July 23, 1890, the Holy Office made the like decree under the same conditions.
July 31, 1895, the Holy Office permitted the marriage of a woman from whom both ovaries had been removed.
Another case, in 1902, in which the physician was not certain that the whole ovary on each side had been removed, was decided in the same manner.
There have been, then, four decisions so far permitting the marriage of women who lacked both ovaries, and three of these women lacked the uterus also. The Congregation of the Council has made four decisions in recent time forbidding the marriage of women because of impotence; March 21, 1863, a case in which there was neither vagina nor uterus; January 24, 1871, a case in which the vagina was only two inches in depth; September 7, 1895, a case in which the vagina was obliterated in greater part; December 16, 1899, a case in which the vagina was only five centimetres in depth.
That a woman who certainly lacks both ovaries is canonically impotent is the opinion of Antonelli,[238] Lehmkuhl,[239] Rosset,[240] Alberti,[241] Bucceroni,[242] and others. These men meet the decisions of the congregations concerning the spayed women by saying it is not certain the whole ovarian tissue or the entire uterus was removed, although as a matter of fact the physician in one case testified explicitly that both ovaries and the whole uterus were undoubtedly removed. That a woman lacking both ovaries is not impotent is the opinion of Gasparri, D'Annibale, Génicot, Berardi, Aertnys, Tanquerey, Ojetti, De Smet, and others.[243]
II. The second opinion on impotence is that this condition is caused exclusively by those permanent disabilities which exist in the copula itself. If the sexual act contains in itself all that is essential to generation, if the copula is de se apta ad generationem, prescinding from all antecedent and subsequent, temporary or permanent, obstructions to generation, there is no impotence. In this opinion the woman without ovaries is not impotent, but the vasectomized man is; in the first opinion both the mulier excisa and the vasectomized man are impotent. The second group says the vasectomized man is incapable of performing an act de se apta ad generationem because his semen lacks the essential spermatozoa. If one objects that the spayed woman, who is not impotent according to some moralists that so interpret the decisions of the congregations, lacks the essential ovum, so that she cannot perform an act de se apta ad generationem because she has nothing to generate with, they answer that her copula is per se apta, that there happens in it everything which takes place in a copula from which generation actually follows. The vasectomized man cannot go through the form of the act with all the elements which, so far as the act is concerned, are required and sufficient for generation because he lacks the spermatozoa, but the mulier excisa can. His inability is intrinsic to the act, it vitiates the very substance of the act; her inability to present ova is not intrinsic to the act, they say. All that is necessary in her case is that she be capable of receiving the semen.
Marriage was instituted to beget children; that is the proper end of the contract, its basic justification. Whenever the debitum is used it must be with the intention of generating children. Even the use of marriage as a remedy of concupiscence is so secondary an end that it alone is not enough to legitimize marriage. Because a woman does not always have ova present in the tubes,—and there is no means of knowing just when the ova are present,—it is justifiable to repeat the conjugal act until the woman is impregnated; secondarily and dependently, the repetition may be a remedy of concupiscence. The sexual act does not form either the spermatozoa or the ova; these pre-exist. The spermatozoa are always released in a normal sexual act; the ova are not always present when the spermatozoa are released. A copula which is perfectly de se apta ad generationem supposes not at the time the presence of both sperm and ovum, but it does suppose the possibility of the ovum, otherwise generation is utterly impossible; and every copula becomes justifiable solely because there is a hope that it may be present. It is a mere quibble to say that an act is de se apta ad generationem if by no possibility generation ever can take place; nevertheless the congregations in four cases have apparently judged to the contrary. In these special decisions, however, Rosset, Antonelli, Bucceroni, and Palmieri hold there was a doubt in the minds of the members of the congregation as to the complete removal of the ovaries or uterus. Bucceroni expressly states[244] that the Cardinal Secretary of the Holy Office told him personally the members of the congregation supposed in the particular cases that generation could follow. Therefore these decisions do not say that the mulier excisa in general is not impotent or potent; they merely gave the women of these cases the benefit of the doubt. Tho question is entirely open so far as these decisions are concerned.
Those who hold that vasectomy causes canonical impotence say also the constitution of Sixtus V. forbidding the marriage of eunuchs is applicable necessarily to the vasectomized man, because the semen from the vasectomized man, inasmuch as it lacks spermatozoa, is not genuine semen, and Sixtus V. said eunuchs cannot produce true semen. The relevant passage in the constitution is: "Cum frequenter in istis regionibus eunuchi et spadones, qui utroque teste carent, et ideo certum ac manifestum est eos verum semen emittere non posse; quia impura carnis tentigine atque immundis complexibus cum mulieribus se comiscent, et humorem forsan quemdam similem semini, licet ad generationem et ad matrimonii causam minime aptam, effundunt, matrimonium ... contrahere praesumant ... mandamus ut conjugia per dictos et alios quoscumque eunuchos ... contrahi prohibeas."
Sixtus V. says here: (1) that eunuchs "who lack both testicles certainly and evidently cannot emit true semen"; (2) that "although eunuchs may perhaps produce a kind of liquid resembling semen, this is by no means fit for generation or marriage"; (3) therefore eunuchs are forbidden to marry. The effects of castration in the eunuch are: (a) that all spermatozoa are absent; (b) that, as a consequence of the absence of the testicles, the power of penetration is lost; (c) that, as another consequence, the liquor seminis, which normally is formed in the seminal vesicles, the prostate and other glands, is no longer secreted. The eunuch, then, is completely impotent, in the full sense of the term. Ferreres is of the opinion, erroneously, that eunuchs, as a rule, have the power of penetration and of emitting a humor semini similis, and that amputation of the penis is requisite to cause impotence in eunuchs. There are only five authentic cases of temporary apparent potence in eunuchs in modern medical records, and these are explicable as cases of erethism from waste-product intoxication.