Symposium on Conjugal Love and Birth Control
23
19. Curran, C. E., ed., Contraception, Authority and Dissent. New York, Herder & Herder, 1969, p. 76. 20. Harris, Peter, et al., On Human Life, An Examination of Humanae Vitae. London, Burns and Oates, 1968. 21. Curran, op. cit. 22. Bosanquet, Geoffrey, trans., Eadmer's History of Recent Events in England. Philadelphia, Dufour, 1965, p. 49. 23. "Summis Desiderantes Affectibus." Translations and Reprints. Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, vol. 3, No. 4. 24. Curran, op. cir.
The Church and Family Regulation JOHN
L. T H O M A S ,
S.J.
N o modern moral problem, not even the atom bomb, has generated more concern, discussion, and controversy among Catholics than has the morality of family planning. There are a number of reasons, but perhaps the most important is the fact that the controversy focuses on issues the average couple can understand through personal experience. In contrast to the awesome threat of nuclear warfare, the morally licit regulation of family size involves the immediate, direct responsibility of individual couples as well as the daily challenge of coming to terms with a number of not-easily-postponable human wants. Although it was an open secret that m a n y couples were experiencing serious difficulties in this regard, once the present controversy became public, it revealed a surprising undercurrent of anxiety, frustration, and pent-up resentment among even the m o s t faithful, indicatTH~ REv. JOHN L. THOMAS, S.J., is one of the best-known Catholic sociologists in the country. He has spent most of his professional life at St. Louis University, but he is currently a research associate at the Cambridge Center for Social Studies, Cambridge, Mass. His books include: The American Catholic Family (1956), Marriage and Rhythm (1957), The Catholic Viewpoint on Marriage (1958), The Family Clinic: A Book of Questions and Answers (1958), Religion and the American People (1963), and Looking toward Marriage (1964).
24
Journal o[ Religion and Health
ing that the questions being raised had remained too long without satisfactory ventilation or answers. Granting that the present reappraisal is long overdue, it becomes all the more necessary to be on our guard against partial, superficial solutions and "remedial quackery." There are profound Christian values at stake, for the present controversy involves issues that call into question many traditional conceptions not only of sex, marriage, and parenthood, but also of the Church's teaching authority. Hence in seeking to interpret the Creator's plan relating to human sexuality, theologians must understand the development of the Church's teaching on such matters as well as the far-reaching individual and social implications of relevant contemporary cultural changes. At this critical stage in history no serious person who is aware of past and present world population trends can deny that the human species faces radically new problems in regard to population control. The basic challenge is not merely the need to balance numbers and resources, but the rethinking and redefining of the meaning of human sexuality. It will help in this matter to keep the following points in mind. Given present nuptiality rates, age at marriage, and advances in maternal and infant care, no modern, technologically advanced nation can long make reasonable provision for its population increases unless a good percentage of its fertile couples take effective steps to regulate family size. Normal men and women are endowed with a procreative capacity providentially designed to meet the needs of the human species under all the various historical contingencies through which mankind has passed. Thus, a woman's ovaries are estimated to hold some 25- to 30,000 ova, one of which normally reaches maturity each month during the roughly thirty years between menarche and menopause; after puberty, a man's sex glands continuously produce millions of sperm until relatively late in life. Although there is evidence that age at menarche and menopause may vary among different groups, there is no evidence that this reproductive capacity has varied greatly in the past or now varies greatly among peoples.
Symposium on Conjugal Love and Birth Control
25
The requirements of parenthood do vary greatly, however, either because of differences in maternal and infant death rates, or because the extent and length of training needed for mature participation in various societies are different. Hence there exists no necessary correlation between the changing requirements of parenthood and a nation's or an individual couple's procreative capacity. The sexual response and receptivity of human beings, in contrast to those of most higher mammals, are not directly dependent on seasonal or cyclical physiological changes relating to the couple's glandular systems; the human female does not experience the typical mammalian seasonal or cyclical estrus during which period alone she becomes sexually receptive; and according to present knowledge, only the human female experiences menopause or the complete cessation of the functioning of her reproductive faculty shortly past mid-life. Hence the Author of nature has made marriage partners capable of being sexually responsive and receptive at all times-that is, regardless of whether conception may be possible or not. Conception results from the fusion of two cells, ovum and sperm, each of which contains equal parts of genetic materials. A physiologically developed human female normally produces but one mature ovum during each monthly cycle, while the male production of sperm is continuous. Since the mature ovum remains capable of being fertilized for only a relatively few hours (certainly less than twenty) and male sperm normally retain their ability to fertilize the ovum for only roughly two days, it is obvious that even prescinding from such "sterile" periods as pregnancy, the first several months of nursing, and post-menopause, relatively few individual acts of sexual intercourse are designed by nature to result in conception. In other words, considering the stable quality of sexual responsiveness in marriage, the cyclical character of ovulation, and the fact that the human couple have not been made directly aware of the precise time of ovulation during the monthly cycle, we must conclude that nature has designed procreation to result not from the individual act of sexual intercourse but from what might be termed the process of marital relations, that is, the to-
26
Journal of Religion and Health
tal or integral series of sexual actions, operations, and exchanges normally shared by the cohabiting couple during each cycle. We must also conclude that this process of marital relations is designed by nature to serve not only a procreative but a uniquely unifying (relational) function throughout the entire marriage. Moreover, since the shared affective fulfillment resulting from the ongoing sexual exchange built into the very "board and bed" intimacy of the marriage state has mutually supportive, health-giving qualities highly significant for the development and fostering of conjugal love, companionship, and communication, we must conclude that forced observance of absolute or prolonged marital continence may seriously jeopardize the essential "goods" of marriage (loyalty, children, and enduring unity). A sense of realism and relevancy forces us to give serious consideration to the sobering historical fact that the peoples of no economically developed Western nation have been able to achieve the necessary regulation of family size by means of methods currently approved by the Church, and given the state of pertinent knowledge available, it is difficult to conjecture by what means they could accomplish this. Moreover, both past and present experience make it distressingly clear that once changes in a social system generate serious pressures to limit family size, even the majority of normally faithful couples take matters into their own hands, and for lack of better means, resort to abortion, sterilization, child abandonment, and various types of contraception. This is the history of the Christian nations of the West during the past several centuries; it is currently being re-enacted throughout the rest of the world as one developing nation after the other experiences a lowering of infant and maternal mortality rates with resultant rapid increases in population. In the light of these painful facts, responsible Church leaders must admit that their present stand regarding the licit regulation of family size is feasible only under conditions of a high infant and maternal death rate. Surely this should cause them to question whether premises of values and moral principles developed on the basis of a different definition and view
Symposium on Conjugal Love and Birth Control
27
of the human situation really represent authentic interpretations of divine law. In this connection it should be recognized that the Church's official position, which maintains that contraceptive birth control is intrinsically evil, is based on a line of scholastic reasoning originally formulated within a framework of currently rejected Augustinian assumptions regarding the evil of sexual concupiscence and of scientifically untenable views relating to the nature and functions of the human reproductive process. It should further be noted that, as a matter of fact, some of the logical implications of this position are not respected in the Church's current moral teaching. For example, if contraceptive action is intrinsically evil, why do moral theologians justify it under conditions of rape? Granted present knowledge of the female's ovulation cycle, how can the Church permit fertile couples deliberately to deprive their marital relations of procreative force and efficacy by scientifically timing their acts of sexual intercourse so that sperm cannot encounter ova? The practice of amplexus reservatus (incomplete coitus) does not differ qualitatively from complete sexual intercourse in the sense that it involves the couple's use of their reproductive faculties to achieve full mutual sexual arousal as well as the transfer of sperm from their natural receptacles in the testes up into the vas deferens where they either must be ejaculated immediately in orgasm or passed off more gradually during urination. Yet moral theologians deny this practice is intrinsically evil. Further, it should be clear that the reasons for the Church's condemnation of contraceptive birth control are ultimately derived not from an analysis of the inherent meaning of finality of marital relations, as the natural law approach would demand, but from concern to preserve the integrity of the physical or biological structure of the individual act of sexual intercourse considered primarily from the viewpoint only of male aetivky. Thus deliberate failure of the male to deposit his sperm in a vagina at orgasm is condemned as a contraceptive act, even when there can be no question of conception and consequently of contraception; that is, even when the part-
,
28
Joztrnal of Religion and Health
ners are fully aware that they are sterile; or more specifically, for example, that the wife's uterus is not receptive to sperm, as during pregnancy, postmenopause, or after sterilizing surgical intervention. The contention that it is respect for the physical structure of the act rather than for its inherent meaning and finality that is primarily determinative in the Church's present position is further confirmed by her traditional teaching regarding the morality of pre- and extra-marital sexual intercourse. Thus moral theologians teach and maintain that even acts of fornication and adultery take on double malice if contraceptives are used. This implies that they regard as a moral absolute the crude physical requirement that sperm be deposited in a vagina whenever and under whatever circumstances orgasm of the male deliberately occurs. Hence they overlook the inherent finality, and consequently the essential evil, of such acts; that is, that they involve the utterly" irresponsible participation in an act that could result in the generation of life. In other words, the fact that a human person, an image of God, may be born and condemned to work out his eternal destiny to love without the assurance of normal parental affective support and under the damaging social stigma of illegitimacy is simply ignored, and concern to preserve the physical structure even of the sinful act takes precedence over respect for the human person. Those who point to the assumed continuity of the Church's teaching regarding contraceptive birth control as a proof of its enduring validity must admit, first, that they now reject many of the theological and most of the scientific assumptions upon which this teaching was initially premised; second, that mere slavish repetition of never seriously questioned or critically examined principles constitutes only a type of spurious continuity; and third, that they are consequently confusing authentic continuity with superficial similarity. Moreover, they must admit that mere continuity, whether authentic or spurious, does not in itself validate a specific teaching; otherwise they would be unable to explain their present rejection of many long-accepted views regarding, for example, the morality of marital relations for purposes other than procreation, the necessity of observing
Symposium on Conjugal Love and Birth Control
29
"natural position" in intercourse, and the prohibition of marital relations during menstruation and pregnancy. If they are acquainted with its historical development, they must indeed admit that the Church's current teaching on sexual morality is the result of a long evolution characterized by the gradual reiection of many prohibitions based on cultural taboos, ignorance of biological functions, false ascetical principles, and misinterpretations of Scripture. Considering the demonstrated inadequacy of the Church's present approach to population control, it should be evident that an acceptable Christian solution to the problems associated with responsible regulation of family size can be developed only if moral theologians are willing to undertake a complete reappraisal of their thinking regarding the nature, meaning, and legitimate functions of marital relations as at present revealed in the light of current interpretations of Scripture and reliable scientific knowledge. As long as they persist in maintaining their traditional conceptual framework, they will be unable to see that it is a perversion of natural law thinking to set the human sexual faculty apart as some unique kind of separate "nature" endowed with its own inherent ends as well as inviolable physical structure, and consequently to deny its essentially instrumental, subordinate function as an endowment of the human agent. A Christian solution to the problem of family regulation must be based on an understanding of the human agent as a sexed person and on an analysis of marital relations as the normal expression of a unique relationship between persons who are committed to maintain an intimate community of life and love as partners and parents. Inasmuch as the unifying, relational function of marital relations can be separated from the procreative in the individual act of sexual intercourse, either by nature or human intervention, the morality of engaging in marital relations in such circumstances must be determined by the obiective demands or obligations of the Christian vocation of marriage considered in all its dimensions; that is, as a divinely designed way of life, ordained by the Creator to provide for the couple's loving fulfillment and daily growth in perfection as they carry out
30
Jour~zal of Religion a~d Health
their Christian calling in the world and their special mission in the service of new life. Above all, an adequate statement regarding family regulation must take into consideration the radical implications of modern man's changed orientation to procreation. Stated briefly, owing primarily to a perennially high death rate, throughout much of the past, man's concern with continuity through procreation has served as one of the major wellsprings of social organization and motivation in all human societies. Beginning around the end of the sixteenth century, however, a number of social and cultural changes were introduced that profoundly affected this age-old relationship to procreation and shifted the major focus of parental concern from procreation to increased care for the enhanced training and education of the child, with the result that family limitation eventually became widely accepted, particularly in the industrializing nations. Although other factors were involved, family limitation, together with increased life expectancy, gradually led to a greater awareness of the significance of marital companionship and love for the continued happiness and stability of the couple. This awareness, in turn, led to increased emphasis on the unifying, affective, relational function of marital relations as a normal expression of conjugal love. In these circumstances, couples faced with the need to regulate family size began to experience a serious conflict between their need to express conjugal love through marital relations and the Church's teaching on birth control. In other words, the relatively recent development of Catholic thinking regarding the positive values of conjugal love and marital relations, as well as their profound significance for the maintenance of marital unity and family stability under contemporary conditions (clearly expressed in Vatican II), has created serious problems because it has not been accompanied by corresponding development of Catholic thinking relating to the licit means of limiting family size. This inherent contradiction in Catholic teaching must be resolved. At the same time, owing to their long-continued refusal to understand or come to grips with the far-reaching individual and social implications of
Symposium on Conjugal Love and Birth Control
31
modern man's changed relationship to procreation, religious leaders have failed to develop a positive, integrated, workable approach to modern man's sexual problems. People have simply been left to their own devices, with the result that various forms of birth control--contraception, sterilization, abortion--have become widely accepted with little awareness or concern for their consequences. Hence the use of sex is becoming separated from any authentic sense of responsibility since, given m~dern contraceptive techniques, sexual appetite satisfaction need not lead to any reproductive consequences. As a result, premarital and extramarital sexual permissiveness is becoming widely accepted, thus posing a serious threat to the maintenance of the Christian tradition of indissoluble marriage, for this becomes generally feasible only on condition that young people are trained to self-mastery and marital unity is supported by mutual fidelity and shared responsibility for children. To meet this situation, much more is required than a mere reinterpretation of morally licit means of birth regulation. Underlying present sexual attitudes and practices and generated by the cultural developments of the past several centuries is a basic challenge to the total traditional Christian conception of the nature and meaning of human sexuality. An official statement relating only to the "pill" or other contraceptive techniques will have little relevance. The challenge is total, and only a serious reappraisal and restatement of the Church's authentic teaching regarding sex, love, and marriage will enable Christian couples to deal with the real issues they face as partners and parents under contemporary conditions. Following the lead indicated by Vatican II, an adequate approach to family regulation must include the following elements. First, it should be based on a clear, explicit statement of the nature and meaning of the individual Christian's essential religious vocation received at baptism. Briefly, this is a divine invitation to be reborn in Christ, and through life-giving union with Him and his Church, to grow in love of God and neighbor through operative charity. All other Christian "vocations" or "callings" constitute only a further determination of this divine invitation, in the
32
Journal of Religion and Health
sense that they define various types of relationships through which the individual Christian's continued response, as expressed in love of God and neighbor, is to become operative. Second, Christians who choose the vocation of marriage, therefore, contract to engage in or to enter a state or way of life involving a given, distinctive set of inherent relationships that define the special ways through which they are to express and develop their love of God and neighbor. The vocationally specific character of these relationships is based on the complementary qualities of man and woman as sexed persons and define the couple's special way of being and relating to each other as life-partners, and to their children as parents. The Church teaches that Christ has incorporated these relationships into his redemptive plan, and thus in the present economy of salvation they are enhanced with a special sacramental quality. The aim of this approach is to make clear that, considered from the viewpoint of the Christian's essential vocation, marriage is a means, not an end. Further, although marriage is entered into by a free, mutual contract of the partners, as a natural institution, its essential elements or relationships are inherent in its nature; that is, they are "givens" and consequently are not open to contractual agreement. Hence the purpose of marriage considered as an institutional means is the mutual sanctification of the couple; considered as a natural institution, however, its purpose is to provide for the mutual human fulfillment of the partners as sexed persons through the mysterious two-in-one-flesh unity and the creative orientation of this unity toward the child that are built into the very nature of the institution as an integrally shared way of life. Third, it should be pointed out that our present understanding and appreciation of the basic relationships in marriage are the result of a long historical development characterized by marked changes in the family system and consequently in the statuses and roles of family members; by extensive scientific advances in our knowledge of man's reproductive faculties and sexual behavior; and by new theological insights regarding the inherent dignity of the human person and the meaning of the Christian's vocation in
Symposium on Conjugal Love and Birth Control
33
the present economy of salvation. Thus the unique human significance and value of conjugal love; the specially unifying, affective, relational importance of sexual relations in expressing and fostering this love; and the crucial, greatly expanded function of parenthood under modern conditions have all been brought into more adequate Christian perspective. Since these developments have proceeded more or less separately, however, they must now be fully integrated into the Church's total conception of marriage. This calls for a careful reappraisal of our traditional conceptions of human sexuality, for these new developments throw important light on the Creator's designs regarding sex. Briefly, as we now understand these designs, the Creator made man a sexed person, "male and female he created him." This means ,that sex is an essential attribute of the human person--a human person's way of being and relating to the world and to others. Moreover, by its very nature the attribute of sex in the individual person can be adequately defined only in relation to a reciprocal "other" so that the meaning of sex is ultimately based on this relationship. Thus an analysis of an individual person's reproductive faculties reveals that they are essentially socially oriented, for they require a sexually complementary "other" for their complete functioning and fulfillment, while as potentially life-transmitting faculties, their use may also involve another in the person of a child. Considered as an attribute of the person, therefore, sex implies a special way of being and relating to other persons as partner and as parent. The unique and sacred significance of sex stems from the fact that its complete, responsible use necessarily involves a relationship to persons, not merely to things. Although all relationships between persons must be governed by justice and charity, the trusting, uniquely interdependent relationships created by conjugal love and parenthood necessarily require the exercise of these virtues to an eminent degree. Thus Revelation and reason clearly indicate that since sexual relations are designed both to unite the partners in a mysterious two-in-one-flesh solidarity as persons and to provide for the continuity of the race through procreation, sex can be used re-
34
Journal o[ Religion and Health
sponsibly only by married couples; that is, only by a man and woman who have irrevocably committed themselves to maintain an exclusive community of love and life within which they can strive for mutual fulfillment and perfection and thus create an environment within which children can be fittingly procreated and reared. Considering the widespread confusion regarding the morality of premarital relations, this last point merits careful development. A balanced judgment regarding the right use of sex must necessarily be based on an adequate consideration of the functions that sex is designed to serve in promoting the integral development and fulfillment of the human person. An analysis of the attribute of sex reveals that it endows the individual human person with the capacity to relate to another person in a uniquely unifying, potentially procreative way. Sexual acts that ignore these "given," built-in functions of sex cannot serve the development of the human person and consequently constitute a misuse of sex. In this connection, it should be noted that the specific endowment of sex merely gives one the capacity to form a loving, mutually fulfilling life-companionship with another person. To use sex either to satisfy selfish ends or to express a temporary, passing affection is not only to deny its built-in exigencies but also to deprive it of the power to serve as the basis for an enduring, total personal commitment in marriage. What should be said about the right use of sex in marriage? On the basis of present knowledge regarding the nature of man's sexual faculties, and in particular of the periodic character of the female's ovulation cycle, it is now apparent that, although the Creator has designed the total, ongoing process of sexual exchange and interactions in marriage to serve both procreative and unifying, relational functions, not all these functions are necessarily fulfilled in each individual act of sexual intercourse. Moreover, since the members of the human species have been endowed with a procreative capacity providentially designed to meet the needs of the race in all and various historical contingencies, it should be apparent that there exists no necessary correlation between an individual couple's reproductive capacity
Symposium on Conjugal Love and Birth Control
35
and their ability to meet the responsibilities of parenthood. This raises the issue of the licit regulation of family size. The Church has already stated the licimess of using marital relations for purposes other than procreation (Casti Connubii). ~ She has also defined the conditions under which fertile couples may licitly avoid pregnancy by deliberately timing their acts of sexual intercourse so that sperm cannot encounter ova. This constitutes a deliberate, planned intervention by the couple in their normal process of sexual relations, though not in the physical structure of their marital acts or in the normal functioning of their reproductive faculties. Recent medical advances as well as deeper insight into the relationship between conjugal love, marital relations, and family stability now raise the question of the morally licit limits of direct intervention either in the normal functioning of the reproductive faculties or the physical structure of the marital act under circumstances in which couples face the serious need to regulate family size. Vatican II spells the problem out clearly enough. After stating the great value of conjugal love and the significant, unifying function served by marital relations as a normal expression of this love. the Council Fathers drew the obvious conclusion that long-continued or absolute contineney in marriage, practiced for the purpose of limiting family size, could frequently endanger the attainment of the essential goods of marriage (proles, tides, sacramentum) as traditionally defined by the Church. The import of this conclusion should be obvious. If the basic ends of marriage are placed in jeopardy by the Church's present teaching on birth control, then the adequacy of this position must be carefully re-examined in the light of present knowledge and theological insights. As a matter of fact, owing to the doctrinal developments of Vatican II mentioned above, that is, greater awareness of the significance of conjugal love, marital relations, and parenthood, the Church is now in a position to *"On Christian Marriage," encyclical letter of Pope Plus XI of December 31, 1930. Catholic Mind, 1931, 29, 21-64.
36
Journal of Religion and Health
study the question of licit means in a wider context. From the beginning, the Church' s teaching in this regard constituted an attempt to protect basic values in sex, love, and parenthood as these values were currently defined. This aim must continue to remain paramount in her teaching, though the various social, cultural, and theological developments that have resulted in a deeper understanding of these values may lead her to redefine the means she has formerly regarded as necessary to protect them. The question of licit means must be considered within the total context of the Christian marriage vocation as this is at present understood. Briefly stated, Christian marriage is a vocation in which the couple irrevocably commit themselves both to work for their mutual happiness, development, and perfection and to dedicate themselves to the service of generous parenthood. In this vocation conjugal love, based on profound respect and careful concern for the authentic good of the other as a person, must be diligently fostered, since it provides the mutually rewarding human bond and motivating force essential to the couple's continued dedication. Because marital relations and the affective, sex-associated intimacies more or less directly related to them normally serve as the habitual expression of conjugal love, they also play a significant role in promoting the stability of marriage. In the light of these considerations, it seems logical to conclude that couples who are seriously dedicated to their marriage vocation and who have reached a responsible, mutual decision concerning the need either to space or limit further pregnancies may licitly employ any mutually acceptable, medically approved means now available to assure that their marital relations will not result in conception. This clearly implies that the method used does not interfere with a conceptus, either before or after it is implanted in the uterus. This new orientation regarding licit means seems to b e called for by Vatican II, and in this sense it constitutes a logical development of the Church's teaching regarding the basic values embodied in sex, love, marriage, and parenthood. In seeking to discover the Creator's plan relating to
Symposium on Conjugal Love and Birth Control
37
these values, Christian thinking has necessarily been conditioned by cultural developments and gradually deepening theological insights regarding the nature of man and the purposes of marriage. The new directives would place greater personal responsibility on marriage partners and require that they foster an ever-deepening awareness of both the natural and supernatural dimensions of the vocation they have chosen as their personal way of loving God and neighbor.
Masculinity, Femininity, and Conjugal Love VYTAUTAS
J. B I E L I A U S K A S
While there is little difficulty in describing biosexual differences in the human species, the task becomes quite formidable when an attempt is made to arrive at scientifically supportable psychological differences in this area. 1 The terms "masculinity" and "femininity" have come into quite general use among psychologists to refer to psychosexual differences, the more pointed reference to sex being omitted. Stoller, wrestling with the problem of terminology, prefers to use the term "gender" to describe the psychological differences between men and women, and proposes to reserve the term "sexual" to designate the biological differences between the sexes. 2 However, to use the term "gender" or the terms "masculinity" and "femininity" to refer to psychological differences without any reference to physiological differences would create a nonexisting dichotomy. In fact, the terms "masculinity" and "femininity" sharpen the differences by making them deeper and more meaningful. On the other hand, these two concepts VYTAUTASJ. BIELIAUSKAS,PH.D., is Professor of Psychology and Chairman of the Department of Psychology at Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio. He is the PresidentElect of the International Catholic Association for the Study of Medical Psychology, the first psychologist to fill that post. He is also the President-Elect of the American Catholic Psychological Association.
23
19. Curran, C. E., ed., Contraception, Authority and Dissent. New York, Herder & Herder, 1969, p. 76. 20. Harris, Peter, et al., On Human Life, An Examination of Humanae Vitae. London, Burns and Oates, 1968. 21. Curran, op. cit. 22. Bosanquet, Geoffrey, trans., Eadmer's History of Recent Events in England. Philadelphia, Dufour, 1965, p. 49. 23. "Summis Desiderantes Affectibus." Translations and Reprints. Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, vol. 3, No. 4. 24. Curran, op. cir.
The Church and Family Regulation JOHN
L. T H O M A S ,
S.J.
N o modern moral problem, not even the atom bomb, has generated more concern, discussion, and controversy among Catholics than has the morality of family planning. There are a number of reasons, but perhaps the most important is the fact that the controversy focuses on issues the average couple can understand through personal experience. In contrast to the awesome threat of nuclear warfare, the morally licit regulation of family size involves the immediate, direct responsibility of individual couples as well as the daily challenge of coming to terms with a number of not-easily-postponable human wants. Although it was an open secret that m a n y couples were experiencing serious difficulties in this regard, once the present controversy became public, it revealed a surprising undercurrent of anxiety, frustration, and pent-up resentment among even the m o s t faithful, indicatTH~ REv. JOHN L. THOMAS, S.J., is one of the best-known Catholic sociologists in the country. He has spent most of his professional life at St. Louis University, but he is currently a research associate at the Cambridge Center for Social Studies, Cambridge, Mass. His books include: The American Catholic Family (1956), Marriage and Rhythm (1957), The Catholic Viewpoint on Marriage (1958), The Family Clinic: A Book of Questions and Answers (1958), Religion and the American People (1963), and Looking toward Marriage (1964).
24
Journal o[ Religion and Health
ing that the questions being raised had remained too long without satisfactory ventilation or answers. Granting that the present reappraisal is long overdue, it becomes all the more necessary to be on our guard against partial, superficial solutions and "remedial quackery." There are profound Christian values at stake, for the present controversy involves issues that call into question many traditional conceptions not only of sex, marriage, and parenthood, but also of the Church's teaching authority. Hence in seeking to interpret the Creator's plan relating to human sexuality, theologians must understand the development of the Church's teaching on such matters as well as the far-reaching individual and social implications of relevant contemporary cultural changes. At this critical stage in history no serious person who is aware of past and present world population trends can deny that the human species faces radically new problems in regard to population control. The basic challenge is not merely the need to balance numbers and resources, but the rethinking and redefining of the meaning of human sexuality. It will help in this matter to keep the following points in mind. Given present nuptiality rates, age at marriage, and advances in maternal and infant care, no modern, technologically advanced nation can long make reasonable provision for its population increases unless a good percentage of its fertile couples take effective steps to regulate family size. Normal men and women are endowed with a procreative capacity providentially designed to meet the needs of the human species under all the various historical contingencies through which mankind has passed. Thus, a woman's ovaries are estimated to hold some 25- to 30,000 ova, one of which normally reaches maturity each month during the roughly thirty years between menarche and menopause; after puberty, a man's sex glands continuously produce millions of sperm until relatively late in life. Although there is evidence that age at menarche and menopause may vary among different groups, there is no evidence that this reproductive capacity has varied greatly in the past or now varies greatly among peoples.
Symposium on Conjugal Love and Birth Control
25
The requirements of parenthood do vary greatly, however, either because of differences in maternal and infant death rates, or because the extent and length of training needed for mature participation in various societies are different. Hence there exists no necessary correlation between the changing requirements of parenthood and a nation's or an individual couple's procreative capacity. The sexual response and receptivity of human beings, in contrast to those of most higher mammals, are not directly dependent on seasonal or cyclical physiological changes relating to the couple's glandular systems; the human female does not experience the typical mammalian seasonal or cyclical estrus during which period alone she becomes sexually receptive; and according to present knowledge, only the human female experiences menopause or the complete cessation of the functioning of her reproductive faculty shortly past mid-life. Hence the Author of nature has made marriage partners capable of being sexually responsive and receptive at all times-that is, regardless of whether conception may be possible or not. Conception results from the fusion of two cells, ovum and sperm, each of which contains equal parts of genetic materials. A physiologically developed human female normally produces but one mature ovum during each monthly cycle, while the male production of sperm is continuous. Since the mature ovum remains capable of being fertilized for only a relatively few hours (certainly less than twenty) and male sperm normally retain their ability to fertilize the ovum for only roughly two days, it is obvious that even prescinding from such "sterile" periods as pregnancy, the first several months of nursing, and post-menopause, relatively few individual acts of sexual intercourse are designed by nature to result in conception. In other words, considering the stable quality of sexual responsiveness in marriage, the cyclical character of ovulation, and the fact that the human couple have not been made directly aware of the precise time of ovulation during the monthly cycle, we must conclude that nature has designed procreation to result not from the individual act of sexual intercourse but from what might be termed the process of marital relations, that is, the to-
26
Journal of Religion and Health
tal or integral series of sexual actions, operations, and exchanges normally shared by the cohabiting couple during each cycle. We must also conclude that this process of marital relations is designed by nature to serve not only a procreative but a uniquely unifying (relational) function throughout the entire marriage. Moreover, since the shared affective fulfillment resulting from the ongoing sexual exchange built into the very "board and bed" intimacy of the marriage state has mutually supportive, health-giving qualities highly significant for the development and fostering of conjugal love, companionship, and communication, we must conclude that forced observance of absolute or prolonged marital continence may seriously jeopardize the essential "goods" of marriage (loyalty, children, and enduring unity). A sense of realism and relevancy forces us to give serious consideration to the sobering historical fact that the peoples of no economically developed Western nation have been able to achieve the necessary regulation of family size by means of methods currently approved by the Church, and given the state of pertinent knowledge available, it is difficult to conjecture by what means they could accomplish this. Moreover, both past and present experience make it distressingly clear that once changes in a social system generate serious pressures to limit family size, even the majority of normally faithful couples take matters into their own hands, and for lack of better means, resort to abortion, sterilization, child abandonment, and various types of contraception. This is the history of the Christian nations of the West during the past several centuries; it is currently being re-enacted throughout the rest of the world as one developing nation after the other experiences a lowering of infant and maternal mortality rates with resultant rapid increases in population. In the light of these painful facts, responsible Church leaders must admit that their present stand regarding the licit regulation of family size is feasible only under conditions of a high infant and maternal death rate. Surely this should cause them to question whether premises of values and moral principles developed on the basis of a different definition and view
Symposium on Conjugal Love and Birth Control
27
of the human situation really represent authentic interpretations of divine law. In this connection it should be recognized that the Church's official position, which maintains that contraceptive birth control is intrinsically evil, is based on a line of scholastic reasoning originally formulated within a framework of currently rejected Augustinian assumptions regarding the evil of sexual concupiscence and of scientifically untenable views relating to the nature and functions of the human reproductive process. It should further be noted that, as a matter of fact, some of the logical implications of this position are not respected in the Church's current moral teaching. For example, if contraceptive action is intrinsically evil, why do moral theologians justify it under conditions of rape? Granted present knowledge of the female's ovulation cycle, how can the Church permit fertile couples deliberately to deprive their marital relations of procreative force and efficacy by scientifically timing their acts of sexual intercourse so that sperm cannot encounter ova? The practice of amplexus reservatus (incomplete coitus) does not differ qualitatively from complete sexual intercourse in the sense that it involves the couple's use of their reproductive faculties to achieve full mutual sexual arousal as well as the transfer of sperm from their natural receptacles in the testes up into the vas deferens where they either must be ejaculated immediately in orgasm or passed off more gradually during urination. Yet moral theologians deny this practice is intrinsically evil. Further, it should be clear that the reasons for the Church's condemnation of contraceptive birth control are ultimately derived not from an analysis of the inherent meaning of finality of marital relations, as the natural law approach would demand, but from concern to preserve the integrity of the physical or biological structure of the individual act of sexual intercourse considered primarily from the viewpoint only of male aetivky. Thus deliberate failure of the male to deposit his sperm in a vagina at orgasm is condemned as a contraceptive act, even when there can be no question of conception and consequently of contraception; that is, even when the part-
,
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Joztrnal of Religion and Health
ners are fully aware that they are sterile; or more specifically, for example, that the wife's uterus is not receptive to sperm, as during pregnancy, postmenopause, or after sterilizing surgical intervention. The contention that it is respect for the physical structure of the act rather than for its inherent meaning and finality that is primarily determinative in the Church's present position is further confirmed by her traditional teaching regarding the morality of pre- and extra-marital sexual intercourse. Thus moral theologians teach and maintain that even acts of fornication and adultery take on double malice if contraceptives are used. This implies that they regard as a moral absolute the crude physical requirement that sperm be deposited in a vagina whenever and under whatever circumstances orgasm of the male deliberately occurs. Hence they overlook the inherent finality, and consequently the essential evil, of such acts; that is, that they involve the utterly" irresponsible participation in an act that could result in the generation of life. In other words, the fact that a human person, an image of God, may be born and condemned to work out his eternal destiny to love without the assurance of normal parental affective support and under the damaging social stigma of illegitimacy is simply ignored, and concern to preserve the physical structure even of the sinful act takes precedence over respect for the human person. Those who point to the assumed continuity of the Church's teaching regarding contraceptive birth control as a proof of its enduring validity must admit, first, that they now reject many of the theological and most of the scientific assumptions upon which this teaching was initially premised; second, that mere slavish repetition of never seriously questioned or critically examined principles constitutes only a type of spurious continuity; and third, that they are consequently confusing authentic continuity with superficial similarity. Moreover, they must admit that mere continuity, whether authentic or spurious, does not in itself validate a specific teaching; otherwise they would be unable to explain their present rejection of many long-accepted views regarding, for example, the morality of marital relations for purposes other than procreation, the necessity of observing
Symposium on Conjugal Love and Birth Control
29
"natural position" in intercourse, and the prohibition of marital relations during menstruation and pregnancy. If they are acquainted with its historical development, they must indeed admit that the Church's current teaching on sexual morality is the result of a long evolution characterized by the gradual reiection of many prohibitions based on cultural taboos, ignorance of biological functions, false ascetical principles, and misinterpretations of Scripture. Considering the demonstrated inadequacy of the Church's present approach to population control, it should be evident that an acceptable Christian solution to the problems associated with responsible regulation of family size can be developed only if moral theologians are willing to undertake a complete reappraisal of their thinking regarding the nature, meaning, and legitimate functions of marital relations as at present revealed in the light of current interpretations of Scripture and reliable scientific knowledge. As long as they persist in maintaining their traditional conceptual framework, they will be unable to see that it is a perversion of natural law thinking to set the human sexual faculty apart as some unique kind of separate "nature" endowed with its own inherent ends as well as inviolable physical structure, and consequently to deny its essentially instrumental, subordinate function as an endowment of the human agent. A Christian solution to the problem of family regulation must be based on an understanding of the human agent as a sexed person and on an analysis of marital relations as the normal expression of a unique relationship between persons who are committed to maintain an intimate community of life and love as partners and parents. Inasmuch as the unifying, relational function of marital relations can be separated from the procreative in the individual act of sexual intercourse, either by nature or human intervention, the morality of engaging in marital relations in such circumstances must be determined by the obiective demands or obligations of the Christian vocation of marriage considered in all its dimensions; that is, as a divinely designed way of life, ordained by the Creator to provide for the couple's loving fulfillment and daily growth in perfection as they carry out
30
Jour~zal of Religion a~d Health
their Christian calling in the world and their special mission in the service of new life. Above all, an adequate statement regarding family regulation must take into consideration the radical implications of modern man's changed orientation to procreation. Stated briefly, owing primarily to a perennially high death rate, throughout much of the past, man's concern with continuity through procreation has served as one of the major wellsprings of social organization and motivation in all human societies. Beginning around the end of the sixteenth century, however, a number of social and cultural changes were introduced that profoundly affected this age-old relationship to procreation and shifted the major focus of parental concern from procreation to increased care for the enhanced training and education of the child, with the result that family limitation eventually became widely accepted, particularly in the industrializing nations. Although other factors were involved, family limitation, together with increased life expectancy, gradually led to a greater awareness of the significance of marital companionship and love for the continued happiness and stability of the couple. This awareness, in turn, led to increased emphasis on the unifying, affective, relational function of marital relations as a normal expression of conjugal love. In these circumstances, couples faced with the need to regulate family size began to experience a serious conflict between their need to express conjugal love through marital relations and the Church's teaching on birth control. In other words, the relatively recent development of Catholic thinking regarding the positive values of conjugal love and marital relations, as well as their profound significance for the maintenance of marital unity and family stability under contemporary conditions (clearly expressed in Vatican II), has created serious problems because it has not been accompanied by corresponding development of Catholic thinking relating to the licit means of limiting family size. This inherent contradiction in Catholic teaching must be resolved. At the same time, owing to their long-continued refusal to understand or come to grips with the far-reaching individual and social implications of
Symposium on Conjugal Love and Birth Control
31
modern man's changed relationship to procreation, religious leaders have failed to develop a positive, integrated, workable approach to modern man's sexual problems. People have simply been left to their own devices, with the result that various forms of birth control--contraception, sterilization, abortion--have become widely accepted with little awareness or concern for their consequences. Hence the use of sex is becoming separated from any authentic sense of responsibility since, given m~dern contraceptive techniques, sexual appetite satisfaction need not lead to any reproductive consequences. As a result, premarital and extramarital sexual permissiveness is becoming widely accepted, thus posing a serious threat to the maintenance of the Christian tradition of indissoluble marriage, for this becomes generally feasible only on condition that young people are trained to self-mastery and marital unity is supported by mutual fidelity and shared responsibility for children. To meet this situation, much more is required than a mere reinterpretation of morally licit means of birth regulation. Underlying present sexual attitudes and practices and generated by the cultural developments of the past several centuries is a basic challenge to the total traditional Christian conception of the nature and meaning of human sexuality. An official statement relating only to the "pill" or other contraceptive techniques will have little relevance. The challenge is total, and only a serious reappraisal and restatement of the Church's authentic teaching regarding sex, love, and marriage will enable Christian couples to deal with the real issues they face as partners and parents under contemporary conditions. Following the lead indicated by Vatican II, an adequate approach to family regulation must include the following elements. First, it should be based on a clear, explicit statement of the nature and meaning of the individual Christian's essential religious vocation received at baptism. Briefly, this is a divine invitation to be reborn in Christ, and through life-giving union with Him and his Church, to grow in love of God and neighbor through operative charity. All other Christian "vocations" or "callings" constitute only a further determination of this divine invitation, in the
32
Journal of Religion and Health
sense that they define various types of relationships through which the individual Christian's continued response, as expressed in love of God and neighbor, is to become operative. Second, Christians who choose the vocation of marriage, therefore, contract to engage in or to enter a state or way of life involving a given, distinctive set of inherent relationships that define the special ways through which they are to express and develop their love of God and neighbor. The vocationally specific character of these relationships is based on the complementary qualities of man and woman as sexed persons and define the couple's special way of being and relating to each other as life-partners, and to their children as parents. The Church teaches that Christ has incorporated these relationships into his redemptive plan, and thus in the present economy of salvation they are enhanced with a special sacramental quality. The aim of this approach is to make clear that, considered from the viewpoint of the Christian's essential vocation, marriage is a means, not an end. Further, although marriage is entered into by a free, mutual contract of the partners, as a natural institution, its essential elements or relationships are inherent in its nature; that is, they are "givens" and consequently are not open to contractual agreement. Hence the purpose of marriage considered as an institutional means is the mutual sanctification of the couple; considered as a natural institution, however, its purpose is to provide for the mutual human fulfillment of the partners as sexed persons through the mysterious two-in-one-flesh unity and the creative orientation of this unity toward the child that are built into the very nature of the institution as an integrally shared way of life. Third, it should be pointed out that our present understanding and appreciation of the basic relationships in marriage are the result of a long historical development characterized by marked changes in the family system and consequently in the statuses and roles of family members; by extensive scientific advances in our knowledge of man's reproductive faculties and sexual behavior; and by new theological insights regarding the inherent dignity of the human person and the meaning of the Christian's vocation in
Symposium on Conjugal Love and Birth Control
33
the present economy of salvation. Thus the unique human significance and value of conjugal love; the specially unifying, affective, relational importance of sexual relations in expressing and fostering this love; and the crucial, greatly expanded function of parenthood under modern conditions have all been brought into more adequate Christian perspective. Since these developments have proceeded more or less separately, however, they must now be fully integrated into the Church's total conception of marriage. This calls for a careful reappraisal of our traditional conceptions of human sexuality, for these new developments throw important light on the Creator's designs regarding sex. Briefly, as we now understand these designs, the Creator made man a sexed person, "male and female he created him." This means ,that sex is an essential attribute of the human person--a human person's way of being and relating to the world and to others. Moreover, by its very nature the attribute of sex in the individual person can be adequately defined only in relation to a reciprocal "other" so that the meaning of sex is ultimately based on this relationship. Thus an analysis of an individual person's reproductive faculties reveals that they are essentially socially oriented, for they require a sexually complementary "other" for their complete functioning and fulfillment, while as potentially life-transmitting faculties, their use may also involve another in the person of a child. Considered as an attribute of the person, therefore, sex implies a special way of being and relating to other persons as partner and as parent. The unique and sacred significance of sex stems from the fact that its complete, responsible use necessarily involves a relationship to persons, not merely to things. Although all relationships between persons must be governed by justice and charity, the trusting, uniquely interdependent relationships created by conjugal love and parenthood necessarily require the exercise of these virtues to an eminent degree. Thus Revelation and reason clearly indicate that since sexual relations are designed both to unite the partners in a mysterious two-in-one-flesh solidarity as persons and to provide for the continuity of the race through procreation, sex can be used re-
34
Journal o[ Religion and Health
sponsibly only by married couples; that is, only by a man and woman who have irrevocably committed themselves to maintain an exclusive community of love and life within which they can strive for mutual fulfillment and perfection and thus create an environment within which children can be fittingly procreated and reared. Considering the widespread confusion regarding the morality of premarital relations, this last point merits careful development. A balanced judgment regarding the right use of sex must necessarily be based on an adequate consideration of the functions that sex is designed to serve in promoting the integral development and fulfillment of the human person. An analysis of the attribute of sex reveals that it endows the individual human person with the capacity to relate to another person in a uniquely unifying, potentially procreative way. Sexual acts that ignore these "given," built-in functions of sex cannot serve the development of the human person and consequently constitute a misuse of sex. In this connection, it should be noted that the specific endowment of sex merely gives one the capacity to form a loving, mutually fulfilling life-companionship with another person. To use sex either to satisfy selfish ends or to express a temporary, passing affection is not only to deny its built-in exigencies but also to deprive it of the power to serve as the basis for an enduring, total personal commitment in marriage. What should be said about the right use of sex in marriage? On the basis of present knowledge regarding the nature of man's sexual faculties, and in particular of the periodic character of the female's ovulation cycle, it is now apparent that, although the Creator has designed the total, ongoing process of sexual exchange and interactions in marriage to serve both procreative and unifying, relational functions, not all these functions are necessarily fulfilled in each individual act of sexual intercourse. Moreover, since the members of the human species have been endowed with a procreative capacity providentially designed to meet the needs of the race in all and various historical contingencies, it should be apparent that there exists no necessary correlation between an individual couple's reproductive capacity
Symposium on Conjugal Love and Birth Control
35
and their ability to meet the responsibilities of parenthood. This raises the issue of the licit regulation of family size. The Church has already stated the licimess of using marital relations for purposes other than procreation (Casti Connubii). ~ She has also defined the conditions under which fertile couples may licitly avoid pregnancy by deliberately timing their acts of sexual intercourse so that sperm cannot encounter ova. This constitutes a deliberate, planned intervention by the couple in their normal process of sexual relations, though not in the physical structure of their marital acts or in the normal functioning of their reproductive faculties. Recent medical advances as well as deeper insight into the relationship between conjugal love, marital relations, and family stability now raise the question of the morally licit limits of direct intervention either in the normal functioning of the reproductive faculties or the physical structure of the marital act under circumstances in which couples face the serious need to regulate family size. Vatican II spells the problem out clearly enough. After stating the great value of conjugal love and the significant, unifying function served by marital relations as a normal expression of this love. the Council Fathers drew the obvious conclusion that long-continued or absolute contineney in marriage, practiced for the purpose of limiting family size, could frequently endanger the attainment of the essential goods of marriage (proles, tides, sacramentum) as traditionally defined by the Church. The import of this conclusion should be obvious. If the basic ends of marriage are placed in jeopardy by the Church's present teaching on birth control, then the adequacy of this position must be carefully re-examined in the light of present knowledge and theological insights. As a matter of fact, owing to the doctrinal developments of Vatican II mentioned above, that is, greater awareness of the significance of conjugal love, marital relations, and parenthood, the Church is now in a position to *"On Christian Marriage," encyclical letter of Pope Plus XI of December 31, 1930. Catholic Mind, 1931, 29, 21-64.
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Journal of Religion and Health
study the question of licit means in a wider context. From the beginning, the Church' s teaching in this regard constituted an attempt to protect basic values in sex, love, and parenthood as these values were currently defined. This aim must continue to remain paramount in her teaching, though the various social, cultural, and theological developments that have resulted in a deeper understanding of these values may lead her to redefine the means she has formerly regarded as necessary to protect them. The question of licit means must be considered within the total context of the Christian marriage vocation as this is at present understood. Briefly stated, Christian marriage is a vocation in which the couple irrevocably commit themselves both to work for their mutual happiness, development, and perfection and to dedicate themselves to the service of generous parenthood. In this vocation conjugal love, based on profound respect and careful concern for the authentic good of the other as a person, must be diligently fostered, since it provides the mutually rewarding human bond and motivating force essential to the couple's continued dedication. Because marital relations and the affective, sex-associated intimacies more or less directly related to them normally serve as the habitual expression of conjugal love, they also play a significant role in promoting the stability of marriage. In the light of these considerations, it seems logical to conclude that couples who are seriously dedicated to their marriage vocation and who have reached a responsible, mutual decision concerning the need either to space or limit further pregnancies may licitly employ any mutually acceptable, medically approved means now available to assure that their marital relations will not result in conception. This clearly implies that the method used does not interfere with a conceptus, either before or after it is implanted in the uterus. This new orientation regarding licit means seems to b e called for by Vatican II, and in this sense it constitutes a logical development of the Church's teaching regarding the basic values embodied in sex, love, marriage, and parenthood. In seeking to discover the Creator's plan relating to
Symposium on Conjugal Love and Birth Control
37
these values, Christian thinking has necessarily been conditioned by cultural developments and gradually deepening theological insights regarding the nature of man and the purposes of marriage. The new directives would place greater personal responsibility on marriage partners and require that they foster an ever-deepening awareness of both the natural and supernatural dimensions of the vocation they have chosen as their personal way of loving God and neighbor.
Masculinity, Femininity, and Conjugal Love VYTAUTAS
J. B I E L I A U S K A S
While there is little difficulty in describing biosexual differences in the human species, the task becomes quite formidable when an attempt is made to arrive at scientifically supportable psychological differences in this area. 1 The terms "masculinity" and "femininity" have come into quite general use among psychologists to refer to psychosexual differences, the more pointed reference to sex being omitted. Stoller, wrestling with the problem of terminology, prefers to use the term "gender" to describe the psychological differences between men and women, and proposes to reserve the term "sexual" to designate the biological differences between the sexes. 2 However, to use the term "gender" or the terms "masculinity" and "femininity" to refer to psychological differences without any reference to physiological differences would create a nonexisting dichotomy. In fact, the terms "masculinity" and "femininity" sharpen the differences by making them deeper and more meaningful. On the other hand, these two concepts VYTAUTASJ. BIELIAUSKAS,PH.D., is Professor of Psychology and Chairman of the Department of Psychology at Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio. He is the PresidentElect of the International Catholic Association for the Study of Medical Psychology, the first psychologist to fill that post. He is also the President-Elect of the American Catholic Psychological Association.
