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Author Topic: Sexless marriages and very small families  (Read 62169 times)

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Offline ggreg

Re: Sexless marriages and very small families
« Reply #15 on: January 23, 2019, 10:46:24 AM »
OK I am with the above logic.  Makes sense.

So what of a marriage where they marry and have no sex and therefore no children.

Is this a marriage assuming they consumated it on their wedding night?

Or does it depend on the mutual agreement of the spouses to abstinence?

Would the Church traditionally speaking simply say to the tricked wife or husband, bad luck suck it up?
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Offline Pax Vobis

  • Supporter
Re: Sexless marriages and very small families
« Reply #16 on: January 23, 2019, 10:57:42 AM »
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1.  ACTUAL - Couple marry have two children, born two years apart, and then stop because the woman does not 'feel' she can deal with more. Women is 31 had children at 25 and 27. The husband is not desirous for a large family either so they call it quits at 2 children and have separate beds.   As I understand it this is morally legitimate
My opinion is that this agreement wouldn't involve sin, since both parties agreed to abstinence.  However, if one/both can't follow the agreement without sinning, then this situation is immoral, since it's an occassion to sin.  If the abstinence continues between them, though only one sins against impurity in other ways, then both are guilty for the sins committed by the partner.

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2.  Actual -  The same case as the above, but the couple share their marital bed and engage in foreplay, cuddles, kissing.  The woman does not want sex and the man is prepared to go along with that over a period of years.  He wants children but he is too weak to dominate his wife into having them.   Is this legitimate?
Marriage was created by God in the garden of eden and he ordered Adam/Eve to "increase and multiply", therefore there is an obligation to have children.  In the above scenario, the woman sins for not providing the marriage debt (in some capacity).  She also sins (internally) if her intent is to avoid children, since she made a vow to get married, which includes children and raising a family.

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3.  Actual - The same case as 2 above but after 10 years after their wedding the couple has no children.  Husband states that they have never had sex or had sex so rarely (let's say once every 2 years when she thinks she is on a safe period) that there is no procreation.  In this particular case an SSPX priest has been involved and tried to council the wife but to no avail.  Husband appears to think it is his duty to just put up with this and support a wife who refuses to have his children.  I am not sure this is right and since there a no children from this union I would think he had a VERY good cause to apply for and get an annulment.
Probably not a valid marriage.  If it is, the wife is sinning gravely against her vows, both to her husband and to God, for not having children (or trying).

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4. Hypothetical - Couple marry young, woman is fertile and has 10 children by the age of 35.  A some point the husband who has a blue collar job is worked ragged providing for them all and just says, "no more".  Since they are not going to abuse NFP the only thing they can do is stop having sex.  However the wife still wants to have sex and is open to having more children and making the triple bunk beds into quadruple bunk beds like a submarine.  At what points can the husband lay down the law and say we HAVE to stop.
The husband would sin by not fulfilling the marriage debt to his wife.  The husband cannot command that there be no more children; the wife must freely commit and agree to a period of abstinence.
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Offline ggreg

Re: Sexless marriages and very small families
« Reply #17 on: January 23, 2019, 11:00:21 AM »
Quote from: Matthew on January 23, 2019, 10:42:43 AM
ggreg,

I'm surprised you haven't brought up a related issue:

how often is "too often"?

After all, Catholic doctrine talks about when the spouses must render the debt, and the expression "reasonable" is thrown in there. But obviously, what is reasonable for one might seem like nymphomania for another. To a large degree, it is completely subjective. I've certainly seen lots of discussion and debate on this point, in pagan, Catholic, and Trad Catholic circles, both online and IRL.

Where do you draw the line between "healthy, having lots of energy" and "nymphomania"? When, on the grounds of frequency, can the spouse (let's just be realistic here -- usually the WIFE) lawfully reject her husband's advances because he is "unreasonable" about his request? Let's assume they're at home, around bedtime, the kids are asleep, etc. so there are no propriety issues there.

The Church is quite vague on this topic, and it seems to tie right in to the topic of this thread.

And I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that this is a more widespread -- and therefore important -- issue than "sexless marriages" per se.
I've never heard anyone complain about a husband or wife who was a sex maniac in Trad circles.  Such men would tend to get sucked into porn; I would think.  Would be unlikely that a man who could stay away from porn addiction, couldn't be satiated with having sex twice or three times per week.
The sheer practicalities of raising a family and getting enough shut-eye, washing and shaving make having sex tricky to accomplish more than twice a week.
This stuff is much talked about as it sells magazine, but I only know one married couple in life and they are not Catholics.  He is a German atheist and she is a Russian Jew.  He is a sex everyday man.  They have been married 18 years.  She disliked it at first but got used to it (so my wife tells me).

I agree that it is completely subjective.  The issue is that unlike how one brushes my teeth the subjective view of the other person has a material impact on one's emotional state.  It is like money.  How much does a man need to earn before he can backpedal and go fishing for a week?  For some women enough to stock the larder and fill the gas tank.  For others enough to get the children through private school and change her car every 3 years.

The difference is that the Church has never said that money was elemental to marriage.  It has said that sex is.

So how much and how little are kinda sort important questions to leave unaddressed.




Thanks for the above answers Pax Vobis
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Offline ggreg

Re: Sexless marriages and very small families
« Reply #18 on: January 23, 2019, 11:13:35 AM »
Quote from: Pax Vobis on January 23, 2019, 10:57:42 AM
Probably not a valid marriage.  If it is, the wife is sinning gravely against her vows, both to her husband and to God, for not having children (or trying).
The husband would sin by not fulfilling the marriage debt to his wife.  The husband cannot command that there be no more children; the wife must freely commit and agree to a period of abstinence.
Let's drill down here.
Does it make a difference to validity whether there is.
1.  Almost no sex (let's assume on his birthday once per year she gifts him sex as a "present").
2.  No sex after the honeymoon.  If other words some at the very beginning and then none, like for example she tried sex didn't like it and was completely turned off the idea (I know of this exact example and they are both Trads living in Spain).
3.  Either of the above but in those 10 years she had 1 child and that is now "enough".
What ASPECT invalidates the marriage?  If it is just intention then it is present in all of the above examples.
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Offline Matthew

  • Mod
Re: Sexless marriages and very small families
« Reply #19 on: January 23, 2019, 11:13:57 AM »
I agree this is a very relevant issue for so many Trad Catholics. Much more relevant than, say, the current juridical status of Pope Francis.

It is also more complex (and should I say, "interesting?") than the easy-to-describe and easy-to-comprehend case of the small family of the convert to Tradition. I have mentioned before the classic meme of the Baby Boomer who is a huge volunteer and pillar of the chapel, makes big donations, but:

* His extended family/kids are never seen at the chapel.
* He and his wife only have 2 or 3 children - they left childbearing years before finding the Catholic Faith and/or Tradition, so they are "off the hook" so to speak
* They are therefore materially well off -- nothing they can do about it now
* They have plenty of time too, since they are well off and/or retired, and don't have many kids or grandkids to occupy them

I say: those people BETTER volunteer and get out their checkbooks; it's the least they can do to show God their good will. I'll go one further: they should be grateful (rather than condescending) to the large, usually poor, young Trad families around them, who can only manage to donate $20/week to the collection, and little of their free time, because they are busy raising a bunch of little Catholics for the future. Something that (even though they are technically guiltless) THEY THEMSELVES objectively failed to do, to a large degree.

Don't get me wrong: hooray for these converts. God bless them. Let's face it: what else can they do now? Exactly what they're doing: Volunteer, be generous with all that extra money. But as part of their penance, they should be willing to understand and be charitable to those young families struggling to raise large Catholic families in 2019, which is almost a heroic feat. Even if they had 5 or 6 children back in the day, 2019 is NOT 1980. The dollar has been that much more devalued, inflation has done its thing, and certain things like college and health care have skyrocketed over the past 30 years.

Someone has to make more Catholics, altar boys, future priests and religious, etc. And that is hard, long, expensive work. Much harder than simply cutting a $2,000 check every month for the collection, I dare say!
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