Marriage and Virginity
intercourse except for the sake of having offspring, if they marry. Certainly we have many brothers and sisters, and partners in the heavenly inheritance, persons indeed of both sexes, who practice celibacy, either after the experience of marriage or while still untouched by any such relationship. Indeed there is a very large number of such people. Yet in private conversations, either with married persons or those who have been married, have we ever heard any people give any indication that they never have relations with their wives except with the hope of conceiving? What the apostles command married people to do, therefore, is essential for marriage; but what they allow as something excusable, or what hinders prayer, is not something marriage demands, but something it puts up with.
Desire for Children Does Not Legitimate Concubinage
14, 16. As a consequence, if by chance—I do not know whether this can happen, and I am inclined to think it cannot happen—but if by chance it happens that one takes a concubine for a certain period and seeks only to have children from that relationship, that union is still not preferable to the marriage of those who behave in that way that is excusable. It is the nature of marriage that has to be considered, not the nature of the persons who get married and make wrong use of the marriage. In the same way, if anyone unfairly and wrongly usurped some land so as to give generously to charity with its produce, that would not justify the theft; and if another selfish and greedy person occupies land as a family estate or by legitimate acquisition, this is no reason to blame the legal regulation that makes him the legitimate owner. Similarly, the illegitimacy of a tyrannical government will not become praiseworthy, because a tyrant treats the subject people with regal gentleness, nor the institution of royalty become detestable, because a king rages with tyrannical cruelty.
Choosing to use unjust power justly is one thing; using just power unjustly is another. So too if temporary concubines have intercourse for the sake of having children, they do not thereby make their concubinage right; and married women who are lascivious with their husbands do not make the institution of marriage responsible for their guilt.
17. It is quite evident, however, that between persons in an improper union a marriage can come about if later on they enter into a proper commitment.
Sterility Does Not Dissolve a Marriage