3. This we now say, that, according to this condition of being born and dying, which we know, and in which we have been created, the marriage of male and female is some good; the compact whereof divine Scripture so commends, as that neither is it allowed one put away by her husband to marry, so long as her husband lives: nor is it allowed one put away by his wife to marry another, unless she who have separated from him be dead. Therefore, concerning the good of marriage, which the Lord also confirmed in the Gospel, not only in that He forbade to put away a wife,7    Matt. xix. 9 save because of fornication, but also in that He came by invitation to a marriage,8    John ii. 2 there is good ground to inquire for what reason it be a good. And this seems not to me to be merely on account of the begetting of children, but also on account of the natural society itself in a difference of sex. Otherwise it would not any longer be called marriage in the case of old persons, especially if either they had lost sons, or had given birth to none. But now in good, although aged, marriage, albeit there hath withered away the glow of full age between male and female, yet there lives in full vigor the order of charity between husband and wife: because, the better they are, the earlier they have begun by mutual consent to contain from sexual intercourse with each other: not that it should be matter of necessity afterwards not to have power to do what they would, but that it should be matter of praise to have been unwilling at the first, to do what they had power to do. If therefore there be kept good faith of honor, and of services mutually due from either sex, although the members of either be languishing and almost corpse-like, yet of souls duly joined together, the chastity9    Perhaps “charity.” continues, the purer by how much it is the more proved, the safer, by how much it is the calmer. Marriages have this good also, that carnal or youthful incontinence, although it be faulty, is brought unto an honest use in the begetting of children, in order that out of the evil of lust the marriage union may bring to pass some good. Next, in that the lust of the flesh is repressed, and rages in a way more modestly, being tempered by parental affection. For there is interposed a certain gravity of glowing pleasure, when in that wherein husband and wife cleave to one another, they have in mind that they be father and mother.

3. Illud nunc dicimus, secundum istam conditionem nascendi et moriendi, quam novimus, et in qua creati sumus, aliquid boni esse conjugium masculi et feminae: cujus confoederationem ita divina Scriptura commendat, ut nec dimissae a viro nubere liceat alteri, quamdiu vir ejus vivit; nec dimisso ab uxore liceat alteram ducere, nisi mortua fuerit quae recessit. Bonum ergo conjugii, quod etiam Dominus in Evangelio confirmavit, non solum quia prohibuit dimittere uxorem, nisi ex causa fornicationis (Matth. XIX, 9), sed etiam quia venit invitatus ad nuptias (Joan. II, 2), cur sit bonum merito quaeritur. Quod mihi non videtur propter solam filiorum procreationem, sed propter ipsam etiam naturalem in diverso sexu societatem. Alioquin non jam diceretur conjugium in senibus, praesertim si vel amisissent filios, vel minime genuissent. Nunc vero in bono licet annoso conjugio, etsi emarcuit ardor aetatis inter masculum et feminam, viget tamen ordo charitatis inter maritum et uxorem: quia quanto meliores sunt, tanto maturius a commixtione carnis suae pari consensu se continere coeperunt; non ut necessitatis esset postea non posse quod vellent, sed ut laudis esset primum noluisse quod possent. Si ergo servatur fides honoris et obsequiorum invicem debitorum ab alterutro sexu, etiamsi languescentibus et prope cadaverinis utriusque membris, animorum tamen rite conjugatorum tanto sincerior, quanto probatior, et tanto securior, quanto placidior castitas perseverat. Habent etiam id bonum conjugia, quod carnalis vel juvenilis incontinentia, etiamsi vitiosa est, ad propagandae prolis redigitur honestatem, ut ex malo libidinis aliquid boni faciat copulatio conjugalis. Deinde quia reprimitur, et quodam modo verecundius aestuat concupiscentia carnis, quam temperat parentalis affectus. Intercedit enim quaedam gravitas fervidae voluptatis , cum in eo quod sibi vir et mulier adhaerescunt, pater et mater esse meditantur.