Dist. 32, Art. 2, 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-a2-q2
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### Question II. *Whether one is bound to render the debt if the other becomes a fornicator.*

Secondly it is asked, whether one is bound to render the debt to a fornicator. And that one is, it seems:

1. Because, if both fornicate, the one is bound to the other: therefore, if the greater evil does not dissolve the mutual claim, then neither [does it] when only one fornicates.

2. Likewise, the husband is always bound to keep faith with his wife, even with one who fornicates, because it is not lawful for the husband to fornicate, granted that the wife fornicates; but to keep faith is to render the debt: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, the one who does not fornicate can demand, therefore the one who fornicates is bound to render: therefore he has the right of demanding; but the conjugal bond is mutual: therefore each has the right of demanding: therefore, if the fornicator has the right of demanding, it is just that the other render: therefore he is bound to render.

**On the contrary:**
1. He can dismiss the wife on account of fornication: therefore he is not bound to pay the debt.

2. Likewise, if a woman were to procure an abortion, the husband would neither owe nor be bound to render her the debt, because she acts against the good of offspring; but the fornicator acts against the good of fidelity: therefore he is not bound.

3. Likewise, spouses are judged *as equals* as regards the *marriage-bed*: therefore what one does not do for the other, or does not wish to do, neither can he demand; but if the woman does not keep faith: therefore neither can she compel the husband to keep faith, therefore neither to pay the debt.

### Conclusion

> *The innocent spouse is not bound to render the debt to a fornicator, except after he himself has demanded it.*

**I respond:** It must be said that if the one fornicates, and the other can know this through probable signs and through open conjectures; he is neither bound to pay nor to be compelled by the Church, if he can prove it; provided, however, that he himself, or she herself, is not guilty of the same crime, because, if they are in the same crime, the one cannot object against the other what he has in himself. If, however, the innocent one demands the debt, he deprives himself of his liberty and by this binds himself to rendering, because, while he wishes the debt to be rendered to himself by the fornicator, he too binds himself to the same. — Therefore the reasons are to be conceded, that he is not bound.

*To 1.* To that which is objected, that both are bound if both sin; it must be said that it is true. The reason for this is that neither is then above the other; if only one acts against the good of marriage, the other, that is, the one who acts, deserves to be punished, and the other deserves to have liberty. But now neither is free, because each sins; and therefore it is not similar: because that one is not bound to render was not only the *penalty of the sinner*, but also the *liberty of the non-sinner*.

*To 2.* To that which is objected, that he is bound to keep faith; it must be said that faith is regarded as to two things: first, that he not know *another woman*, secondly, that he know *his own*. That he not know *another*, this ought to be as it were natural to marriage; whence such faith can never be dissolved, while the marriage lasts. But if this does not last, since another is founded upon it, he is not bound to keep this faith, to whom the first is not kept, nor does he have the right of demanding who first breaks it.

*To 3.* To the other the response is clear: because the one who does not fornicate has the right of demanding, since he has done nothing against fidelity, but the other has acted against it; and therefore in this he has become inferior and has less right than the other.

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