If the abstinence is mutually agreed upon, no. Josephite marriages are rare, but they are not forbidden.
Wouldn’t that imply that sterile people can be married? Someone else on these boards claimed that sterile people were ineligible for marriage. What’s the difference between sterility and mutual abstinence?
Sterile people can be married. Impotence is an impediment but sterility is not.
Sterility is either the inability to fertilize an ovum or the inability to produce ovum that can be fertilized. It does not mean one cannot have sex. Mutual abstinence is an agreement by both spouses to abstain from sex.
). They both consented to consecrate themselves entirely to God and went into religious monastic life later in life.What possible difference can there be between a sterile couple and an impotent couple? The end result–no children–is exactly the same.
Here’s some unsolicited advice, depending on whether Situation A or Situation B obtains:
This isn’t rocket science. Someone can be sterile and still engage in the marital act. Someone who is impotent cannot.
The reasons for that end result, however, are different, and ignoring those reasons while focusing on just the result fails to take into account all the facts.
A little know fact is that in the old Jewish practise married Rabbi’s abstained from sex when they were doing temple duties. The same is true of married Orthodox priests to this day - they abstain from conjugal relations for at least a day before services.
Man A cannot possibly be answering a call from God because God intends marriage to have the primary purpose of begetting children and impotent men CANNOT beget children.
What does copulation or lack thereof have to do with marriage if the end result is always “no children”? An impotent man can’t marry but a sterile one who can futilely ape the deed can? That makes no sense.
The way I see it is sterility can be fixed by modern medicine, and sometimes even sterile people can beget children (Remember Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist)? But impotent people (e.g. those who have been castrated) has 0% chance of begetting children, and currently nothing can be done to improve the odds. See the difference?
Sorry, this makes no sense. If the reason Man A is living in sin is because the primary purpose of marriage is to beget children, then Man B would also be guilty of the same sin, since he intends on having a sexless marriage.
That said it best.
Because the sexual act is necessary for the Sacrament of Marriage to be true. Sex in marriage is really similar to Communion. In the Sexual act you are worshiping your spouse, in Communion you are worshiping Christ. Just like sex, Communion is not necessary other then once to be a Catholic in full Communion. But just like Communion, we all called to do it as much as possible to keep our bodies from sin. What you are speaking of does happen with religous couples who are part of an order that allows spouses into their ranks.