The latter is marriage (matrimonium), which
is the union of two persons of different sex for life-long
reciprocal possession of their sexual faculties. The end of
producing and educating children may be regarded as always the end
of nature in implanting mutual desire and inclination in the sexes;
but it is not necessary for the rightfulness of marriage that those
who marry should set this before themselves as the end of their union,
otherwise the marriage would be dissolved of itself when the
production of children ceased.
*Commercium sexuale est usus membrorum et facultatum sexualium
alterius. This "usus" is either natural, by which human beings may
reproduce their own kind, or unnatural, which, again, refers either to
a person of the same sex or to an animal of another species than
man. These transgressions of all law, as crimina carnis contra
naturam, are even "not to be named"; and, as wrongs against all
humanity in the person, they cannot be saved, by any limitation or
exception whatever, from entire reprobation.
And even assuming that enjoyment in the reciprocal use of the sexual
endowments is an end of marriage, yet the contract of marriage is
not on that account a matter of arbitrary will, but is a contract
necessary in its nature by the law of humanity. In other words, if a
man and a woman have the will to enter on reciprocal enjoyment in
accordance with their sexual nature, they must necessarily marry
each other; and this necessity is in accordance with the juridical
laws of pure reason.
Pages:
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87