Vow of Chastity and Married Life

[nmoerbeek]

Hi,

I have a question concerning people who are married and also are members of third orders.

When you take the vow of Chasity what is it considered? I ask mainly because in the book Moral Theology by Fr Jone it says that those who take the vow of Chasity must render the martial debt, but have no right to request it. I am not sure if this is referring to people who have taken the perfect vow of chastity but had to get married because of an arranged marriage or women who became nuns because they though their husbands where dead in a war and then he came back or if it pertains to third orders who take vows of Chasity.

I believe if I asked different priests I think I would get different answers but I was wondering what others thought.

 

[giuseppeTO]

Hi,

I have a question concerning people who are married and also are members of third orders.

When you take the vow of Chasity what is it considered? I ask mainly because in the book Moral Theology by Fr Jone it says that those who take the vow of Chasity must render the martial debt, but have no right to request it. I am not sure if this is referring to people who have taken the perfect vow of chastity but had to get married because of an arranged marriage or women who became nuns because they though their husbands where dead in a war and then he came back or if it pertains to third orders who take vows of Chasity.

I believe if I asked different priests I think I would get different answers but I was wondering what others thought.

I am a married SSPX tertiary (although my wife is not). Chastity always relates to your state in life. If you are unmarried and/or in a religious order, chastity entails remaining pure of all sins of the flesh (thought, word, deed).

In marriage, it means that you are chase to your marriage vows and seek no gratification outside of those vows. So it entails purity in thought, word, and deed and sexual contact only as a function of the marriage debt and only to the extent that the act is not opposed to procreation. I don’t want to be graphic here and I also don’t want it to sound sterile and perfunctory. One should lead a normal married life with normal sexual relations and avoid any other sexual stimulation from the internet, movies, books, etc.

In the SSPX Third Order, there is no restrictions on who does the asking but the husband cannot refuse. That has certainly NEVER been a problem for me.

 

[nmoerbeek]

Thank you for your very clear, informative, and clean response.