The significance of the first is that marriage is not merely a licence whereby an unclean act is permitted as a sop to human weakness. The sex function, as the integral part of marriage, is acknowledged to be an actual objective of divine grace.
The significance of the second doctrine is that wherever two people eligible to give consent, give it, there is the essence of marriage. Few non-Catholics realize that though the Church normally requires the ecclesiastical and civil regulations to be observed, she does not profess to marry the two persons; she merely pronounces a blessing on their marriage. She may make conditions before she will give her blessing or even her witness to the validity of the marriage; but she recognizes that a marriage may be just as valid on a desert island as in a cathedral.[6] And hence she really regards adultery, not as does the Puritan, but as an act which should be sacramental but has been prostituted by the absence of the love-motive, or by becoming promiscuous rather than constant. Sexual union may even itself be of the nature of a marriage, and it is significant that the Church has always insisted on the right of parents subsequently to legitimize children born out of wedlock; it is the English law which has forbidden that privilege.
This is the official Catholic doctrine, however much it has been assimilated to the Puritan conception by the personnel of the Church.
Yet the Church has consistently upheld the celibate life as the higher vocation. She has represented a celibate priesthood as a greater ideal than a married priesthood. She has exalted Our Lady as a Virgin. She has insisted on the Virgin Birth. But she has done this, not because sex is evil, but because celibacy is better. And, as we shall see, religious celibacy is entirely distinct from a condition in which the sex impulse is merely repressed.
Chapter 3: The General Principles of Purity
In attempting to define these principles I have no desire to enter into a controversy of relatives and absolutes. It is sufficient to meet those who deny that there can be any abstract standard of purity by pointing out that we know the direction in which to look for what is good and pure. Just as we know that certain acts are less worthy than others, so we are aware of the general direction of the nobler activities.
The first principle to be observed is that relatively purity is comparative. This is a commonplace of all personal estimates. However much we may adhere to the conception of a moral standard, which is abstract and unvarying, we realize that there are also personal standards which vary very much. We do not, for instance, consider a cat to be guilty of murder when she kills a bird; we do not execute her as we execute men who have taken human life. We do not even condemn lions or tigers as homicidal criminals, though we may kill them in self-defence, thus showing that it is not the distinction between taking animal and human life which constitutes the crime; it is the difference between the killers. Nor is it true that we draw a distinction merely between animal and human responsibility, for even in the human kingdom we apply a comparative moral standard; we do not consider a savage who steals or kills as being guilty to the extent which a civilized European would be who performed a similar act. We are in fact constantly applying a comparative standard to the comparative intelligences of individuals, and quite rightly, for all intelligence and moral sense is graded from brute-beast to savage-man and upwards.
We must be careful not to avoid this standard of comparative values in approaching sex morality. So long as we admit that at least there are acts and principles which, taken in the abstract, approach purity more nearly than others, we must not judge all individuals by the same standard. We must not consider a very ordinary, unintelligent, animal-blooded young man as being excessively sinful for having a vivid sex experience; perhaps he is living right up to the level of his imperfect standard. We must not expect people to be more moral than they can be, though it is the duty of Church and religion to educate them to see that there are better standards.