Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Second Marriage a Species of Adultery, Marriage Itself Impugned, as Akin to Adultery. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
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”550 (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.”551
551 Matt. v. 28. See de Idol., cc. ii.
xxiii.; de Pæn., c. iii.; de Cult. Fem., l. ii. c.
ii.; de Pa., c. vi. | 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.552
552 But compare, or rather,
contrast, herewith, ad Ux., l. i. cc. ii. iii. | Accordingly, the best thing for a man
is not to touch a woman; and accordingly the virgin’s is the
principal sanctity,553
553 Comp. ad Ux., l.
i. c. viii.; c. i. above; and de Virg. Vel., c. x. | 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.554
554 Comp. ad Ux., l.
i. c. v. ad fin. | 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!E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|