That doesn't mean that amity cannot exist in a marriage, it can and most certainly should.  Your spouse should be your best friend on the earth, the one you trust enough that you would be willing to place the salvation of you children in his/her care.

What is the Father and the Holy Ghost without the Son?  What are a husband and wife without children?  Incomplete.

Then the angel Raphael said to him: Hear me, and I will shew thee who they are, over whom the devil can prevail. For they who in such manner receive matrimony, as to shut out God from themselves, and from their mind, and to give themselves to their lust, as the horse and mule, which have not understanding, over them the devil hath power. But thou when thou shalt take her, go into the chamber, and for three days keep thyself continent from her, and give thyself to nothing else but to prayers with her. And on that night lay the liver of the fish on the fire, and the devil shall be driven away. But the second night thou shalt be admitted into the society of the holy Patriarchs.

And the third night thou shalt obtain a blessing that sound children may be born of you. And when the third night is past, thou shalt take the virgin with the fear of the Lord, moved rather for love of children than for lust, that in the seed of Abraham thou mayst obtain a blessing in children.

When the horse and mule mate, they almost never bear offspring, but there have been docuмented cases.  Now isn't that interesting?  And yet we have the NFP crowd who admit that they are much less likely to conceive while performing NFP, but that because it's "open to life" they are not sinning, nor does the devil have power over them.  Right.

GIVE


ME


A


BREAK!



By the way Raoul76, you may like to read Leviticus 15:24-33.

If I had children I would be in mortal sin, for I have no wife.  However, if you were to ask the same question to my Catholic friend Francis, he would answer "5".

How many children would I like to have, were I married?  Like doesn't enter into it, as I have explained above.  But I would not get married until I was stable enough in temporal matters to support a family.  At the moment I can support myself quite adequately, but I would not do myself, my future wife and the Sacrament of Matrimony a disservice by presuming to be in any kind of temporal fitness to marry.

Belloc, I have never claimed to think I was.  YOU have claimed that I think I am.

I know many individuals who are Catholic.  But having all kinds of kids makes it hard for some of them to post on Cathinfo, and the older ones either don't have the interest, or what have you, so here I am, the single guy with a job that leaves me a fair amount of time (usually) for study, prayer and diverse other Catholic works.

Doing ANYTHING to impede birth has always been a mortal sin.  

Mutual periodic abstinence is not a sin.

1) It would be a sin to demand the marriage debt if  pregnancy would lead to something like the Chinese government forcing an abortion on your wife.

2) It would also be a sin to refuse the marriage debt.

Abstaining from intercourse during the fertile period is not a sin.  There is only the question of the legitimacy of the intentions.

Your position on this is heresy.

If I had children I would be in mortal sin, for I have no wife.  However, if you were to ask the same question to my Catholic friend Francis, he would answer "5".

How many children would I like to have, were I married?  Like doesn't enter into it, as I have explained above.  But I would not get married until I was stable enough in temporal matters to support a family.  At the moment I can support myself quite adequately, but I would not do myself, my future wife and the Sacrament of Matrimony a disservice by presuming to be in any kind of temporal fitness to marry.

Yeah, that's the point, isn't it?  Marriage is more than just having children; it is also raising them.  I am glad that you at least acknowledged the financial aspect of it.