Dist. 32, Art. 1, Q. 2
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/4/d/32/q/bon-sent-IV-d32-a1-q2
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### Question II. *Whether before carnal union a man may be continent, the wife being unwilling.*

Secondly it is asked whether before carnal union a man may be continent, the wife being unwilling. And that he may not, it seems.

1. First to the Corinthians, chapter seven: *Let the husband render the debt to his wife, and likewise the wife to the husband*; but before union they are husband and wife: therefore before union they are bound: therefore, etc.

2. Likewise, the wife is bound to the husband voluntarily and by mutual consent: if therefore before union there is mutual consent, then also the obligation to the rendering of the debt.

3. Likewise, the woman is not bound to be continent and cannot contract with another: therefore she can justly demand the debt; but to refuse one who demands justly is unjust: therefore, etc.

4. Likewise, suppose that a man, after consent given for the present, should by force extort carnal union, the marriage is consummated: therefore the wife herself is wholly bound to render the debt to him; but violence does not induce a new obligation: therefore she was bound beforehand.

**On the contrary:**

1. The Decretal, *On the Conversion of the Married*, grants a man the power of entering religion, the wife being unwilling; but to enter religion is more than to be continent: therefore it grants the license of being continent.

2. Likewise, by consent marriage is contracted, even though there be no [consent] to carnal union, as was shown above: therefore, if he is bound only to that to which he consents, it is clear, etc.

3. Likewise, if every man were bound to render the debt before carnal union: therefore carnal union would add nothing to the consummation of the marriage.

Likewise, it is asked in connection with this: whence is it that conjugal union, violently extorted, consummates the marriage, whereas coerced consent does not ratify the marriage? And whether it be lawful for such a one, after the woman's [carnal] union, to vow continence. — And that it is so, it seems: because, if it was lawful before, and no one can violently take her right from her, it is clear, etc.

> **Conclusion.** Before the consummation of the marriage either person may be continent for two months, but afterward is either bound to render the debt, or by a solemn vow to show himself dead to the world.

**I respond:** It must be said that before the consummation of the marriage either person is neither wholly bound nor wholly free.

He is not *wholly bound*, because he can die to the world; and thus the marriage is dissolved, while he yet lives in the flesh, and then, when he does this, he is wholly absolved. Nor is he *wholly free*, because, if he wishes to live to this world, he must render the debt to the one who demands it. And because he is midway between the life of this age and the religious or spiritual life, therefore the sacred canons have set a fixed term, that he may deliberate, namely the term of two months, or thereabouts. And therefore it must be said that, at the wife's request, he may be continent for two months, but afterward is either bound to render the debt, or to show himself dead to the world by a solemn vow unto entrance into religion; and if he does not do this, he is bound to render the debt, as the first arguments show.

**To the arguments on the contrary:**

*To 1.* To that, then, which is objected on the contrary, that he can enter religion, therefore [he can] be continent in the world; it must be said that it does not hold, because entrance into religion makes one die to the world and looses the bond; whence no prejudice is done to the betrothed; it is not so when he remains in the world.

*To 2.* To that which is objected, that it is not necessary to consent to carnal union; it must be said that, although it is not necessary to consent to it, it is nevertheless necessary to consent to conjugal union, which is necessarily ordered to it, unless *spiritual death* intervene.

*To 3.* To that which is objected, that it adds nothing; it must be said that this is false, nay rather it adds both as to *signification* and as to *obligation*. For because they become one body and one flesh, therefore one cannot pass out of this world while the other remains; and therefore he cannot vow continence unless the spouse vow likewise. *Moreover*, one is bound to render at once after carnal union, but beforehand a space of two months is given him; and therefore it adds [something].

*To the incidental question.* To that which is asked concerning her who has been violently corrupted by her husband, it must be said that, because the marriage is consummated, she cannot without her husband's assent enter religion nor vow a vow.

To that which is objected, that marriage ought to be free; it must be said that this is true as to the *consent*, in which is the foundation of the marriage; yet this *union*, although it be violent, because it is nevertheless marital and founded upon voluntary consent, is therefore judged voluntary; and therefore it consummates a *ratified* marriage. *Moreover*, consent of its very nature implies liberty, but not so bodily conjunction.

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