human nature left to operate without sexual mores, unfettered by the concepts of fidelity or duties towards others is such a great enterprise, I can’t imagine why these rules were ever invented!

I think Athena was referring to the unhealthy views I mentioned in my earlier thread…the ones I needed help to set aside for more Christlike views. I could be wrong. But it just seemed like Athena was commenting on unhealthy societal attitudes, that suddenly get traded for Catholic ones that are hard to understand at first.

 

[EasterJoy]

I think Athena was referring to the unhealthy views I mentioned in my earlier thread…the ones I needed help to set aside for more Christlike views. I could be wrong. But it just seemed like Athena was commenting on unhealthy societal attitudes, that suddenly get traded for Catholic ones that are hard to understand at first.

I have heard people who had trouble with the mental gymnastics of going from something previously forbidden to something currently allowed, let alone from “dirty” to “obliged”.

There is a bit of that every time we progress to being allowed to do anything that used to be forbidden, but yes, there are definitely a lot of people adding weird and heavy baggage when it comes to sex within marriage, even to the exclusion of what is actually required by the nature of marriage.

The problem is, the answer to wrong or badly-articulated boundaries is not to get rid of the boundaries. It is to return to a right understanding of the real natural boundaries of what we’re setting out to do, to merely describe the most natural ways to navigate the complexities of the terrain, including those times when one must go against the most commonly mistaken paths in order to find the way that actually works.

 

[AthenaC]

Please do not read into what I did not say. (If I had $1 for every time I have typed that, I could retire.)

The problem is, the answer to wrong or badly-articulated boundaries is not to get rid of the boundaries. It is to return to a right understanding of the real natural boundaries of what we’re setting out to do, to merely describe the most natural ways to navigate the complexities of the terrain, including those times when one must go against the most commonly mistaken paths in order to find the way that actually works.

Which was exactly my point. I have NEVER encountered someone (despite actually, seriously looking) who could clearly articulate the “complexities of the terrain” as you put it. What you have instead is an overload of wrong, badly-articulated, and just plain unhealthy attitudes. Even those who come highly recommended as people who “really get it” don’t get it, because their material is littered with inaccurate assumptions.

Now that I’m 30 and have been around the block a few times, I think I understand the “complexities of the terrain”. The question I am still struggling with is how to articulate it to my daughters as they get to that age.

That said, that’s not the point of this thread, although I do strongly believe that unhealthy attitudes toward sex in the aggregate lead to sex being an issue of contention within marriage.

 

[AthenaC]

Yes, because the people with the “healthy” views have marriages that are so much better and sexual mores that make everyone so much happier! Human nature left to operate without sexual mores, unfettered by the concepts of fidelity or duties towards others is such a great enterprise, I can’t imagine why these rules were ever invented!

Yes, because “dirty,” “abusive,” “debt,” and “obligation” are great, healthy ways to see sex.

 

[francisca]

On the previous threads, several male posters mention that when their wive did it out of obligation, it has had them feeling more empty. I can imagine how I will feel sad if my husband just does it out of obligation.

Like EasterJoy, I also wonder why those rules were even invented.

 

[Sillara]

I am happy to perform my obligations to my husband.

This means that I am happy to honor and serve and help him in whatsoever fashion he needs, from ironing his clothes to making his lunch to bearing his children to having sex with him.

I am happy to do those things.

I love my husband. I vowed to love him on our wedding day, and I shall love him as long as I live. Just because it is my obligation, my debt, does not mean that I am not joyful about fulfilling that debt. For some people, “debt” or “obligation” may have negative connotations, but those are the words used for a reason. Those are the words the denotations of which correctly describe the marital act.

I was not taught much about sex when I was growing up (which I did as a Protestant, by the way). My mother was painfully shy about such things, to the point that she had me explain the “birds and the bees” to my younger sisters–without actually asking me where I had learned it! I was taught that sex was for marriage, and that was about it.

However, I was able to figure some things out for myself (reading Aquinas, I mean!), and my own children are being raised differently.

Sex, we teach them, is for marriage only, but it is a beautiful thing, one that produces children, and it is a perfectly natural thing. It is not hidden, nor is it considered “bad” in our household. Sure, our 11-year-old will roll her eyes when she sees me with a hickey or three, but she is absorbing this attitude toward sex. She is already discerning a vocation to marriage, and her husband will be a lucky man one day.

On the other hand, our oldest is already discerning a vocation to the religious life and expresses pleasure at the thought of living a virgin her whole life.

Sex is how we renew the sacrament of our marriages. Would I consider receiving the Eucharist a horrible thing because it is described as my “Easter duty”?

 

[EasterJoy]

Like EasterJoy, I also wonder why those rules were even invented.

I know why they were invented. They were invented because sometimes we don’t do what we ought to do, can do, and would be happier if we were doing, but too often won’t do unless we feel we “ought” to.

I think it is like the rule that you have an obligation to bring your child up in the faith. On one side of it, it seems ludicrous that a person of faith would dream of not bringing their child up in the faith, or that a person who would have to be told it is an obligation can do anything except “go through the motions”…and does that even work? On the other hand, we all know that when there is a temptation to not do what it is necessary to do when it is possible but that some people sometimes elect not to do, that’s going to be described as an obligation: like the obligation to take care of your health, honor your parents, and so on.

And just like the obligation to honor one’s parents, the obligations of marriage can be difficult to sort out when there are complicating factors at play. For instance, we get the idea that the obligation that we “honor” gives our parents the right to be tyrants, but that isn’t true. Yet when they’ve been tyrants and used the rule that we have this duty to exert inappropriate influence, our sense of what to do can be very distorted.

 

[underacloud]

Thanks for the post, Sillara. It’s a great commentary of the role of sex within a happy marriage.

Sex is how we renew the sacrament of our marriages. Would I consider receiving the Eucharist a horrible thing because it is described as my “Easter duty”?

This is a helpful way of seeing sex as an obligation. In life we have many obligations, and often they are obligations for our own good. As Catholics we have the obligation to confess mortal sins, to receive the Eucharist over Easter (and hopefully as often as possible), to attend mass every Sunday, etc…These are all wonderful obligations.

As a father and husband, I have many more specific obligations. I am obliged to love my wife and children, to provide for them, to cook dinner for them (I’m the main cook in our family), to change nappies when they’re full, to help with homework, to put them to bed, etc… These are all obligations I have. I can assure you that I often don’t feel like doing some of these (eg nappies), but for the good of the family, and fulfilling my duty as father and husband, I do them. Sex is another obligation; a specific one I have towards my wife, for her good and the good of our marriage…and my good too.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

On the previous threads, several male posters mention that when their wive did it out of obligation, it has had them feeling more empty. I can imagine how I will feel sad if my husband just does it out of obligation.

Like EasterJoy, I also wonder why those rules were even invented.

Francisca
Rules protect rights and clarify deinitions in the face of ignorance or malice or a combination of the two.

Law cannot create love but it can define the minimum conditions necessary to identify something that it protects. The “obligation” is a necessary part of the definition of marriage (which is a communal reality not a private one (though many today might find this hard to understand)) - which is protected and privileged by the State.

If one party entered into marriage without the knowledge or willingness to accept this reality - then it would not be marriage.

To confuse Canon Law on marriage with Pastoral or Spiritual Theology of marriage is a dangerous misunderstanding!

Unfortunately Church theology and ethics over the last 800 years has in fact been terribly over influenced by a legalistic approach resulting in the sort of confusions evident on this thread. This is one of the problems resulting from medieval times when Church and State were one.

It will take a few more centuries for the Church to rid itself of this problematic.

 

[fpt]

Thanks for the post, Sillara. It’s a great commentary of the role of sex within a happy marriage.

This is a helpful way of seeing sex as an obligation. In life we have many obligations, and often they are obligations for our own good. As Catholics we have the obligation to confess mortal sins, to receive the Eucharist over Easter (and hopefully as often as possible), to attend mass every Sunday, etc…These are all wonderful obligations.

As a father and husband, I have many more specific obligations. I am obliged to love my wife and children, to provide for them, to cook dinner for them (I’m the main cook in our family), to change nappies when they’re full, to help with homework, to put them to bed, etc… These are all obligations I have. I can assure you that I often don’t feel like doing some of these (eg nappies), but for the good of the family, and fulfilling my duty as father and husband, I do them. Sex is another obligation; a specific one I have towards my wife, for her good and the good of our marriage…and my good too.

I am okay with you.

Indeed, in my opinion, the notion of " conjugal debt " is existing for solving the issues. It is only the ultimate mechanism of the conjugal moral in order to identify the moral rights, the moral duties, the moral obligations of each spouse about the union of bodies, if and only if there are problems and difficulties. For understanding the issues that each human person asks itself on the marital act, it is necessary to respond to these following questions:

What is the reciprocal and mutual donation of bodies between spouses? What are constitutive elements of this reciprocal and mutual donation of bodies?
What is the moral natural order of the reciprocal and mutual donation of bodies? What is the moral natural regime of the moral natural order of the reciprocal and mutual donation of bodies?

What is the right on the body of my own body? What are constitutive elements of right on the body of my own body? What is the moral natural order of the right on the body of my own body? What is the moral natural regime of the moral natural order of the right on the body of my own body?

What is the right on the body of my spouse? What are constitutive elements of right on the body of my spouse? What are constitutive elements of right on the body of my spouse? What is the moral natural order of the right on the body of my spouse? What is the moral natural regime of the moral natural order of the right on the body of spouse?

What are the sexual obligations, the sexual duties, the sexual rights of wife toward her husband? The different types of obligations: to do, not to do, to give, not to give?

What are the sexual obligations, the sexual duties, the sexual rights of husband toward his wife? The different types of obligations: to do, not to do, to give, not to give?

How to define and to identify an unnatural sexual act within marriage and in the context of marital act without:

1. these heresies: the manicheism, the catharism, the jansenism, the fideism, the victorianism, the puritanism, the theoretical providentialism;
   2.these wrong mentalities: the moralism, the rigorism, the dolorism, the prudism (the prudishness), the scrupulism;
2. these ideologies: the absolute rationalism, the anti-rationalism, the primary anti-personalism, the primary anti-phenomenologism, the absurdism (absurdity or absurdisness), gender theory, radical feminism…etc ?

The purpose is to understand the natural moral law of marriage with the types of sanctions:

Nullity of marriage the day of wedding (canon law);
Wrong acts against the justice, the natural conjugal love and against the catholic conjugal charity;
Wrong acts against the life, the liberty, the potential fecundity, the fidelity, the unity.

ETC…

 

[1ke]

Like EasterJoy, I also wonder why those rules were even invented.

They aren’t rules at all. The Church didn’t make this up as some rule. The Church discerned the truth about the nature of marriage via divine revelation and communicates that to us.

The truth about marriage is that the essential properties are fidelity, perpetuity, and fecundy. Here, reading Casti Connubii would be a good idea. Pope Pius, quoting Augustine, goes into detail on why the essential properties of marriage necessitate that the marital debt be paid. And, of course, this merely echoes St. Paul in Scripture.

 

[EasterJoy]

They aren’t rules at all. The Church didn’t make this up as some rule. The Church discerned the truth about the nature of marriage via divine revelation and communicates that to us.

The truth about marriage is that the essential properties are fidelity, perpetuity, and fecundy. Here, reading Casti Connubii would be a good idea. Pope Pius, quoting Augustine, goes into detail on why the essential properties of marriage necessitate that the marital debt be paid. And, of course, this merely echoes St. Paul in Scripture.

In this context, I don’t think the meaning is that they wonder why there are boundaries. I think the lament was that it is unfortunate to have to think that the boundaries, because of their nature, need to be articulated using legal terms.

It’s needed because some people believe that it is not necessary to do anything they aren’t “obliged” to do. If they don’t happen to feel like doing something, they want to know “where does it say I have to do that?” or “Who says that is what marriage means?” And so, as in every other facet of life, there need to be articulated versions of these boundaries that have always been there by the nature of what we are doing. Some people say, “Oh, OK, if that is necessary, then I’ll do it” and others say, “You people and your rules! Why don’t you mind your own business!!” and yet others say, “See! See! Doing it my way is what this rule on page 53 says! You have to do what I say!!” even though they are ignoring other boundaries (which possibly they don’t happen to want to notice becaues it means there is a rule that keeps them from being a bully about it).

Human nature…go figure! Not articulating the rules doesn’t change it.

After all, is it any surprise that a race once learning who God is needed to be told that love of God is an obligation pretty much needs pretty much everything else spelled out, too?