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De Exhortatione Castitatis

IX.

[1] Si penitus sensus eius interpretemur, non aliud dicendum erit secundum matrimonium quam species stupri. Cum enim dicat maritos hoc in sollicitudine habere, quemadmodum sibi placeant, non utique de moribus (nam bonam sollicitudinem non suggillaret), sed de cultu et ornatu et omni studio formae ad inlecebras moliendas sollicitos intellegi uelit, de forma autem et cultu placere carnalis concupiscentiae ingenium sit, quae etiam stupri causa est, ecquid uidetur tibi stupri affine esse secundum matrimonium, quoniam ea in illo deprehenduntur quae stupro competunt? [2] Ipse dominus, qui uiderit, inquit, mulierem ad concupiscendum, iam stuprauit eam in corde suo. Qui autem eam ad ducendum uiderit, minus an plus fecit? Quid si etiam duxerit? quod non faceret, nisi et ad ducendum concupisset et ad concupiscendum uidisset. Nisi si potest duci uxor quam non uideris nec concupieris. [3] Multum sane interest, maritus an caelebs aliam concupiscat. Omnis mulier etiam caelibi alia est, quamdiu aliena, nec per aliud tamen fit marita, nisi per quod et adultera. Leges uidentur matrimonii et stupri differentiam facere, per diuersitatem inliciti, non per condicionem rei ipsius. Alioquin quae res et uiris et feminis omnibus adest ad matrimonium et stuprum? commixtio carnis scilicet, cuius concupiscentiam dominus stupro adaequauit. [4] 'Ergo', inquit, 'iam et primas, id est unas nuptias destruis?' Nec immerito, quia et ipsae ex eo constant quod est stuprum. Ideo optimum est homini mulierem non attingere, et ideo uirginis principalis est sanctitas, quia caret stupri affinitate. Et cum haec etiam de primis et unis nuptiis praetendi ad causam continentiae possint, quanto magis secundo matrimonio recusando praeiudicabunt? Gratus esto, si semel tibi indulsit deus nubere. Gratus autem eris, si iterum indulsisse illum tibi nescias. Ceterum abuteris indulgentia, cum sine modestia uteris. Modestia a modo intellegitur. [5] Non tibi sufficit de summo illo immaculatae uirginitatis gradu in secundum recidisse nubendo, sed in tertium adhuc deuolueris, et in quartum, et fortassis in plures, postquam in secunda statione continens non fuisti, quia nec prohibere plures nuptias uoluit qui de secundis prouocandis retractauit. Nubamus igitur quotidie, et nubentes ab ultimo die deprehendamur, tamquam Sodoma et Gomorra, quo die 'uae' illud super praegnantes et lactantes adimplebitur, id est super maritos et incontinentes; de nuptiis enim uteri et ubera et infantes. Et quando finis nubendi? Credo post finem uiuendi.

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On Exhortation to Chastity

Chapter IX.--Second Marriage a Species of Adultery, Marriage Itself Impugned, as Akin to Adultery.

If we look deeply into his meanings, and interpret them, second marriage will have to be termed no other than a species of fornication. For, since he says that married persons make this their solicitude, "how to please one another" ¹ (not, of course, morally, for a good solicitude he would not impugn); and (since), he wishes them to be understood to be solicitous about dress, and ornament, and every kind of personal attraction, with a view to increasing their power of allurement; (since), moreover, to please by personal beauty and dress is the genius of carnal concupiscence, which again is the cause of fornication: pray, does second marriage seem to you to border upon fornication, since in it are detected those ingredients which are appropriate to fornication? The Lord Himself said, "Whoever has seen a woman with a view to concupiscence has already violated her in his heart." ² But has he who has seen her with a view to marriage done so less or more? What if he have even married her?--which he would not do had he not desired her with a view to marriage, and seen her with a view to concupiscence; unless it is possible for a wife to be married whom you have not seen or desired. I grant it makes a wide difference whether a married man or an unmarried desire another woman. Every woman, (however), even to an unmarried man, is "another," so long as she belongs to some one else; nor yet is the mean through which she becomes a married woman any other than that through which withal (she becomes) an adulteress. It is laws which seem to make the difference between marriage and fornication; through diversity of illicitness, not through the nature of the thing itself. Besides, what is the thing which takes place in all men and women to produce marriage and fornication? Commixture of the flesh, of course; the concupiscence whereof the Lord put on the same footing with fornication. "Then," says (some one), "are you by this time destroying first--that is, single--marriage too?" And (if so) not without reason; inasmuch as it, too, consists of that which is the essence of fornication. ³ Accordingly, the best thing for a man is not to touch a woman; and accordingly the virgin's is the principal sanctity, ⁴ because it is free from affinity with fornication. And since these considerations may be advanced, even in the case of first and single marriage, to forward the cause of continence, how much more will they afford a prejudgment for refusing second marriage? Be thankful if God has once for all granted you indulgence to marry. Thankful, moreover, you will be if you know not that He has granted you that indulgence a second time. But you abuse indulgence if you avail yourself of it without moderation. Moderation is understood (to be derived) from modus, a limit. It does not suffice you to have fallen back, by marrying, from that highest grade of immaculate virginity; but you roll yourself down into yet a third, and into a fourth, and perhaps into more, after you have failed to be continent in the second stage; inasmuch as he who has treated about contracting second marriages has not willed to prohibit even more. Marry we, therefore, daily. ⁵ And marrying, let us be overtaken by the last day, like Sodom and Gomorrah; that day when the "woe" pronounced over "such as are with child and giving suck" shall be fulfilled, that is, over the married and the incontinent: for from marriage result wombs, and breasts, and infants. And when an end of marrying? I believe after the end of living!