Marriage and Virginity (continued)
that she did not sin afterward by marrying, because he sinned first by divorcing her? What will the unchaste woman achieve by complaining about Christ's law, except to be punished for complaining?
Remarriage Is Not Allowed, Even for Procreation
11, 11. Let us look now at the additional material you inserted in another place, to which you wanted me to give a reply.†9 There you are concerned and feel pity for the man who is forced to live with an adulteress, if not by his inability to be celibate, certainly by the need to have children, as happens if he is not allowed to divorce her and marry someone else while she is still alive. It would be right for you to be concerned about this if it were not adultery to marry someone else while one's wife, adulteress though she may be, is still alive. If, however, this is adultery, as we have learned from the discussion so far, why is the motive of having children brought up? This is no reason for condoning wickedness. Is it that taking steps not to die without posterity is as necessary as choosing to live in the next life? This will not be granted to adulterers, but after their first death they will inevitably be condemned to a second death for eternity. That motive of having children would drive husbands not only to divorce adulteresses, but even to divorce women of great chastity, if they happen to be sterile, and afterward marry someone else; and I do not think you would approve of that.
12. So, if adultery cannot be excused because of inability to be celibate, still less is it excused for the purpose of having children!
Procreation Is No Longer a Necessity for Christians
12. The apostle wanted this weakness, the inability to stay celibate, to find relief in the respectability of marriage. He did not say, "If they have no children, they should marry," but If they are unable to be continent, they should marry; for it is better to marry than to burn (1 Cor 7:9). The bearing of children makes up for giving in to the inability to be chaste and marrying. Unchastity is a sin, but marriage is not a sin; hence by means of this good thing, that bad thing becomes pardonable. Because marriage was instituted for the purpose of having children, it was entered into by the fathers for that purpose. They had intercourse only because of that duty to have children, and never unlawfully. At that time