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THE virtue of temperance consists in the restraint and moderation of the natural
appetites in accordance with the dictates of reason.
Its subject matter, in particular, is those appetites that are strongest in man and are accompanied by the keenest sensations of
pleasure.
Such pleasures are the consequences of certain bodily activities, and the more natural the activity, that is, the more essential
to the existence of the body, the stronger the pleasure.
The most essential activities are eating and drinking and propagation, for these preserve the individual and the race.
Therefore, the particular subject matter of temperance is food and drink and sex, or,
as the Schoolmen always called it, the pleasures of touch.
St. Thomas Aquinas (S.T. II, 11, quaest. cxli, art. 6), after giving a definition of temperance along these lines, provides an excellent example of the scholastic use of ends and means in his argument to establish that the standard or rule by which temperance judges what is or is not allowable in the matter of sex and food, is bodily necessity. Morality, he says, "consists chiefly in reasonableness. For the good of man is to live according to reason. But the primary characteristic of reason is its relating means to end. And in this lies the good of reason; for the good implies the end, and the end itself defines and prescribes the means. But all pleasurable human activities are directed towards some vital necessity, which is their end. Therefore, temperance takes vital necessity as the standard of pleasurable activities and uses them in so far only as necessity demands."
This rigorous statement is qualified by a somewhat broad interpretation of necessity. This includes not merely what is essential to continued existence but also what is proper or fitting to a man's special circumstances. So that a temperate man may perform these pleasurable activities provided that they do not harm his health, nor are beyond his means, nor are wrong on other grounds.
To the general question, "Is temperance a virtue, or why should we be temperate?" there is a ready
answer.
Temperance is by definition a reasonable control of the bodily appetites and passions.
Intemperance, therefore, is unreasonable.
No one in his senses can maintain that it is a good thing to live in an unreasonable manner.
"Morality consists in reasonableness."
There are probably very few persons who seriously hold that reason should exercise no control at all over the appetites. Such a
position means that the true good of man lies in behaving precisely like the beasts, having all his acts dictated by blind
instincts. Life is to consist of immediate and automatic response to external stimuli, and every conscious effort to choose
between different possible reactions, or to prefer one stimulus and ignore another, must be suppressed. This view is really only
possible to out-and-out behaviourists who would regard the last sentence, about the suppression of conscious effort, as nonsense.
There is, and can be, no such effort; the idea of it is illusory; there is only reaction to the strongest stimulus of the moment.
But if the behaviourist, strictly deterministic position is once abandoned, if it is admitted that man has a freedom of choice,
however narrow its limits, then it must follow that the good lies in the control of the appetites. And the direction of that
control is the work of reason.
If, then, it were admitted that it is right to exercise reasonable control over
one's appetites, the question arises, "What constitutes such reasonable control?"
Aquinas, and Western tradition generally, gives the answer -
the exercise of these appetites must be controlled by reference to the ends to which they are
directed.
For this is the very essence of reasonable control, since it is the province of reason both to judge the Rightness of ends and the
fitness of means. The end of these appetites can be clearly discerned - the conservation of human life in the individual and in
the species. These appetites only exist as means to this end. Only as means to this end can they be rightly used. When they do not
serve this end they are wrongly used. This is the beginning, the end and the sum of traditional Christian doctrine on food and
sex. Arguments drawn from Scripture - positive divine law - and from canon law are but additional props, or restatements, of the
fundamental position, which is held to be based on the natural law. The appetites are given for a specific end and must subserve
that end; anything else is disobedience to God. It now remains to examine this position in some of its details.
The wrongness of gluttony and drunkenness consists in the fact that they are excessive.
It is to eat and to drink more than is necessary for the preservation of life.
Worse than that, it is actually to defeat the end for which the appetites of eating and drinking exist, for by the excess health
is impaired, so that life is not preserved but rather destroyed. Yet it might be argued that to eat or drink to excess is not a
grave sin. Aquinas deals with this point (S.T. II, 11, quaest. cxlviii, art. 2). He admits that it is not expressly forbidden in
the Decalogue, and that common sense regards it as a small matter. But he argues that the element of excess may be regarded in two
ways:
(1) as it affects the end, and
(2) as it affects the means.
In so far as the excess affects the end, so that a man is prepared to do anything, however wrong, for the sake of indulging his
appetite for eating or drinking, gluttony and drunkenness are clearly grave sins. For in that case they involve a deliberate
desertion of man's proper end, the service of God. But if the excess affects the means only - that is, does not involve so great
an absorption that a man will commit sins to indulge the appetite - it is a small matter. "The good trencherman" or
"the man who likes his glass" is guilty of inordinate affection, but is rightly regarded by common sense as only
slightly to blame. His sin is different from that gluttony which figures in the list of deadly sins, and which involves a wilful,
deliberate denial of man's end. The one is taking more than is necessary for health; the other is taking what is known to be
injurious to health.
The excessive indulgence of the appetite for food and drink and of the appetite of sex are both the subject matter of temperance, not merely because they both involve the pleasures of touch, but also because the one is often the cause of the other. It is a matter of common experience that drunkenness leads to sexual immorality through the temporary dislodgment of reason from her throne which drunkenness causes. As it is commonly put, "the normal controls are relaxed". But the relation between the two vices is closer than that, as the ancients never fail to point out. The close physical contiguity between the belly and the generating organs is significant. (See Jerome, Letter to Amandus, No. 147.) Over-eating and over-drinking do not merely cause a relaxation of attention and self-discipline; they actually stimulate the sexual organs and increase appetite.
The Christian ideal in the matter of the control of the
sexual appetite is the practice of the virtue of chastity. This is the virtue of
temperance narrowed down to the reasoned control of sex.
There are three forms of chastity:
virginity, widowhood and married chastity.
It may not be out of place to say a word here about virginity, which has always occupied a high place of honour in Christian moral
theology. Virginity consists, of course, in total abstention from the indulgence of the sexual appetite. It may be considered
materially or formally. Materially it consists in the physical fact that there has been no sexual intercourse. Formally it
consists in the never consenting to such intercourse, and the firmly kept resolution never to have such intercourse. It is
possible, obviously, to lose virginity materially, e.g. by rape, and yet to retain it formally. And the essence of virginity lies
in its formal sense, in the act of will that refuses to consent to the pleasures of sex.
The Christian doctrine that such refusal is not only praiseworthy, but meritorious to the highest degree, has never been allowed to pass unchallenged either inside or outside the Church. And there is no doubt that at different times it has been accorded an excessive admiration. It is also no doubt true, that those who have exalted it thus unduly have not been altogether free from a taint of Manichaeism, and have been too ready to see in the sexual act something intrinsically evil and unclean. The extollers of virginity are often those who find in sex the original sin, the fons et origo of all subsequent human evils. But these exaggerations and aberrations do not constitute the main stream of Christian tradition. That is better represented by St. Thomas.
He discusses (S.T. II, 11, quaest. clii, art. 2) first, whether virginity is actually sinful. It might be argued, he says, that it is against the natural law. For sex is ordained for the preservation of the human species, and Genesis ii, 16, says, "Increase and multiply". Therefore, just as to abstain wholly from food and drink is sinful, because harmful to the health of the individual, so to abstain wholly from sex is sinful because harmful to the health of the race. Secondly, virginity is "Puritanical". It is an excessive, unreasonable abstention from pleasure. Thirdly, the ancients punished celibacy by law. If they were right in so doing, virginity must be sinful. His reply to these arguments is to point out that a thing is right or wrong according to whether it conduces to the end or not. But the end or good of man is threefold. It consists in external possessions, in bodily welfare and in spiritual welfare. And these three goods are related to each other as means to end. External possessions serve to promote bodily welfare; bodily welfare serves to promote spiritual welfare. And it is as such means that they must be used. If, then, a man abstains from possessing certain goods, which it would be good for him in other circumstances to possess, in the interests of his bodily health or his spiritual life, he would not be acting unreasonably, that is, sinfully. Similarly, if he abstains from some bodily pleasure in the interests of his spiritual well being, he would be acting reasonably. And this is what St. Paul says in I Corinthians vii, 34 ff., about the advantage that the unmarried have over the married - they are less preoccupied with the things of this world. And so, first, virginity is not against the natural law. For a thing may be enjoined by the natural law in two ways, as something to be done by each individual, and as something to be done by the race as a whole. Eating is enjoined in the first way; everyone must eat; the individual who did not eat would perish. The command to multiply is of the second kind. It is not enjoined on each individual separately, but on the race, and envisages not merely a numerical increase but a qualitative increase as well. The command is, therefore, adequately fulfilled if some men marry and have children and others devote themselves to the pursuit of knowledge, and so promote the happiness and advance of mankind. A parallel is to be found in army life, where most orders are of this general kind and involve a division of labour; some do sentry duty, others are standard-bearers, some fight with one weapon, some with another. All of these duties are enjoined on "the army", but each individual is not expected to perform them all. Secondly, virginity is not Puritanical. The Puritan shuns all pleasures on the ground that pleasure is in itself sinful. But he who follows virginity shuns only one kind of pleasure, and that on reasonable grounds. Thirdly, the celibacy, which the ancients used to punish, was a virginity embraced for selfish reasons, and so the argument is not relevant. Virginity, therefore, which deliberately abstains from the pleasures of sex in order that a man may devote himself wholly to the service of God and his neighbours is not sinful, but a virtue. And more, it is, in itself, St. Thomas holds, a higher virtue than married chastity. This, of course, is a highly disputable contention. It was denied in the old days by Jovinian, and at the Reformation by Luther, who, indeed, went further and maintained the precise opposite - that married chastity is a higher virtue than virginity. This caused the Council of Trent to make it a matter of faith that virginity was more excellent than marriage. The dispute has, from time to time, generated a good deal of heat, most of it due to misunderstandings. The advocates of marriage have supposed that the supporters of virginity deprecated marriage in general and regarded it as a form of self-indulgence, or that they considered every virgin, ipso facto, to be more virtuous than any married person. The advocates of virginity, on the other hand, have supposed that the supporters of marriage deprecated the value of the contemplative life and denied that there was any virtue or any value in a withdrawal from the active world. We may perhaps be in a position to form a better opinion if once again we turn to St. Thomas (II, 11, quaest. clii, art. 4).
He supports the claims of virginity on these grounds. First, our Lord was Himself born of a virgin and lived a virgin. Marriage, therefore, cannot be a more excellent state of life or ex hypothesi He would have chosen it. Secondly, St. Paul (I Corinthians vii) describes virginity as the better way. And the reason is that virginity promotes the spiritual life directly; it is undertaken for that very purpose, that there may be full leisure and freedom for the things of God. Marriage, on the other hand, is a this-world affair; its primary concern is with the things of this world - the creation and maintenance of a family. But as the spiritual and eternal takes precedence over the physical and the temporal, so virginity is to be preferred to marriage.
Nevertheless, St. Thomas is careful not to over-state his case. He reminds his readers that many a married person may be more "virgin at heart" than a professed monk or nun. Augustine taught his nuns to say, "I am not better than Abraham, but the chastity of virginity is better than the chastity of marriage. ... What I do now Abraham would have done better had it been his duty. The duty which he did perform, he performed better than I should were it mine." Again, he says that in regard to the other virtues than chastity a married person may be in a far better state of grace than any professed monk or nun. Nor does St. Thomas have any sympathy with those who would exalt virginity above every virtue. It may be better than marriage, but it is not everything, and is no passport to Heaven. The ends that they serve measure the excellence of virtues; the higher the end, and the more directly it is served, the higher the virtue. The end of virginity is, certainly, freedom to serve God. But the theological virtues - faith, hope and charity - have as their end God Himself. They provide us not with freedom to serve God only, but with the very presence of God. So, also, the exercise of the priesthood, ceaselessly occupied with the worship of God, is a higher way of life than virginity. It is only within the sphere of temperance, as a form of chastity, that St. Thomas holds that virginity is to be counted supreme.
Even here we may disagree with St. Thomas and have our own opinion. We may believe that, for all the this-worldliness of marriage, a readiness to create a Christian family, and by it to bear witness to the Christian virtues in the midst of a largely alien and pleasure-loving world, is as necessary a duty and as directly devoted to the service of God as the life of virginity. The final judgement depends on the degree to which the contemplative life is exalted over the active. The contemplative life has full freedom and leisure for the service of God; it is for this reason that St. Thomas prefers virginity to marriage, for virginity promotes the contemplative life. Yet the active life may be equally devoted to the service of God, and marriage be itself a noble piece of such service. The cause of our disagreement with St. Thomas is that we regard the two ways of life as of equal value - complementary to each other. God is sought and known and worshipped and served alike in the one and the other. But each man follows his own vocation.
If virginity, then, be allowed to be a virtue, it does not follow that anything short of complete abstinence from sexual activity is sinful. Nevertheless there have been times, it is well known, when there has been a strong tendency in moral theology to regard everything to do with sex with suspicion, and on the strength of some of the writings of some of the Fathers it has often been supposed that Christians regard sex as in itself evil. Yet, in fact, this has never been the case. The dogma of the sanctity of marriage has always preserved the Church from any such aberration. However much virginity may have been exalted over marriage, it was never possible to say that marriage was actually sinful, or, in consequence, to maintain that all sexual activity is wrong.
A thing is wrong if it goes against reason.
But if a man uses a thing for the end for which it is appointed
and in the proper manner
he is not going against reason.
Sex is appointed for the preservation of the human species,
so that if it is used for that end,
in the way in which it is meant to be used?
that is, so that it really does serve that end?
its use is lawful and right.
All arguments which seek to show that sex is in itself shameful and wrong break down against this consideration. For example, it
used to be argued (e.g. by St. Jerome, Ep. 11) that the pleasure that accompanies the consummation of the sexual act is so intense
as to be always and in itself excessive; it imposes so great a degree of absorption that at the time one is capable of no rational
process. In this sense, therefore, it is always and necessarily unreasonable, and therefore wrong. The force of his argument may
be seen by a comparison of the sexual act with that of the connoisseur sipping his wine, or the drunkard up to the point at which
he becomes "incapable". But the answer is this. A thing is right if it is reasonable. If it is reasonable, the degree of
pleasure that accompanies it cannot affect the question. Again, "inordinate affection" does not mean simply "very
great affection", but an affection greater than is reasonable or proper. But if the sexual act is performed for the right end
and in the right manner, there is no evidence that the affection or pleasure is greater or more intense than is proper. Certainly
the mere fact that it interrupts the normal use of reason is no such evidence. If it were, it would mean that every interruption
is sinful, even where the interruption has sound reason to justify it, as when a man goes to sleep. But that is absurd.
Nevertheless, scholastic theology was uneasy about the intensity of the pleasure accompanying the sexual act, and could not help regarding it as a rebellion against the proper control of reason. For after all, it is true that you cannot moderate or control this pleasure; once set in motion, it takes its course. Neither in the process of enjoyment can you stand outside yourself and enjoy yourself enjoying it. This is what the Schoolmen meant by speaking of sex as absorbing reason. And they said that it was a result of the disharmony occasioned in man's nature by original sin, the emergence of the flesh from its proper position of subjection. Niebuhr (Nature and Destiny of Man, vol. i, p. 252 ff.) has argued that this absorption and loss of self-consciousness is one of the ends that the sensualist is deliberately seeking in his sensual indulgence. He is trying, if only for the moment, to escape from the conditions of rational being, and to sink down to the level of instinctive unself-conscious existence. The wrongness of this, involving as it does the denial and betrayal of man's distinctive possession, reason and spirit, is apparent.
Sensuality,
by which is meant here casual promiscuous sensual activity,
is wrong also because it misuses something that is of supreme importance to the whole human race.
It is precisely because of its importance that control is so vital a necessity,
and lack of control so serious a sin.
It is not surprising that the commonest argument of the sensualist is to deny that there is any importance or any concern of the
whole human race involved in what he does. On the contrary, it is urged, a man may do what he likes with his own, and nothing is
more his own than his body. He may take his pleasure in his body as and when he pleases; it is no one's affair but his own and his
partner's in the pleasure. The answer is, in the first place, that casual sexual intercourse involves the use of a bodily function
in a manner and for a purpose for which it is not intended. And in the second place, that a man's body is not his own. To own a
thing means to have an absolute right to use it as one pleases, to dispose of it, or even to destroy it. Strictly speaking, man
owns nothing. The ownership of all that is, is vested solely in Him Who created all things. Man owns certain things, his body
among them, in trust under God. By the terms of the trust he must use them rightly, that is, in accordance with the will of Him
from Whom he holds them. A misuse of them is a breach of the trust and an offence against God. This is true of all men, but doubly
so of Christians, to whom is given the revelation that Christ died for our sins and redeemed our bodies from eternal death by His
blood, purchasing them to Himself. They are, therefore, doubly His, by creation and by redemption, and we are doubly bound to a
careful and honourable use of them. Gluttony and sensuality both impair the health of the body, and are a misuse and perversion of
its functions.
Sensuality is not only a sin, but a capital sin;
that is, a root sin, the cause of other sins.
This is because the pleasures of sex are so intense, and so universally and naturally desired, that men are driven, in pursuit of
them, to commit other sins. And the desirableness of-the pleasures of sex are increased by their indulgence; they grow by what
they feed on. By sensuality, then, men are driven to more and more feverish and desperate courses to obtain that satisfaction
which forever escapes them. And in their progress they throw overboard one moral principle after another, and jettison every
virtue they ever possessed. As the desire for sexual pleasure increases, reason and will lose all their authority, until finally a
man is dominated and swayed by this one passion, which truly is called a ruling passion (II, 11, quaest. cliii, art. 4).
The baleful effects of sensuality in the spheres of the reason and the will are plain to be seen. In the first place, in the sphere of reason, there is a blunting of the moral sense, a loss of ideals. In place of love and obedience to God being known as the true end and good, the mind is deceived into substituting self or neighbours, pleasure or earthly love. Secondly, there is a loss of ordinary prudence and proportion. To attain his overriding purpose the sensualist is deterred by no risks and dangers, there is nothing that he will not risk losing to gain his end. Thirdly, there is inconstancy. The sensualist never holds for long to one opinion or one purpose; he is always being diverted by the gusts of his passions. Any action may be interrupted by the imperious call of love; he is tied by no loyalties. In the sphere of the will, service and love are transferred from God to self and the satisfaction of pleasures. Indeed more, love to God is turned into hatred, because the claims of God are found to stand in the way of the satisfaction of desire. Thus the will cleaves to the wrong end and follows and supports the error of reason. In the same way, also, it follows reason in loving the means which reason has exalted into ends. The sensualist devotes his life to the things of. this world, its pleasures and delights, as though they were ends in themselves, and for love of them deserts man's true end (II, n, quaest. cliii, art. 5).
In a word, sensuality more than any other vice binds a man to the trivialities of this world; it perverts his whole scale of values, causing him to prefer the temporary and superficial to the real and the lasting. Preferring earth to Heaven, he ends by preferring that which is most earthly to that which is least. Yet sensuality is not the worst of vices - not even in its grossest form. For sensuality is but the child of pride. It springs from that self-reliance and independence which revolts from God and resents the status of creature. It is when a man thinks that he is sufficient in himself, and can find his good in something other than God, that he becomes sensual. Thus sensuality is the result, not the cause of the fall.
The simplest and least serious form of sensuality (or
luxuria, as this vice is technically called) is fornication, that is, sexual intercourse between an unmarried man and an
unmarried woman.
Yet it is in itself a grave sin.
It is frequently forbidden in Scripture, and is contrary to natural law.
The sexual act is directed towards the procreation of children.
Children, once born, need to be nurtured and brought up.
Fornication, considered in itself, allows for no provision for the children born.
This is contrary to natural law.
It is observable in the animal world that when the offspring need the care of both parents there is an exclusive union of one male
with one female, at least during the period for which that care is necessary. Where the offspring are adequately looked after by
the mother alone, as in cats and dogs, there is promiscuity. In the case of human beings it is obvious that children require the
care both of father and mother for their education and protection. Moreover, further children are born before the first child
becomes self-supporting. The period of child-bearing and rearing is therefore a long one, extending throughout and beyond the age
of child-bearing alone, and throughout this period the joint care and protection of both parents is required. This is the
foundation in natural law of the principle of monogamy, and of the prohibition of promiscuity. Natural law enjoins not merely
the procreation of children - for which indeed casual sexual
intercourse would suffice - but their good education.
Corresponding to this law there is innate in human beings, male and female alike, a parental instinct to nourish and care for their children; there is also an instinctive desire in the male for certainty that the children whom he is called upon to support are his, and in the female for certainty that she and her children are the chief care and concern of the male. Hence springs jealousy.
The chief evil of fornication, then, consists in this, that it is harmful to the
children born of the union.
It is no answer to say that provision might be made for the children in other ways; for example, the parents might agree to
cohabit for as long as was necessary, or to arrange for the adoption of the child. This might, no doubt, ensure that this act of
fornication was not injurious to this particular child, but it does not, and cannot, alter the fact that fornication in itself, of
its own nature, is injurious to children. For fornication differs from the conjugal act precisely in this, that it does not carry
in itself provision for children. And persons who commit fornication declare themselves, by the act, to be careless of their
responsibilities to the child who may be born. Moreover, it is far from certain that any provision is adequate other than that
prolonged cohabitation and shared life, which is marriage. However well devised may be the schools and institutions which a
modern State provides for illegitimate children, it is not clear that they are an adequate substitute for the family. It is
difficult to picture what it means to have no father and mother, no aunts and uncles, no brothers and sisters, to be a rootless
institutional child. It is difficult also to imagine what are the feelings and reflections of the illegitimate child of a mother
who later marries and brings him up under the protection of her husband, and with her other children. He is in but not of the
family; he is different and apart. The physical harm done to the illegitimate child left destitute and uncared-for is clear
enough. The mental and spiritual harm done to the illegitimate child who is not so neglected, but is nevertheless without father
or in an institution, is harder to imagine, but none the less real. What is certain is that the natural and right state of affairs
is for children to be born to a married father and mother and brought up in a family. Fornication, which deprives a child of this
right, damages the child and is wrong. And it damages not the child only, but human society as well; for society depends for its
well being on the proper bringing-up of the children who are its future members. It is a dominant interest of society that
children should enjoy the love, care and discipline of parents in the stable surroundings of a home about which their affections
and ambitions can be centred. This is the reply to any argument that fornication is merely a private matter between the two
persons concerned.
It is often said that sex is only a natural appetite like the desire for food and drink, and that just as
there is no harm in eating and drinking, or even, on occasion, of eating and drinking too much, so there is no harm in an
occasional indulgence of the sexual appetite. Indeed, the argument often goes on, such occasional indulgence is a positive good,
for it avoids repressions and complexes and other such evils, and in general decreases the absorbing interest of sex.
To this there is a double reply.
First, it is not true that the prohibitions of the indulgence of the sexual appetite are the cause of the
strength of that appetite.
It is the other way round.
The strength of the appetite is the cause of the prohibitions and restrictions that all societies impose on its exercise.
For the appetite is stronger than is necessary for its purpose - the preservation of the race - and, without control and
discipline, breaks out into many forms of activity that are fatally disruptive of society.
Secondly, it is not true that occasional indulgence weakens the force of the appetite.
The fact is the precise opposite.
The appetite grows, and grows fast, with indulgence.
This is because man is not a mere instinctive animal.
He remembers past pleasure, dwells upon it, and increases the natural desire for it.
Unlike the animal, he experiences a strong impulse to perform the sexual act solely for the gratification of sense, for the
pleasurable feeling involved in it. Modern psychological arguments about repressions and the advantage of indulgence rest on the
false assumption that sex in man is the same as sex in animals, "a glandular and physiological drive, satisfied by direct
mechanisms when it arises". (See Niebuhr, vol. i, p. 250, note, where this argument is effectively demolished.) But sex in
man, like everything else, is both natural and rational; it is instinctive, and a subject for choice and control. And, like
everything else in man, it only achieves its proper purpose when the natural is directed and ruled by the rational. For the State
to permit brothels or the individual to frequent them in the hope of thus weakening the force of the sexual appetite and to escape
from its tyranny, is to pursue a will-o'-the-wisp. The only avenue of escape lies in reasoned control.
Thirdly, the appetites of sex and of hunger
are not on the same level.
The appetite of hunger aims at the preservation of the life of the individual;
the appetite of sex aims at the preservation of the life of the race.
To eat at regular intervals is necessary to the end of the one appetite;
to indulge the sexual appetite is only necessary to the end of the other in right conditions - i.e. marriage.
Outside these conditions it is unnecessary and worse, for it defeats its own end. Moreover, occasional gluttony is a sin against
the individual; fornication is a sin sometimes against another living person (in the case of rape or seduction), and always
against the child who may be born. Again, a single act of gluttony may not produce any seriously harmful result, but every act of
sexual intercourse may issue in the birth of a child, and for this reason indulgence of the sexual appetite is a much more serious
matter than the indulgence of the appetite for food.
At this point it may be felt that the whole position has been radically altered
by modern developments in the use of contraceptives. This, it is claimed, has made fornication possible without any fear of
children being born. And if the interests of the child no longer come up for consideration, why is fornication wrong?
A common answer to this is a straightforward denial of the alleged fact. There is a great deal of truth in this contention, to
which the increasing number of unmarried mothers bears melancholy witness. Defects in the appliances or carelessness in their use
only too often result in the birth of a child who is neither wanted nor expected. Yet for all that, the general efficiency of
contraceptives is so great that a conviction of their absolute safety is deeply implanted in the public mind. Or at least the
general attitude is that the chances of conception are small enough to be negligible.
There is little doubt that reliance on contraceptives has been a major cause of the increase in promiscuity. Fear of childbirth, fear of the publicity of an illegitimate baby, fear of the difficulties and burden of bringing up a fatherless child, proper reluctance to be responsible for the birth of an unwanted child, all contributed in varying degrees to restrain men and women from fornication. All these restraints have been undermined, if not destroyed, by the general efficacy of contraceptives, the widespread knowledge of them, and their easy accessibility. The results, both for personal morality and public well-being, have been deplorable. Yet it is probably unwise to argue against the use of contraceptives solely or chiefly on the ground that they are not absolutely safe, and that a child may be born. Self-confident youth is sure of its own carefulness - "It will not happen to me. I know how to take care of myself" - and is reckless of dangers which it knows to be often exaggerated. On the other hand, it is right to point out that in a matter involving the well-being of a human being, no chance, however small, is justifiable. On the contrary, he who adopts towards the question of the birth of a child the attitude of being ready to take "a sporting chance" is guilty of indefensible irresponsibility. It is probable that the modern generation, affectionate and tolerant towards little children, would not behave as self-indulgently as it does in the matter of sexual relations, if it were convinced of the essential unreliability of contraceptives, and of the consequent real danger of unwanted children being born. In this respect an objective and, above all, unexaggerated statement of the defects of contraceptives, and accurate statistics of the number of illegitimate births, might do much good.
But the real answer to contraceptives is along another line.
Their use, so far from decreasing the gravity of the sin of fornication, increases it.
For it turns it into a form of unnatural vice.
It is unnatural because it is directly opposed to the end for which the sexual act is intended.
To every human faculty God has ordained its proper end and means.
He who acts against what God has prescribed, sins. The end of the sexual act is quite clear - it tends naturally and of itself to
one thing only - the procreation of children.
To use it in such a way as to frustrate that end is therefore "unnatural".
Nor is the sin involved a trivial one.
It is not to be compared to such "unnatural" acts as using one's hands instead of one's feet for walking.
For by the use of contraceptives grave harm is done to the human race for whose preservation the sexual act exists.
For this reason, in the opinion of St. Thomas, unnatural vice is second only to murder in gravity; for murder destroys an already
existing life, and this vice prevents life being born. Its unnaturalness, or perversion, to make the point once more, consists
in the employment of the sexual act in such a way as deliberately to make its natural end unattainable. It is necessary to
stress that the perversion lies in the natural or inherent inadequacy of the means to the end. Accidental inadequacy, due to
sterility in the woman or existing pregnancy, does not constitute a perversion, because in those cases the act is still the
complete act, in itself capable of generation, but missing its end because of an accident outside itself. In the use of
contraceptives the cause of the inadequacy is in the act itself.
It is often contended, in defence of the use of contraceptives within marriage, that the end of the sexual act is not single but twofold. It exists both for the procreation of children and for a quasi-sacramental expression of human love. The mutual surrender of man and woman, the close and intimate union thereby achieved, deepens and enriches the joint love that prompts the act. It is argued that where circumstances make it morally wrong to attempt to have children, it remains morally right to pursue this other object of sex apart from the first by performing the sexual act with the aid of contraceptives. Traditional moral theology has recognised only one prime object of sex - the procreation of children - to which all other ends are subordinate and subsidiary. There is, however, now a growing tendency to admit this other object, often called "the unitive aspect of sex", to a position of equal importance with procreation. Yet many of those who do so, do not conclude therefrom the legitimacy of the use of contraceptives. They maintain that by nature both ends are present and both should be sought together. It is not right to pursue the one in isolation from the other. That is to say, that to perform the sexual act in such a manner as to preclude and frustrate the achievement of either end is "unnatural". The two ends may not be separated. To achieve union but not children by means of contraceptives and to achieve children but not union by means of artificial insemination are both equally wrong.
It is to be noted that in the matter of contraceptives it is not the desirability or even the duty of spacing and controlling conception that is in question, but the method adopted to achieve it. Those who defend the use of contraceptives are clear and definite about the general duty of parenthood, and are insistent that in all normal circumstances the sexual act should be performed in such a way as to render possible the achievement of both its ends simultaneously. But, they maintain, where the achievement of one of the ends would be morally wrong, it is perfectly legitimate to achieve the other by means that preclude the first. And one method is no more unnatural than another. That method should be chosen which affords the greatest protection against the achievement of the end that, in the circumstances, it is morally wrong to achieve. All methods of doing this are unnatural, because by nature both ends are implicit in the act. To perform the act in circumstances where one end cannot be achieved, as during pregnancy or the "safe-period", defeats nature no less than the use of contraceptives. For nature intends both ends. The Roman Catholic Church has pronounced officially and often against contraceptives. In the Church of England the debate continues.
But whatever the issue of the debate may be,
it will not make the use of contraceptives outside marriage one whit less illegitimate and unnatural.
For by the use of contraceptives in sexual intercourse outside marriage not one but both the ends of the act are frustrated.
For the second end is to express by the act of mutual surrender and union a desire for complete and exclusive possession of each
by each, a desire for so close and intimate an inter-penetration as shall make them no longer twain but one flesh.
Such a desire can only be realised in the indissoluble bond of marriage, for which it is a desire.
Consequently, to perform the sexual act outside marriage, - in circumstances, that is, where the full and enduring and
exclusive union of marriage is either not wanted or not possible, - is to perform it in circumstances which as effectively and
essentially preclude the achievement of this second implicit end as contraceptives preclude the achievement of the first.
It is, then, a part of the natural law that the sexual act is designed for the
procreation of children.
To disregard and flout this law must have serious consequences.
These consequences are now being experienced by this generation, and will be further felt by the next.
So far, they have manifested themselves in two forms - a decrease in the birth rate and the spread of venereal disease.
Like the results of many violations of the natural order, they are not felt first, or even at all, by the original perpetrators
of the crime.
The mills of God grind slowly;
the sins of the fathers are visited on the children.
This is because, in this instance, the particular natural law violated is not directed to the good of the individual but to the
good of the race;
and it is the race which suffers.
It declines in numbers and it declines in health.
Those who are guilty of immorality in this form contribute actively to the misery of this and succeeding generations, even
though they feel no ill effects themselves. In this way, perhaps, better than in any other, can be seen the intrinsic selfishness
of a sexual indulgence which is prepared at such great cost to the human race to purchase its own moments of physical delight.
There remains to be considered another form of
perversion very common among the young of both sexes. That is masturbation or pollution, sometimes solitary,
sometimes practised by couples of the same or of the opposite sex. Many seem to feel that as this involves no act of sexual
intercourse, there cannot be much that is wrong in it. But it is, of course, "unnatural". It is a misuse of sex in a way
that frustrates the natural purpose of sex. There is nothing further to be said about it than has been said about
contraceptives. But it is very commonly defended by the argument,
"Why should we not enjoy this intense physical pleasure, if we want to, and do not injure anyone else by it?"
Or in this form,
"Why should sex be so pleasant if we were not meant to enjoy it?
Why should we have to wait till we are married to enjoy it, if we can have it now, in a way that makes it absolutely impossible to
have children? "
There is a double answer.
First, it is not true that by masturbation or by contraceptives you enjoy sex and hurt no one.
You hurt yourself, and you hurt the other person, not necessarily physically, but morally.
The old Latin name for masturbation is mollities, softness.
Those who practise this vice, or are promiscuous, grow soft.
They lose resolution, courage and initiative.
They lose mental vigour and alertness.
Their lives become centred on trivialities, their thirst for pleasure and excitement grows, they become selfish, luxurious, and
unable to bear discomfort or to overcome difficulties.
And when the time for marriage comes they are unprepared and unable to bear its responsibilities or to abide by its loyalties.
They are unfit for adult life.
The prime root cause of this softness lies in the selfish pursuit of pleasure for its own sake.
And there lies the second answer.
To regard the enjoyment of sex as an end in itself, to use sex solely or even principally as a source of pleasure, involves a
complete inversion of fact, and this inversion of fact is the underlying reason of sexual immorality. Pleasure is attached to
sex as a kind of inducement to perform the sexual act; it is the salt or seasoning of the act. Just as it is unreasonable to eat a
dinner solely for the sake of the salt or sauce which seasons it, so it is unreasonable to perform the sexual act for the sole
reason of enjoying the pleasure which accompanies it. That pleasure exists for the sake of the act, not the act for the sake of
the pleasure. For this reason it can never be right to use sex for the sake of its pleasure alone. This does not mean that it is
wrong to wish for or seek the pleasure in the act at all, or even that it is wrong to seek the pleasure as an end, provided that
the end is recognised as subordinate to the true objective end of the act. What is wrong is to seek the pleasure alone. But this
is just precisely what all "vicious" people do. They are concerned solely with the pleasure to be derived from the
sexual act. That vice is common is not surprising. For the pleasures of sex are keen and intense, and the desire for them is
strong in man. They easily become the object of our conscious pursuit; but when they do, they pass beyond the control of reason,
and worse, subordinate reason to themselves.
It is common to speak of the activities of those who indulge in casual sexual intercourse as bestial.
This is an insult to the beasts.
They fulfil the law of their nature and, by following their instincts, automatically cooperate with the purpose of their Creator.
Animals cannot be vicious.
It is man alone who, by virtue of his rationality, has the privilege and duty of choosing to fulfil the law of his being, and of
voluntarily cooperating with the purpose of his Creator. This means that his actions are at one and the same time animal and
rational. If he is vicious, in performing the sexual act he is consciously perverting its purpose, denying its end and
substituting therefore his own pleasure. Thus, the element of reason entering into the act alters it and degrades it below the
level of the automatic instinctive action of the beasts. In the same way, when the sexual act is rightly performed, reason,
entering in, immeasurably exalts it. It is not what it is to the animals, something glandular and physiological only, an automatic
reaction to instinct. It is, in the first place, a conscious sharing in the divine work of creation. In the second place, it is to
express, by the closest possible physical union, that spiritual bond and alliance which already exists and which it is desired to
deepen and perpetuate. The keen excitement and thrill of pleasure which accompany the act are penetrated by reason and become a
vivid emotional expression of those two purposes; namely, of an absolute surrender to the universal purpose of God to create new
life, and of the mutual surrender and possession of each other in a union never to be broken. Only when these conditions are
fulfilled - that is, within the marriage bond - does the sexual act completely fulfil its nature and afford the maximum of
pleasure.
And even if the desire for pleasure were uppermost in the minds of two married persons as they perform the act of sexual union, yet because these two conditions still persist, their pleasure remains something deeper and more satisfying than that which is possible to the libertine. The libertine is seeking pleasure only. The married also seek pleasure, but in a context that does not exclude, but presupposes much else besides. It is quite false to suppose that the sexual act in marriage can be entirely spiritualised, in the sense that one should always perform it at the most with passive acceptance, regarding the pleasure that accompanies it as something disgusting and degrading which it would be positively wrong to enjoy. The world is as God made it, and our bodies and their functions are His design. To deny and resist the pleasure is almost as wrong as to seek the pleasure alone. We do ourselves no good by trying to pretend that we have no bodies, but are already angels, pure spirit, and by wishing that children were begotten in some other way, and love expressed and deepened by the immediate contact of mind with mind alone. The pleasure that accompanies sex is part of God's created universe, and in itself is good. It can be rightly sought and enjoyed. We can see its positive value and its purpose, as an expression, in terms of emotion and feeling easily understood by all, of those deep spiritual desires which constitute the proper nature of the sexual act.
How great, then, is the perversion and degradation of that act when it is performed for the pleasure alone,
and those deep purposes are ignored or shut out!
Those who from curiosity, irresponsibility, restlessness or casual desire experiment with the sexual act, or who for any reason
use it as a means of distraction and amusement, so degrade it that it becomes proportionately incapable of fulfilling its true
function.
Our actions and experiences do not perish when they are completed, they become a part of ourselves, though we are no longer
conscious of them.
Those casual sexual acts which a man performs, and the pleasures which they cause, enter into a man.
They are there.
When he comes to marriage he approaches the sexual act as an expression and vehicle of very deep emotions and desires. But it is a
vehicle that he has used before, for ignoble ends, and it carries in itself the associations and memories of those ignoble uses.
There is now something stale and flat about it. It cannot perform fully and completely the function which it should. It is not,
necessarily, that a man consciously remembers those earlier times, or that his pleasure is now positively blunted by any sense of
shame or regret. It is, rather, that having once been used to express something so paltry - or nothing at all - the sexual act is
now, so to speak, desecrated; it has lost its full power as an emotional vehicle.
This, perhaps, is what underlies the desire and resolution of decent girls to "keep themselves for their man". This is the reason of the knight's chivalry and the honourable boy's purity. He will come to his wife clean. When the chaste marry, their physical lovemaking is a true and adequate expression of their love. Its pleasure is all the keener and more satisfying because it is associated with their rational or spiritual purposes, and has never been associated with anything else. The unchaste lose in this respect in proportion to the degree of their unchastity.
All this is but an argument of expediency and prudence.
It is to say that immorality makes those who practise it less capable of enjoying the pleasures of marriage, as it makes them less
capable of accepting its discipline.
It is not the fundamental reason for the wrongness of all sexual activity outside marriage.
That fundamental reason, is that God created sex as the means for the propagation of children, and, perhaps, as a vehicle for
expressing and increasing the union between man and wife. Any other use of sex is a disobedience to God, a swerving-away from His
law. But God, Who is the Creator, has an absolute claim on the obedience of His creatures, and in that obedience His creatures
fulfil the end of their being, and so attain to their full stature and happiness. To use sex otherwise than as God has ordained is
to sin against Him and against our own good.