Pints With Aquinas - 172: The marital debt, W/ Emily Sullivan

Episode Date: September 24, 2019

Hey! Today I chat with Emily Sullivan about the marital debt! And no, we're not talking about money. ... Do not listen if you have kids around. Here's a little of what Aquinas had to say about the marital debt. Click the link below to get the full context: On the contrary, As the slave is in the power of his master, so is one spouse in the power of the other (1 Corinthians 7:4). But a slave is bound by an obligation of precept to pay his master the debt of his service according to Romans 13:7, "Render . . . to all men their dues, tribute to whom tribute is due," etc. Therefore husband and wife are mutually bound to the payment of the marriage debt. Further, marriage is directed to the avoiding of fornication (1 Corinthians 7:2). But this could not be the effect of marriage, if the one were not bound to pay the debt to the other when the latter is troubled with concupiscence. Therefore the payment of the debt is an obligation of precept. I answer that, Marriage was instituted especially as fulfilling an office of nature. Wherefore in its act the movement of nature must be observed according to which the nutritive power administers to the generative power that alone which is in excess of what is required for the preservation of the individual: for the natural order requires that a thing should be first perfected in itself, and that afterwards it should communicate of its perfection to others: and this is also the order of charity which perfects nature. And therefore, since the wife has power over her husband only in relation to the generative power and not in relation to things directed to the preservation of the individual, the husband is bound to pay the debt to his wife, in matters pertaining to the begetting of children, with due regard however to his own welfare. Summa, Suppl. Q. 64, A. 1. (see full question here). SPONSORS EL Investments: https://www.elinvestments.net/pints Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/mattfradd/  Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd  STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/  GIVING Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mattfradd This show (and all the plans we have in store) wouldn't be possible without you. I can't thank those of you who support me enough. Seriously! Thanks for essentially being a co-producer coproducer of the show. LINKS Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/matt-fradd FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/ SOCIAL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd MY BOOKS  Does God Exist: https://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Exist-Socratic-Dialogue-ebook/dp/B081ZGYJW3/ref=sr_1_9?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586377974&sr=8-9 Marian Consecration With Aquinas: https://www.amazon.com/Marian-Consecration-Aquinas-Growing-Closer-ebook/dp/B083XRQMTF/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586379026&sr=8-4 The Porn Myth: https://www.ignatius.com/The-Porn-Myth-P1985.aspx CONTACT Book me to speak: https://www.mattfradd.com/speakerrequestform

G'day and welcome to Pints with Aquinas. My name is Matt Fradd. If you could sit down over a pint of beer with Thomas Aquinas and ask him any one question, what would it be? In today's episode, we are joined around the bar table by my good friend, Emily Sullivan, to discuss the marital debt. All right, good to have you back here at Pints with Aquinas, the show where you and I pull up a barstool next to the angelic doctor to discuss theology and philosophy. I've had Emily Sullivan on the show before. We did an episode where we talked about modesty, makeup, and boob jobs.

Yes, that was the exact name of the podcast. Today we're talking about the marital debt. So do I have a right to my wife's body? Does my wife have a right to my body? If a woman says to her husband, like, pay me the debt. In other words, like, not that she would ever say it that way, but if she did have sex with me, does he have a right to have sex with her and vice versa? I know that this is a really difficult topic. So I think for about the first 20 minutes, we discuss Aquinas. We look at what he has to say in the supplementary section of the Summa Theologiae.

We talk about what he doesn't mean, because I know everyone freaks out when this topic comes up. Maybe you've never heard this topic addressed. But then we discuss what he does mean. And so this is a very nuanced episode, okay? But we don't hold any punches. If you have children nearby in earshot, don't listen to this episode. Only listen to this episode if you're comfortable with everyone around you hearing what we have to say because we get quite personal.

Or if not personal, I should say we talk about intimate details. So we talk about anal sex within marriage, orgasm, sex when a woman has her period. Yes, Thomas Aquinas actually addresses whether or not a man is bound to pay the debt if his wife requires it when she's on her period. do get into a lot of topics like these okay these are sensitive issues i believe that we did it with tact and and and but you'll have to make up your own mind but i think it's an excellent episode and you're going to get a lot out of it so please give it a listen send it to friends of yours who are married right now who have questions about sex in marriage you know we take some questions at the end from men who are like i sometimes am not up for the task and I feel terrible about that. I don't know what to do. So we get into real issues and we use Thomas Aquinas to address them. So here's the show. Enjoy. Emily Barry, hello. Hey, Matt, how are you? I'm doing well. Let's just pretend that we didn't just go through 10 minutes of recording and then

I realized I wasn't recording it. Let's pretend that never happened. Yeah. All that wisdom, the fonts of intellectual wisdom has now been lost for Western civilization. I'm weeping. I'm weeping up here. I think it was, maybe it's just a story Peter Crave talks about in regards to Thomas Aquinas

and Thomas Aquinas talks about that one page of Aristotle or something that's missing that he would choose that over all the gold in the world. And now I think people. Yeah. It's Chrys Chris system's commentary, right? He's looking out on some beautiful city. Yeah. With his, uh, his brother fratare Dominicans. And somebody says, Oh, what would you give? What wouldn't you give to have that city as your own? And he says, I'd much rather have Chris systems commentary.

And people would much rather have 10 minutes of Emily. I always want to say Sullivan, Emily Barry. Well, so Barry's my maiden name. Sullivan's the new name. Oh, I'm so confused. No, not at all. That's all right. Emily Barry subsists in the person of Emily Sullivan. I like it. So tell us who you are, Emily, since you just used the word subsist in that context, you must be a Thomist. Explain who you are. Let's see. My name is Emily Sullivan. I'm a graduate of Thomas Aquinas College out in California, which is a place of wonder and beauty and delight. I met my husband there. We've been married for eight years. We have three little girls, seven, five, and almost three.

We live outside of Washington, D.C. I work part-time for the Thomistic Institute which is awesome I know a bunch of my bosses and colleagues have been on your show before just really stellar Dominicans like Father Dominic Legge, Father Gregory Pine, Father Thomas Joseph White so that's a great joy in the midst of a motherhood to still have some time to think about Summa and make Thomas known to the ends of the earth so yeah yeah, so I actually started reading Aquinas. I was discerning with the Nashville Dominicans. And I would often tell the story that when I was a novice, something very unexpected happened. I fell in love with an older Italian man from a wealthy family. And then people start like dropping their jaw and being scandalized. And then I say,

and his name was Thomas Aquinas. And then everyone like nervous laughter, nervous laughter. Oh, thank God she didn't leave the convent on some kind of scandalous. Yeah. So I love St. Thomas. I try to read them in my free time. Yeah. I think you and I have done a few Pints with Aquinas episodes at this point in the game. I think this is number four. You're becoming the person I bring on when I want to talk about tough issues that intersect with women and sexuality. So for those who haven't yet heard this episode, go and listen to 112, episode 112. It's called Aquinas on Modesty, Makeup, and Boob Jobs. Boob Jobs.

I love it. And that Australian accent makes it seem all the more exciting. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I was saying to a friend that it's always fun. I i have these brilliant you know colleagues dominicans who who talk on double predestination and and then my specialty is boob jobs which is not something i share around the office as we might imagine as a matter of fact it was such a great episode it was a great episode it was amazing it was really good yeah it's great just take saint thomas to real

life i mean i think yes i think the beauty of this podcast, Matt, and why it's so popular is that, I don't know, left to our own devices, it could be pretty intimidating to sit down with a summa that was written in Latin and uses all these philosophical terms. You could just, you wouldn't, the average Catholic in the pew might not have the opportunity to encounter the wisdom of Aquinas and what that means for their daily life. in the pew might not have the opportunity to encounter the wisdom of Aquinas and what that means for their daily life, but being able to, the way that you do, I think so well, you know, really digest it a little bit and give it to people so they can see, oh, wow, this is what Aquinas means. And this is what it could really mean for my life, for friendship,

for my life of prayer, for my marriage. So it's a great work in the new evangelization. I just imagine Aquinas beaming up in heaven, watching these podcasts come out, food jobs and all. All right. Well, thank you. Well, today we're talking about the marital debt. And by marital debt, we're not talking about getting out of debt. We're not talking about Dave Ramsey's seven baby steps. We're talking about…

Pay off your student loans. Yeah. Yeah. We're talking about sex. We're talking about the sex that is owed to one's spouse. But I want to let you define it because this is going to be a tough topic to be able to talk about and to nuance. Yeah. I think we can do it well. I think, yeah. I think when people first hear it, they're like,

oh, dear God, Aquinas is saying that I have to put out to my husband every night and I just can't keep up. So we'll be very careful to explain. I think St. Thomas gives a lot of caveats and a lot of qualifications and distinctions that are actually really helpful and really fruitful for marriage. So kind of just to situate us where we are in the Summa Ritem. So we're in the Church of the Apars. In the Church of the Apars, St. Thomas has dealt with all these questions on Christology. Then he goes to the sacraments. So he's already done baptism, confirmation of the Eucharist.

He gets through half of penance or confession. And then there's the supplementary part. As I remember, St. Thomas had died, but there were writings that were left over. So I think most scholars think that it's a fairly faithful account of what Thomas would have thought. But that was the reason for the kind of disruption there. So then he's got some 25 questions on marriage. You know, what is his typical Thomas? You know, he's giving you definitions. What are its nature? What is its nature? What are its causes? What are its blessings and impediments? And then we get to this question 64 on the marriage debt. There's about 10 articles. So that's a lot of bang for your buck in one question um oh lord no pun intended what a bang for your buck are you

talking about oh i'm glad you're saying all this and not me sorry no keep going anyway so there's a lot of fun there's a lot of fun articles in there um but so he's basically right this idea of the marriage debt goes back to saint. Paul in 1 Corinthians in chapter 7. So he says, as for the question raised in your letter, a man does well to abstain from all commerce with women. But to avoid the danger of fornication, let every man keep his own wife and every woman her own husband. Let every man give his wife what is due and every woman do the same by her husband. He, not she, claims the right over her body as she, not he, claims the right over his. So I think, you know, St. Paul is laying out this idea that in marriage, the husbands and wife have

really given themselves to each other in a very radical way, such that the wife can say, I have a right to my husband's body. And so too, the husband can say, I have a right to my husband's body. And so too, the husband can say, I have a right to my wife's body. And so this idea of what to do is very much wrapped up with this idea of justice. When we say in the marriage vows, I, Emily, take you, Joseph. And then my husband said, right, I, Joseph, take you, Emily. So there's a radical way that, and you know, anyone who's done theology of the body knows this, the radical way that the spousal self-gift is sealed with the marriage vows. And then that has implications for the whole rest of your married life, including what happens in the bedroom.

So that's kind of first and foremost what we're talking about here. Yeah. I wonder if it would be helpful just to quickly read the respondio from the first article in question 64, which just might give us a basic overview of what Thomas means by this. He says, I answer that marriage was instituted especially as fulfilling an office of nature, wherefore in its act the movement of nature must be observed according to which the nutritive powers administers to the generative power, that alone which is in excess of what is required for the preservation of the individual. For the natural order requires that a thing should be first perfected in itself, and that afterwards it should communicate of its perfection to others.

And this is also the order of charity which perfects nature. And therefore, since the wife has power over her husband only in relation to the generative power, and not in relation to things directed to the preservation of the individual. Yes, that's true. The husband is bound to pay the debt to his wife in matters pertaining to the begetting of children, which with due regard, however, to his own welfare. Right, right. And as he develops kind of through these 10 articles, I think you'll see him fleshing that out. I can't know pun intended. Yes.

We're talking about carnal things. You'll see him kind of flesh out more and more what he means. And he really does provide kind of a lot of nuance. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead. This line here of this power that alone, which is in excess of what is required for the preservation of the individual. alone, which is in excess of what is required for the preservation of the individual. So I think by that he means we have a certain appetite for food and we eat until we're full and then we stop.

But if we, you correct me if I'm wrong here, but it sounds like he's saying like if we were to engage in the sexual act, I don't know, we desire to engage in the sexual act more than the amount of children we're producing. And also, I think what's, and we'll see this kind of throughout the article, I think that there's two things that are important to know in the background. So one is that the church fathers, and obviously St. Paul, where we just read from Corinthians, but the church fathers are kind of very clear about when we talk about the goods of marriage. So Augustine, for example, has this treatise on the goods of marriage, and we certainly will see this in Aquinas, that one of the ends of marriage is providing a remedy for concupiscence. Even in Laicoste Canubi, like in the 1930s, Pope Pius XI talks about an end of marriage being the quieting of concupiscence and the code of canon law for a

long time um when it would talk listing the goods of marriage would say the primary end of marriage is procreation and the nurturing of children that comes first its secondary end is mutual help and the remedying of concupiscence um nowadays we're kind of used to just rattling off oh marriages you know the two goods are unitive and procreative. And this whole idea of as a remedy for concupiscence has kind of gotten lost. It gets taken out of the 1983 Code of Canon Law. And even sometimes the church had always been very clear that first, that there's a hierarchy here. The first good of marriage is procreation. And then secondarily, this unitive and the mutual help thing.

But so very much in the background as we walk through these articles will be this idea that starts with St. Paul and Corinthians, that marriage and the legitimate expressions of physical love in marriage actually keep the husband or the wife from falling into sins of lust, sins of the flesh, you know, anything from committing adultery to pornography. So that's one thing I think that's good to have in mind. And the second thing is that Thomas is already assuming that, you know, that in his mind, while sex and marriage is obviously, you know, it's not a sin and it's good. He does think that since the carnal pleasure of, I mean, of orgasm is so intense that it

suppresses reason. And so he'll, and that's not, that's not entirely baseless. Like we know now with oxytocin, right, that you get when you're, when you give birth or when you're nursing a baby or you're making love to your spouse, that one of the things oxytocin does is it kind of quiets and shuts down the frontal cortex, that part of your brain that deals with reasoning and judging and logic. So if you go to the marriage bed angry with your husband because he has failed in these things and you have very just logical reasons, after you make love, you might not be so concerned with those reasons. That's what oxytocin does. Yes. Thank God for it. Yeah, exactly. That's the beauty of makeup sex,

right? Is that all of those just reasons we had for being very angry can now be overrun sort of by the emotion of love. So St. Thomas will have that in the background, that sex is a good because it can keep us from bad things, but it can also make it difficult for us to reason well. So later on when he'll take up these questions of, you know, can you have sex on a feast day? And he'll, I mean, a little spoiler alert, he'll kind of say, yeah, it's probably to be avoided because it makes it difficult to enter into liturgical practices or even to pray because you can't, your reason can't give spiritual things their full attention because you're still kind of feeling sort of...

Your attention is on your wife in the Marathon. Yeah. Not the assumption of the Theotokos. Right, exactly. And then I love it here in Article 3, like whether it's allowed for a woman on her period to demand the debt from her husband. We'll get into that as well. Yeah.

But I just want to pause here a moment because I just know that from the get-go, everyone is having different reactions to where we might possibly be going. There might be some trepidation as to where we're going. Gosh, it's just so difficult to know where to start. But I just want to start here, though. This idea that the marital debt is a cure for concupiscence seems to have been, as you say, kind of like either ignored, done away with, or we've listened to things on the theology of the body. And so often we hear commentators

in the theology of the body say, you know, sex is not just a legitimate outlet. It's not like a way to get your rocks off so you're not then tempted to have sex with somebody else. But in a way, and yet, when you read St. Paul, it kind of, and Aquinas, am I wrong in thinking? It's like, it kind of, he is kind of saying that. I think you can have both and, right? I think that you can realize that on one hand, I mean, that is the beauty of kind of the Catholic understanding of the development of doctrine. Like if you think of a tree that can, this is, you know, like Newman's development of doctrine, that there's

a real kind of organic, it's the same substance. You think about a tree that's growing and the branches have to still be connected to the trunk of the tree and to the roots. So the fact that I think now the church in her wisdom, thanks to John Paul and all of his wonderful insights in theology of the body will emphasize more that, right, that sex is this beautiful way of saying with our bodies, what we've said with our marital vows of the total gift of self to the other in communion, that's nuptial um i think we can still say that well understanding like well there there is a real reality though about

fallen human nature right if we weren't fallen then the concupiscence thing would be a you know a non-factor um but the reality is is that um being the kind of creatures we are, we're not just angels with these immaterial souls. Like we, we are a body that has nutritive needs and obviously a compulsion to, um, to the sexual act. Um, and so I, I think that, um, I think a discerning husband and a discerning wife will realize that, you know, if, if, if, and he takes us up at some point, like, can I enter, can I make a private vow of celibacy in marriage? This is like question article, article 10, I think. Can I make a private vow of celibacy and like not ask my husband? And Thomas says, no, you can't do that. You can't be like, oh, from now on, we're having a Josephite marriage.acy and like not ask my husband. And Thomas says, no, you can't do that.

You can't be like, oh, from now on, we're having a Josephite marriage. I didn't even ask my husband, right? Because that really would put, you know, that really might put a man or a woman in danger of committing serious sin because they've entered into marriage thinking that they'll be able to express to their spouse this physical affection and then to unjustly, Thomas would say, I think, deprive my husband of that physical affection might very well leave room for temptation that otherwise would be a non-issue. Because when all of us, I think, especially, and Matt, I mean, this is your bread and butter, the whole thing with pornography is it seems like men and women now, I mean, much more so than in eras past, turn to pornography often out of a sense of loneliness,

often out of a sense of, you know, I'm not feeling affirmed in their sexuality or feeling loved. And so they turn to this phenomena where they can fantasize about being desired and being affirmed. Is that, would you say that's right? I would say absolutely. I think, I think you hit it, hit it on the head there when you said this desire to be wanted, this desire to be accepted. Like that's not usually the forefront that someone's thinking of when they're like just Googling stuff. But I think there is this deep desire in all of us to not only to be um yeah well to be desired for who for who we are and to be wanted and to to be appreciated and yeah yeah

it's like chestern quote that i think you've sort of before like anyone who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for god right the the reality is we all have such a deep desire for interpersonal communion and for love and so if those things are absent, we'll go looking for them in all the wrong places. And so I think Thomas does have a real, and St. Paul has a real grasp on human nature that if you were to unjustly withhold the kind of affection and affirmation

that is supposed to be part of marriage, then you really could be putting your spouse in a precarious situation in terms of their own life of virtue. And this is difficult, right? Because there's some people who are now thinking, are you really telling me that if I don't have sex with my husband or wife as much, you know, whenever they ask for it, that I'm somehow responsible for them looking at porn? And I don't want you to say no too quickly, because if you do say no too quickly, it's almost like it undoes everything you've just set up into this point.

Yeah. I don't want to say no to, I mean, St. Thomas wouldn't say no too quick looking at the article. St. Thomas really does think that, um,

there would be a kind of culpability, um, because you've withheld something. I mean, it would be something like if you were supposed to feed someone and you're not feeding them and they go and start eating out of the garbage and they get pinworms. I mean, I don't know what you'll think of this now. I'm coming up. I might backtrack on this. But it seems like on one hand, if they go to the doctor and they're like,

why did you eat these pinworms? Why did why did you eat this garbage? Like any idiot knows you shouldn't eat garbage. But they might be able to say, again, this isn't to say like the wife is supposed to make the husband his dinner and have it on time at five. like a little child, if you were, if you actually had a situation where justice meant that you had to give someone something, and that was the, the nature of the relationship was that you were obligated by the nature of the relationship to provide some kind of good for this person. And because that good was, was withheld, they went and did something incredibly stupid. I mean, I think in a chain of causality, you would say, well, no, the primary agent is the person who ate the garbage. Obviously, they decided to eat the garbage. But I think, again, like Aquinas is always looking at causes, like, well, what drove him to eat? What drove him to eat the garbage, you know? But of course, I really want to say, like, this is a two-way street. Like, if a husband is not being kind,

like this is a two-way street like if a husband is not being kind affirming generous to his wife in the marital act or otherwise he is putting her in a kind of um vulnerability i would say yeah to start reading things like 50 shades of gray like i don't want people to think like and i think thomas is actually really good on this it is it is absolutely in his account a two-way street i think and any attempt to use this language of the marriage debt by a bully husband to get sex whenever he wants from his wife, regardless, rather, I almost did a stupid thing. Yes, well done. He almost committed the sin. The sin, mea culpa, mea culpa. Regardless of, you know, she just had a baby and she's not feeling well, Thomas would not put up with that. Like that would just be chauvinist tyranny. And just to kind of flesh out your analogy a little there i guess there's two things to be said obviously with every analogy there's it's more disanalogous

than analogous there's always going to be a portion of that but but i suppose there's also a difference between like i remember i had a bloke come up to me after a talk i gave on pornography and he was about 50 and he was really struggling uh to look with looking at point he said his wife won't even touch him like she wouldn't run rub sunscreen on him and that it's been years since they had made love. So there's obviously a difference between that and then the woman who's like, my husband wants to make love three times a day and I just can't.

Because I actually also had a guy write to me and say when he was married, they were making love three times a day and now he was angry with his wife that she wouldn't. Whoa. Yeah, right? Isn't that nice right that has to be a kind of moderate expectation i mean there's a hilarious let me just wrap up that sorry you know you're fine the reason i say that is because i don't want someone to hear that analogy and say oh are you serious you're saying because i only make love like three times a week to my husband or five times a week or whatever the case may be that that i'm somehow part of this causation now that he's looking at pornography

because the example you gave was pretty extreme where you say you don't feed your child um versus yeah we are having sex but he's still looking at this yeah the extreme i had in mind was what you just described with the poor man who like his wife wouldn't even touch it like won't even hold his hand won't put sunscreen on on him. That's the kind of, I mean, I think that Thomas is proposing something that, that is governed by moderation. If a husband was demanding sex three times a day, any woman in her right mind would say, uh, that's you, you don't get, there is a, there's a marriage debt that's according to reason, right? With, with all of the virtues, because the marriage debt falls under this purview of justice, it's governed by prudence,

right? Of the four cardinal virtues, prudence is the one that governs like the life of virtue. And that's, it's governed by moderation. So there's a real marriage, the marriage debt is a real thing. But as we'll see walking through St. Thomas, it really is governed by, I think, as we'll see walking through St. Thomas, it really is governed by, I think, moderation and certain principles that keep it from, that keep like a chauvinist man, so to speak, from demanding sex like three, you know, three times a day in the example you just gave. But does Aquinas say that explicitly, like that you can be unreasonable? I know, I agree with you that when it comes to virtue, it has to be, it is governed by reason. That's what makes it virtuous. Yeah.

So I think this is in the reply to the second. Let me just see. I think it's in the first article. I just want to make sure I'm in the right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I think this is very helpful. Sometimes, you know, I think a lot of people sometimes if they're reading St. Thomas, they just read the respondeo and move on.

But sometimes you get some real gems and real kernels of gold nuggets of wisdom in the responses. So those are always worth looking into. Okay. So, um, first article, uh, reply to the second, he says the wife has no power over her husband's body, except as is consistent with the welfare of his person. Where sure, wherefore, if she goes beyond this and her demands, it is not a request for the debt, but an unjust exaction. And for this reason, the husband is not bound to satisfy her. Can we just point out how great it is that in all of these examples, it's the woman demanding sex? Absolutely. No, if you had no knowledge of other, like if you were an alien who had never encountered a man or a woman, and you just read this, you would think it's the woman who's demanding three times, five times a day. And the poor husband's like, I can't keep

up with you. So I think this is a really helpful principle that everyone who's listening to this, if you immediately had some kind of bad reaction to the probably impoverished analogy I thought off the top of my head, this is what I would want you to walk away with, right? It has to be consistent with the welfare of the other person. So it wouldn't be consistent, you know, on the welfare of the wife for the man to be demanding sex three times a day. And this is what Thomas says, right? If she goes beyond this, like kind of moderation in their demands, it's not, you know, the virtuous kind of request for the marriage debt. It's actually unjust. This is like a kind of sin. And then the husband is not bound to satisfy her. So if you've got some ridiculous husband telling the wifey wife, well, I just

read the Tertia Pars and Aquinas says you have to put out as much as I want, then her being the astute woman that she is in Latinin in my opinion should respond to him like i don't think you read the reply man that would turn me on if cameron responded in latin thomas aquinas i'm like this is contrary to what you're going for oh my gosh i can't contain myself so so absolutely the principle is is that there's a kind of moderation here. And that if you go beyond that moderation, this is an unjust exaction. And the other spouse gets to say, no, you're not bound to satisfy her. He gives this other hilarious example. So this is the reply to the third.

And it's a similar situation. Again, it's this randy wife and the husband can't keep up. So he says, if the husband be rendered incapable of paying the debt through a cause consequent upon marriage, for instance, through having already paid the debt through a cause consequent upon marriage, for instance, through having already paid the debt and being unable to pay it. So I think we're talking about the situation like husband just paid the debt and then the wife says something like- Can't get an erection right away. Do me again. Yeah. I mean, Thomas says the wife has no right to ask again. And in doing so,

she behaves as a harlot rather than a wife. So, I mean, I think, again, Thomas is very clearly saying there is such a thing as abusing the privilege. And if either party, the husband or the wife, continues to insist upon this immoderately, the other spouse has a right to say no and quit acting like a strumpet or a harlot who doesn't have control of their reason. Why is it that you think he mainly used the example of the woman demanding it? I think St. Thomas is very prudent, quite frankly. Of course, the stereotype would be that men want sex more than women, and it's the poor wife who's feeling put upon to put out more often than is reasonable. So I think St. Thomas is reversing it as a catechetical move, quite frankly, to say- It's a good idea. Even in today's day and age,

if you were to write an article on the marital debt, it would be a good idea to phrase it this way. Absolutely. I think your visceral reaction is far more, like, far less offended, especially to modern audiences, for sure, if you keep using the example of this sexually, I mean, this woman who cannot be satiated and keeps, you know, demanding things of her husband that he just can't keep up. And I even take, you know, I take, especially when we were just looking in the reply to the third, if the husband be rendered incapable of paying the debt through a cause consequent upon marriage. So like an obvious consequence of marriage is children and childbirth. So I think if you apply that same principle of if the spouse is rendered incapable of paying the debt through a consequence of marriage, the most obvious, at least in Thomas's mind, for sure, the most obvious consequences of marriage are the begetting and raising of children. So if I'm a woman who's been up nursing a baby, I mean, God help my husband if he asked

for the marriage debt when it's 3 a.m. and I've been nursing every two hours, or God help my husband if I just had a baby, you know, four weeks ago. And he's like, all right, time to put out. It's been a month. I mean, nope, nope. I'm going to go back probably in Latin and in the reply to the third say, no, no, no. If I am incapable of paying the debt because of a legitimate consequence of marriage, bearing children, raising children, it's perfectly legitimate to say. This is excellent. This is great nuance. Here's another thing I think needs to be nuanced because I want to eventually say what we're saying. Right now, we're kind of saying what we're not saying, which is always good to begin with, especially when you're dealing with issues

where people are very skeptical of what you might say. So I think another thing that we need to say that we're not saying or that Aquinas is saying, and I just want you to flesh this out for us, no pun intended, is what about if the man is very lustful or if he's wanting you to engage in sex in a way that you feel is demeaning or degrading, or if you just kind of have, I've had a woman once say, and it just shattered me when I heard it, I don't think he's making love to me. It feels like he's masturbating with my body or he's using me to masturbate in legitimately right so these are horrifying things so is thomas saying all right so we've already said well

equinus is not saying like you have to put out like every day or whatever it may be i guess it's going to depend on the particular relationship the individual is involved but what about in regards to feeling someone's lusting after you i mean if if the marital act is meant to prevent, you know, concupiscence driving me out towards someone else, then can I come to my wife in a lustful manner? Yeah. I think Thomas would say no, that's something to struggle against. And he clearly also has the idea that continence is also a real good.

Like there's a fun article a little bit further down that I assume we'll get to at some point because it's so delightful. Like how does the husband know if the woman is asking for the marriage debt? How can the husband know? Because women tend to be like more modest and retiring. So they don't just say when the husband gets, I mean, modern women probably do this, but I guess in Thomas's conception, modern women don't say as the husband comes to the door, like, all right, take off your clothes. I'm ready. Big boy. He's imagining women probably don't do that.

And so he's trying to give the good husbands some insight into how can the woman, how do I know if she's asking for the marriage debt so that I can fulfill this marital obligation? But what he'll say in one of those, let me just see if I can find it really quick. What he'll say at some point is that like continence is also a good thing. And so if someone is, you know what, shoot, Matt, I just lost my train of thought. No, no problem. It's always nice to be honest when you've lost your train of thought. I do this all the time. I don't want to bluff you guys and be like, oh, I know what? Shoot, Matt, I just lost my train of thought. No, no problem. It's always nice to be honest when you've lost your train of thought. I do this all the time.

I don't want to bluff you guys and be like, oh, I know what I'm doing. I've done this in radio interviews, you know, like EWTN or like some secular thing. I'm like, oh, my gosh. I've totally just lost my train of thought. Well, I'm asking for the debt. Go ahead. And then my point is just like, can I come, can a man come towards his wife lustfully? And of course he can, and of course he shouldn't, but suppose he does, is she required to pay

the debt? So I know you're on a different train of thought, but this was the original question. Yeah, I was coming back to it. I'm so sorry. Now I just can't remember what the bridge was from the point I just made to you. But I want to get back to your point question because it's a really important one. So St. Thomas, in my mind, doesn't take that question up here as sufficiently as I kind of wish he did. I think there's other parts of the Summa where he does.

He talks about kind of the – that it's a venial sin. I'm thinking of, I think, a part in the Summa Contra in Chile. I think that's in the Churchia Pars. Well, he talks about – Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Even applying like what you think from your reading of him. Oh, yeah.

So that I can easily – sorry, I was trying to – No, that's okay. I mean getting Aquinas when you can is great, but applying the principles and getting your take would be interesting too. Sure, yeah. So I think from other things I've read of St. Thomas, I think very clearly he thinks that it can still be a – marriage – sex in marriage can still be a venial marriage. Sex in marriage can still be a venial sin.

If you are approaching your spouse in a lustful way, he's going to say, it's not a moral sin. It's a moral sin outside of marriage. But it can still be like a terrible violation of the marriage vows. Like he'll say in the summa conscientia, at least this line that I love so much. My husband and I,

we put it on our, our program when we got married is that, and so it seems the greatest friendship is that between husband and wife oh that's a beautiful isn't it beautiful yes um and he yeah we'll have to go back to that quote later i think you and i've been talking about i said i love telling my wife that sometimes i love just texting her and saying hey thanks for being an amazing friend yeah yeah and so i like you a lot. Yeah. So the whole like Aristotelian to mystic account of friendship, right. Is it's, it's willing the good of the other and trying to draw the other person into the life of virtue. So if this is my best friend,

if I come to that, I mean, John Paul is so, John Paul is a Thomas. It's good to remember, right? Like studies with Gary Goulet Grange. When you read love and responsibility, his whole account of that, the personalistic norm that you can never use someone, that the only disposition we're allowed to have to another human person is that of love. And the opposite of love is use. So even if a husband can, by his legal rights, or the wife, I can legitimately have sex with this person because we're married. If I'm coming with a spirit of selfishness and what can I get out of it, instead of the desire to love and affirm my beloved and express to them my love because I will their good, that's a real falling away from what the church, and certainly I think what St. Thomas says is supposed to be the ideal. And

the ideal, each person is saying with their bodies, and I think you do get this, this idea of giving my body to the other as an act of love, not what can I take or how good am I going to get it or that would all be terrible. Now, what about like demeaning things? I don't want to get into specifics, but if a woman or a husband feels like they're being degraded because their spouse is asking them to have sex in a certain way

or in a certain place or something, do you think, and again, we don't have to back this up with Aquinas, we don't even have to agree with him, although I think we will. What do you say? What do you say to a woman, for example, who's like, I feel degraded.

How do I respond? Should I respond? Yeah, who's like, I feel degraded. How do I respond? Should I respond? So, yeah. So very clearly, we'll start with the fact that there are certain sexual acts that are objectively disordered and are thus degrading that the church never allows for. Sodomy is a no-go, like even for heterosexual married couples. Sodomy is a no-go forever for all time. Thomas is very clear about that.

Sodomy is a no-go forever for all time. Thomas is very clear about that. Any situation where someone basically wants to have some kind of sexual congress that is not ordered towards procreation, whether it's- Can we stop and talk about why sodomy is a no-go? Sure. I agree with you and would never wish to partake in that, but you know, there are certain other sexual acts that are a prelude to sexual intercourse. There are other orifices that are acceptable, like oral sex as a prelude, not as finishing the act, obviously that are acceptable.

So, I mean, I just want your take, like why is sodomy is a prelude to sex other than the health risks? Or maybe that is the primary thing. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I think you just brought up some good distinctions.

And Thomas even lays down some of these principles in this question, right? Is that he's a good recitalian. So our bodies have an end and we have to be obedient to the end for which God designed them, right? Yes. This is good already. I'm like, oh, this is answering my question. Yeah, right? This is good already. I'm like, oh, this is answering my question. Yeah, right. It's part of the end of the mouth, at least in part, to taste, to kiss, you know, that

these things are good and the body is intrinsically good, I guess, would be a fine thing to say. You should kiss the body is a good thing. That said, there are parts of the body be a fine thing to say. You should kiss the body is a good thing. That said, there are parts of the body that one ought not to kiss. But then the, I mean, forgive me, everybody who's listening right now, please click stop. We're going to have a caveat at the beginning of this episode. So if there are any young children, people should not be listening. Listen to this episode with kids. Basically assume if I'm on the episode with Matt, you probably shouldn't listen to it with kids. The anus or different parts of the body,

you know, are unhygienic. You shouldn't be kissing it. And obvious. Yeah. So you continue. But this is really helping, I think. Yeah, I think we're philosophers and we're adults. So we have to deal with the phenomena, right? Okay. So, you know, putting a man's penis in a woman's anus is something like putting mashed potato in your ear. Like you could do that, but we all know it's not where it's supposed to go. Oh, that's a great, great line. Did you just think of that? No, I didn't actually. I'm taking that from a really smart Dominican philosopher. And what it immediately points to is that we all recognize that our body parts have meaning. I remember when my eldest daughter was about four and her younger sister was about two. My second child was heroically trying to feed her sippy cup to her belly button, as you can imagine, unsuccessfully. And my four-year-old explained to my two-year-old,

Mary, that's not where your sippy cup goes. You have to use your belly button for the right things. And what these right things are, I don't know. But even my four year old understood that like a sippy cup is supposed to go in your mouth, your mouth is for drinking, your belly button is not. And so all of our, you know, our ears are for hearing our noses for smelling, our eyes are for seeing, we all kind of recognize that our body parts have meaning and are ordered towards certain things. And so when you try to use your body parts for things they are not made of, made for, that is disordered. It is against the order of nature. So when the church, for example, I mean, this usually

makes people very upset, but often it's because the church is still using Thomistic or Aristotelian language that most people now are not familiar with. But when the church talks about how homosexual inclinations are disordered, all that she means is that the inclination to try to have sex with one that you cannot have children with, like by its very nature, is against the order of nature. Like very clearly, the woman's genitals and the man's genitals fit together in a meaningful way where something new and good is produced. If I tried to put a mashed potatoes or a penis in my ear, that would all be remarkably disordered and unfruitful. Right. Yes. The way that. This is really good.

This is a great answer. Yeah. So like the obvious way I think that ejaculation, I mean, we're just doing biology one-on-one here. The obvious way that ejaculation works, right. Is that semen is meant to be able to go and fertilize an egg. So if I'm putting semen anywhere where an egg cannot be fertilized, I'm against the order of nature. So I think, um, good theologians often make a distinction between oral stimulation and oral sex. So, um, it might be, um, a particular couple may find it, um, pleasurable and affirming to kiss one another on the genitals, but the man can't ejaculate in his wife's mouth. That is, that is the same way

he can't sodomize her because the semen isn't via her stomach isn't going to fertilize anything there right um and i think i think when saint thomas treats of sodomy i think it's in that question but he brings it up in other places right like our our lord will talk about you know what what comes out of the everything that comes out of the mouth is good and from the um you'll probably get it verbatim the scripture passage about when he's talking about- I know what you're referring to. Yeah, from the heart the man speaks, but what comes out of the latrine, right, the waste- Yeah, the food that goes into you isn't impure. It goes into you and out of you. Right. What comes out of the latrine is impure. So the parts of my body where things from the latrine come out, that's not really a place to be putting my mouth. Gotcha. Yeah, yeah my mouth. Yeah.

This is good. Yeah. So the first thing I began by asking was if somebody is requesting something that makes one feel degraded, obviously there are certain no-go issues where it's like, well, this is sinful and I have to be faithful to God before I'm faithful to my wife or my husband. Yes. And Thomas is very clear about that, that if the spouse were to be asking you to do some kind of mortal sin, you have every right to say no. So that would certainly be in the bedroom. But if it's the Macbeth situation where the wife wants to convince the husband to commit murder, the husband shouldn't, or vice versa, right? The husband asks a wife to commit murder, the husband shouldn't, or vice versa, right? The husband asks a wife to commit murder. She should say no because it's a mortal sin, right? So that's the kind of the clear cut case. But then maybe you could think of things that aren't, like the church doesn't forbid,

that aren't of their very nature perverse or disordered, but still feel degrading. I mean, there has to be, I think, a real prudence there. If the husband, um, says to the wife, um, I really want you to do this thing that the church doesn't have a problem with, but maybe she has a history of abuse or maybe she has some kind of, um, you know, psychological association with that act that is traumatic for her. And she explains that to him, then a good husband isn't going to insist upon that. But if it was somewhat like, I don't know, if it was somewhat irrational, like if the husband's like, could you rub my back? Like I find that a really nice kind of foreplay. And she was like, well, I find that degrading because I'm not, I dream of Jeannie. Well, I mean, that might just be like, so prudence needs to dictate here. And

obviously each individual couple will have to deal with this on a case by case yes yes or vice versa if the woman was like i find it really central for you to rub my feet and he was like that's beneath my dignity now i find it degrading to have to rub your feet like yeah like get over it put some lavender oil on your hands and rub a girl's feet like yeah and if we if we love each other we're going to be open to what each other is. You know, like I have a, I know somebody who is a man who cannot perform oral sex. He said he, it's this irrational thing maybe for him, but he's like, I will literally, I can't, the idea of even thinking about, you know, I think in some ways it is a bit irrational, some ways it might not be, but the wife loves her husband, right? And so isn't going to demand something of him that he cannot engage in and vice versa. And so there's

going to be this two-way street here. There ought to be anyway. Yeah. And that's why there's just got to be so much good open communication, honestly, about sex and everything in marriage. You have to be able to say, I'm sorry, but that is a huge turnoff for me. Can we maybe not do that? Or to be able to say, actually, I have some bad association with that idea. Maybe I need to go to therapy, but I can't do that. Or to be able to say like, I've never tried that

and it's not really in my, what? I don't want to say wheelhouse. Yeah, in my wheelhouse. It's not really in my Thomistic wheelhouse. Yes. But I love you and you feel affirmed by this. yeah my wheelhouse is perfect it's not really my Thomistic wheelhouse like yes um you know but I love you and you feel affirmed by this yeah yeah if you have a very Thomistic husband who comes to you and says I want to have you in three ways and the first way has two parts and the second part has two qualifications and the wife says I'm sorry I have to start

stop you I'm like the first part and this response to the second I'm not okay with that I love it I love it all right so I think we've done a pretty good job at saying what we don't mean. All right. So we're not saying that the marital debt means that a wife has to satisfy her husband whenever he asked for it, because he might be asking for an irrational amount, or she might have just had a baby or she might be sick, etc., and vice versa with the man. We've also said that a husband shouldn't ask his wife nor should a wife ask her husband to engage in sexual acts that she finds degrading.

If they're objectively, definitely not. If they just make her feel demeaned, then he should respect that, she should respect that, but they should be open to talking. I think we've done a good job, haven't we? Is there anything else we need to say we're not saying before we say what we need to say? No, I think sex is fine. This is good. Okay. So now let's bloody well say what we mean, because we can nuance things to death. So like just an example that doesn't have to do with human sexuality, right? Christ says,

you know, if you're struck on the cheek turn the other cheek right and then all we do is spend time talking about that jesus did not mean you are to be a walking to be walked over right or jesus says bless those who curse you yes but he did not mean and and we never ever get around to the fact that we there is something that was meant by that, and we never actually explicate that. Hopefully, people are with us. They're tracking with us. We now need to say unapologetically what we do mean. Yeah. I think it's kind of a very basic principle that St. Paul has put so well, that when you get married, if you're called to marriage and you understand what marriage means, put so well that when you get married, if you're called to marriage and you understand what marriage means, you are really radically saying, my life is not my own. I am giving myself to

someone else in a radical self-gift. Now that requires true knowledge, right? I mean, if you look at the annulment process, you have to like know what marriage is and know what you're saying yes to and know who you're saying yes to, like if the person somehow concealed their identity from you, then that's a no-go. And your will has to be free. You have to be able to consent to marriage. But when each person says those vows and those vows are valid, there is a real radical way that you have said, my body belongs to you and your body belongs to me. And, um, thus as a matter of justice, uh, when the circumstances are right, according to, you know, governed by prudence and all the things we've already said, um, we, we do have a right to say like, um, it's been a tough week for me, but it's not, but yeah, you should have sex with your husband yeah and lots of it and he

should ask it of you and you ought to give it to him and vice versa yeah and saying that you have a i don't know this is the cliche that you have a headache or that you're too tired okay you might have to get over that like you might have to if you're lying you should repent of that if you just don't want to you might need to either offer that up and if you don't you might need should repent of that. If you just don't want to, you might need to either offer that up. And if you don't, you might need to repent of that. Like that's a real possibility. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that, I think that young women often don't, especially preparing for marriage. I think, I mean, I think men and women are different. This is something that I think they're equal in dignity. Absolutely. But I think that if you follow, you know, even if you followed John Paul's Theology of the Body and you talk about, you know, his writings, especially on women, on the nature of women,

and his Letter to Women, so on mulieris jugitatum, on the dignity and vocation of women, and then his 1995 Letter to Women, he really does lay out that he thinks women, and he's following Edith Stein pretty closely here, he thinks women have a, he calls it the feminine genius, right? And so it's this unique capacity and he's, he's rooting it in the body, right? So he takes the same principles of theology of the body that are the material reality of being made man and being made woman is something like a sacrament. The visible makes, um, makes apparent. Yeah. Present. Exactly. The invisible, right? the invisible, right? So he does the whole theology of the body, all those Wednesday audiences. So then he kind of turns his attention to

women in particular, and he uses that same principle and basically says, well, look, what's distinctive about a woman's body is that regardless of whether or not she will bear children, every woman, in virtue of being a woman, has a space for another inside of her, has a womb. And that physical reality that men don't have is making visible and making present something about the woman's soul and her disposition. And that he calls the feminine genius, a woman's unique capacity to draw, to attend, to be present to other human beings, to emotionally enter into the interior lives of others, her capacity for empathy and sensitivity and generosity, all of these things. So I think that there is a real difference. And I really found this once after I was married and, you know,

was actually living with a man and was able to enter into his interior life. Women very easily enter into the emotional lives of other women. You know, if I've had a tough day, I can sit with a bunch of my girlfriends and vent and have a glass of wine and feel loved and affirmed and known just by that kind of emotional interaction. I'm curious what you think about this, Matt. I don't think men have that same kind of experience. I think that in order for men- This is a good point. Yeah. And this is something that my wife and I have definitely, I say fought fought it wasn't anything dramatic we've argued over this in the past right where it's like my wife will need to

talk before we can come together and sometimes i need to come together so that i can talk have you experienced something like that yep absolutely that's exactly where i'm going with it that men who aren't in doubt with the feminine genius have a difficult time. You know, if my husband's had a tough day, um, I can tell him, I think you're the best thing since sliced bread, but that won't be nearly as meaningful to him as actually being held and being,

uh, there's a real way that women, you know, if Joe just tells me you, you look beautiful and you are the best woman in the world that can make up for a lot of a crappy day where I felt like I wasn't the best mom. I'm not good enough, whatever. I think men and women are really different in this regard. I think that men need that physical experience of closeness and

affirmation and being trusted and being honored and respected and all those things that are communicated in sexual intimacy that I think women have an easier time getting just verbally and emotionally through their connection. So they've had their fill either with their husband affirming them or with their girlfriends. Yep. And they might expect the husband to be like, her, well, just let's talk it out. Like, let's-

Yes, yes. And I think women, a good wife, I think has to be sensitive to that reality. I was giving a retreat once and some woman asked me during the Q&A, like, Yes, yes. in depth about the things she's going through whenever I felt like it, that wouldn't be good either. Yeah. So there has to be a way that like my feelings can't, or like I'm not in the mood can't be the ultimate trump card. If I'm someone who's governed by my intellect and not just by my feelings, then I have to realize like sexual intimacy is good. It is a good of marriage and it is a way that God continues to bless our union and help us remain united and faithful to each other. And so if it now this is just me speaking, personally,

like on my own, I'm not putting this on anyone else. But in my own like examination of conscience, if my husband has had a tough day where he has just been beaten a tough week where he has been beaten down by the world, and everything has failed failed and he just feels terrible, I better have a damn good excuse for not loving my husband up that weekend. That's my own. That's just my own thing. I'm not putting that on anyone else. But, like, I think it would be, you know, to just be like, oh, I'm just not in the mood. For me, I kind of tell myself, like, put those graces of the sacrament in gear and

love your husband like give your husband what he needs like you love him this is your best friend and I will his good and if all you know 40 hours a week he's just dealt with people telling him he's a terrible boss and nothing's worked out and clients have been mad then I want to be able to physically and tangibly express to him my trust, respect, admiration, delight, how much I delight in him as a person. I remember when a friend of mine, Elisa, she's been on Cameron's show, Among the Lilies, before and has done several episodes on the seven-part sex series Cameron did. I don't know if you heard it or not, but there was one point in her marriage where her husband was having a really difficult time.

And an older woman, I'm thinking like 50s or 60s, said to Elisa, who was asking for advice, she said, you just have to go and have lots of sex with your husband. Yeah. I just thought that was just, and she thought it was beautiful. Yeah. Now, some people are going to hear that and they're going to be offended by that. Yeah. Now, some people are going to hear that and they're going to be offended by that. And I just want to invite people not to be offended too quickly because sometimes, oftentimes, maybe always, our offense can say more about us than other things. And so it might be the case that if somebody's been hurt sexually, then this sounds like a barbaric thing to say to somebody. Or if they see sex as being dominated or being powerless or something like that.

Yeah. It makes sense that people might react in a certain way. But don't allow that to tinge or taint or, yeah, throw off what St. Paul has said that we have to do. Yeah. And I can say that with like what I'm saying for what I'm saying, I can say with a great deal of, I think, peace and freedom because I know what a good man my husband is. I've never felt degraded in the bedroom. When we were dating, I mean, we didn't go to second base until the night we were married. Like, my husband has showed tremendous heroic restraint in the pursuit of purity in our relationship and the sexual sphere.

So I've never felt used by him. If I felt used by him, I wouldn't have this freedom to be able to say like in my marriage, what I hold myself accountable for is that Joe deserves my love and he experiences love in a different way than I do as a man. And so because I love him and admire him and he is my best friend, I want to be sensitive to that reality. How do you counsel a woman then whose husband has not been as upstanding as yours is and has things she needs to work through? I think marriage counseling is totally appropriate in that situation. I mean, maybe you can just have a conversation, just the two of you, and you don't have to shell out the money for therapy. And she can just say, listen, I have a hard time enjoying

sex with you because you've treated me badly in the past. And maybe he needs to repent of that. And they need to have, I think, a kind of honest conversation about perhaps where his failings were. And she needs to be able to bring that to him and say, listen, the reason why I can't be as generous as perhaps St. Paul and Aquinas are suggesting I should be is because you yourself are not generous in the bedroom. You are not. So I mean that I go back to like, you know, that section of love and responsibility where John Paul talks about how it is an act of altruism for a husband to recognize that the curvature of arousal is different for him than it is for his wife. And so in light of that reality, he is going to slow down his own right concerns for his sexual arousal to be more attentive to her. A lot of, I mean, I think a lot,

I mean, oh man, I want to talk about this without making it really personal. My friend. Yeah. My friend will basically say that in her marriage, her husband gives her an orgasm every time. I mean, that's, yeah. I mean, so I think that, you know, if you have a husband who's that generous, then like, heck yes, you're game for sex four times a week. You know what I mean, that's, yeah. I mean, so I think that, you know, if you have a husband who's that generous, then like, heck yes, you're game for sex four times a week. You know what I mean? It also has to do with the particular woman too.

It's not just a matter of the husband being, don't you think in your experience? Has it been a matter of like the husband can love his wife, but for whatever reason, she can't orgasm every time. Yeah. Yeah. And so then I think there should be some exploring into like, well, why is that? Is it because I have some sexual trauma that I have to deal with? Or maybe I grew up in a puritanical household where I thought all sex was bad and dirty. And now that I'm a married woman, I can't actually enjoy being physical with my

husband. Are there some physiological issues that should be attended to by a doctor? I mean, I think that that is something, you know, if we're talking about the marriage debt and justice, the woman deserves to climax just as much as the man does. So if that's something that consistently isn't happening, that's something that should be given some time and attention. Maybe the husband has to be slowed down and be more considerate. Maybe the woman has some psychological issues that should be addressed. Maybe there's physiological things that are at play that make it difficult, you know, especially if you've just had a baby or, you know, different things might be going on. Um, but the couple together should be working towards that, you know,

maybe it means a little K wise. I mean, I don't want to get too graphic, but I mean, yeah, you have to reflect upon these things and to ask, yeah, what could we change to make this more pleasing to each other? Yeah. And John Paul, I think, says that. Basically says, like, what will happen if the woman – I mean, I remember. I mean, there's all kinds of, you know, Facebook, Catholic women's mothers, wives groups. And I remember one time seeing a woman post about, like, has anyone – like, how do you know when you've had an orgasm?

And this is a woman who had been married for quite a long time and had quite a few children. And some, a lot of women trying to do with things like, yeah, I think I, I think I may have had one. It's like saying, I think I know Jesus. If you think you do, you don't. Yeah, that's exactly it. And my heart was just breaking thinking of all of these women just to, and again, it's not to say like that there, it may be the case that their husband is selfish. It may be the, but just like that, this is the state of affairs is so sad and tragic to me. Like, so, um, so, but what John Paul says in love and responsibility, right. Is that if a woman consistently is not climaxing, she is going to become, I mean, what they used to call the

frigid woman, right. She's going to become resentful. Like you're just here. You get a great time out of it. It does nothing for me. I mean, maybe it gives me children, which is great and wonderful and beautiful. But the fact that she's kind of being deprived of something that is injustice due to her, that's just unfair. And so I think that if the state of affairs is such that the woman is not consistently able to achieve orgasm, that's something to spend some real time on. Excellent. Would you mind if we took some questions? I asked my patrons if they'd send some questions in. Some of these we have covered. We might want to recircle around or others. I'm not going to say their names because it's obviously a sensitive topic. One person says,

what if one is not in the mood? Let's say there is a physical hindrance. Someone is not up to the task. This is a man asking this, by the way. So I imagine he's asking for himself. I'm asking for a friend. Oh, okay. Well, there you go. Should he try anyway? Does marital debt apply to other intimate aspects or are they sinful? But question, both questions may be, okay. So these are two different questions but i mean which one do you want to tackle there maybe up to the task let's do that one for the man because another man here said this he says personally i feel terrible when my bride desires sex but i am not or for whatever reason cannot be up to the task or when i'm just utterly exhausted at the end of a long

day i feel guilty and pressured this has never been my problem but that's okay which in turn makes it even more difficult to have sex it becomes a vicious cycle that only results in oh i'm sorry i didn't mean to make a joke after through that that was insensitive he says are there ways to increase one's sex drive to meet my brides my bride it's frankly embarrassing my wife is clearly far more attractive beautiful and holy than me i always expect to be the one with the higher sex drive. I always expected to be the one. It would seem there is something deeper that is preventing me from being able to pay the marital debt as frequently as I desire, but I don't know how to find healing there. God bless this person. God bless this person. Being vulnerable.

I know a lot of people are thinking this. Yeah. I mean, I think some of the things we said before apply, like, I mean, I'm assuming when he says is not up for the task, he's talking about not being able to get an erection. Yeah. So there may be some physiological things that need to be checked out by a doctor. Like maybe, um, you know, maybe there's medication. I mean, maybe there's something physiologically wrong that should be addressed. Maybe there are some, like we said with the woman, maybe there's some psychological things in your past that have to be dealt with or haven't been dealt with. Just to clarify, the reason taking Viagra isn't intrinsically disordered but taking contraception is, is because one makes the body function in the way that it should and one suppresses a function that it ought to have, in case people are wondering that. That's a great distinction. People always cite that like, well, if the government's not paying for my contraception,

then, I mean, yeah, anyway, sorry, that's a side tangent. But yeah, so maybe there's physiological things that have to be addressed. Again, I think it is unfortunate. I have friends who are Catholic psychologists and therapists, and they will say that it's not uncommon if you were raised in a very strict puritanical household that wasn't doing theology of the body to have just decades of formation that says that sex is bad and sex is dirty and sex is a sin. just supposed to like switch mind frames and become, you know, sexually active with joy, freedom and abandon. Like that often doesn't happen without some kind of psychological help. You know, a good friend of mine will always say, if you've done something bad to someone else, go to confession. If someone has done something bad to you, go to therapy. And so I think the

reality is we can be formed poorly, maybe by our parents who were, you know, hadn't read Theology of the Body or and were, you know, of a different era, perhaps. Or maybe we'd suffered some kind of trauma or abuse, or maybe we were living an objectively, you know, kind of debaucherous Augustine-like life before we got married. And so we came to see that, like, sex is always sexual. And so now I'm going to try to repress that or something. sex is always sexual. And so now I'm going to try to repress that or something. Um, but there, there may also just be, you know, I think that, um, making time, making time for sex, number one, like you like to be able to have enough time. Usually this is more the case on the woman's side, but to be able to have enough time for foreplay that someone can actually get aroused is really important. But obviously for the man too, like if you're trying to sneak a

quickie in while the kids watch Saturday morning cartoons, cartoons i mean maybe that's ill-advised and you have to spend more time you know kind of put it on your calendar and spend more time so that each person's body has enough time to respond and react and i would also tell this man to be honest with his wife and to share with her how this makes him feel because i think as men, it's very difficult for us to be vulnerable. Sometimes it's difficult for us to cry, to be seen as weak in front of our wives because we're embarrassed or we're afraid that maybe she'll mock us or something like that. And so I think it's really important in addition to what you've said, you know, medication might be necessary or some other things, just being vulnerable and say, look, when this happens, I feel really, I don't feel like a man. I feel embarrassed. I feel weak. Um, this, this isn't you, you know, I think that's another thing

where the woman might feel that, that this is because of her, that he can't get aroused. Yeah. And yeah. And again, that's why communication on these things are so important. I mean, a good wife is going to be empathetic and understanding, but she may also, I mean, Satan may be working on her own mind thinking like, well, gosh, like if he's not aroused by me, maybe I'm not really attractive. Maybe I'm not really beautiful. Maybe he doesn't love me anymore. So there's so much when you don't communicate about these things, there's so much room for Satan to just so lie, you know? Um, so I think that, and I think it must be especially hard for men because there is kind of the

stereotype that he's the one with the bigger sex drive than she. And so if he's the one who's, who feels like, you know, the wife has a stronger sex drive or appetite than I do. And I feel like I can't keep up that that's tough. That's really tough. Um, but to be able to have that kind of communication, I think is great. I think we've addressed a lot of these questions, so I won't read a lot of them, but someone asked if one person in the relationship does not want to share in the marital act, but the other spouse plays the marital debt card, for lack of a better term, could it be considered lust or rape on the part of the spouse forcing the card upon him or her?

Wouldn't this be an example of using people instead of loving them? I assume not, but I'd love to hear what you think. example of using people instead of loving them? I assume not, but I'd love to hear what you think. Yeah. I mean, I feel like we put down a lot of principles that go to this question, right? Yeah, I agree. Consent, absolutely. Thomas talks about consent in these articles. You know, obviously, there is such a thing as marital rape. Obviously, both parties have to, just like in the wedding vows, like you're not allowed to marry someone against their will. Both parties have to consent to sexual congress,

and we should be careful about not like manipulating each other to get what we want. Like obviously the woman, you know, if she's a harlot, as Aquinas says, or the man could be motivated by selfishness and their own lust. And I think that kind of bad behavior should be, you know, called out on, like we've said before. And so there, again, all these things have to be governed by prudence. There has to be a kind of prudence about, you know, when you, you know, if the woman is, we didn't get into this article as much as i thought perhaps we might but when the woman is menstruating like can she play the marriage card and what should she do if he asks for the marriage debt when she's menstruating i want to get into that before we wrap up today's episode because i know we've alluded to it uh twice yeah but yeah there's

some fascinating stuff going on before we get to that is there anything else you want to say in regards to that question or yeah i mean i that both spouses, if they're motivated by charity, if this is truly my best friend, the greatest friendship that I have, then I'm going to be motivated by willing the good of the other. And so I'm going, I think both parties have to be good actors. Like if I'm the one asking for the marital debt, I have to be sensitive to the fact that that right or ordinance, what does Thomas call it? Like a precept, I think at some point. It was just in the beginning. What was he called? Yeah, this precept, then it's an obligation. Then I have to be prudent about, like all other rights and precept. Then I have to be prudent about, like all other rights and precepts, I have to be prudent about using it. So if I know that my husband has to be

up early in the morning, he's got a 3 a.m. flight to Texas, and I don't know, I'm looking for a little love at midnight, maybe I'm not going to play the marriage debt card because he's got to be up early. The poor man needs more than three hours of sleep. But hopefully he too- I'm sure he'd be to be up early. The poor man needs more than three hours of sleep, but hopefully he too, but hopefully then he too is going to be, if, if I'm the one being asked for the marriage debt, I'm going to be able to take a, um, reasonable, um, you know, a reasonable look at the person asking like, is, is, am I about to say no to this because I don't feel like it and I'm selfish? Or can I like put on my big girl pants and love my husband because he's my husband and he's my best friend. And I want him to know how much I find him great

and wonderful. And, uh, so I think, I think so much of this just comes down to prudence and, um, being formed by the mind of the church, you know, certainly studying things like theology of the body and leading love and responsibility is incredibly helpful because it gives you these principles, having a prayer life together. I think a lot of these kind of strife in the relationship over this issue kind of pass away if you're actually formed by the mind of the church together and are praying together. And then you don't worry about this domination or oppression or chauvinism or selfishness. Then those all become non-factors.

You can kind of reasonably evaluate with a generosity and sense of charity how to respond to my spouse's advances. Okay. Thank you very much. All right. Let's, before we wrap up, I need to address this because we brought it up in the beginning and then just then about, um, can a wife, uh, is a man required or is a woman required to pay the debt if she's menstruating? And I just want to sum up what I think I read and then have you tell me, because I think there's something really interesting that can be brought out of this so it seems to me that so he says no because the print well and we'll anyway he says no because the principal good of the marital act is the begetting of children and he is of the opinion that sex while a woman has menses or is on her period will result in a deformed child right right so he's okay just next thing is

but he says if the flow is unnatural that is to say not due to a period and so a child will not result yeah that you can engage in the marital act yep which i found fascinating because right there he's uh tacitly agreeing that there is more than one end, which I know he's not trying to not agree to, but it's something – some people will say the only good of marriage is – so you can have sex. But it seems to me that he's obviously got his science wrong there. One is not going to have a deformed child if one is on a period. Right, right. Yeah, so that's something that I was going to have a deformed child if one is on her period. Right, right. Yeah. So that's something that I was going to point out, right? So he brings up these two issues, the question of, right, with like Levitical law, the woman being unclean. And he says, yeah, that's not a non-issue.

We're living under the new law. There's no more circumcision. So, you know, these are old Levitical issues that we don't, you know, have to follow under the new law. But there is this second question, right? The second aspect where he, you know, sometimes you, you have to read St. Thomas is, is a good philosopher. So he's trying to make judgments based on the phenomena and that's as they understood it in the middle ages. And so when his biological account is incorrect, I think it's a safe move to say, okay, that principle might not be in play anymore because it's simply not true. And so it's simply not true that having sex in your period is going to, in all likelihood,

it won't result in a child at all. But if it were to happen, there doesn't, at least as far as I know, there doesn't seem to be any kind of scientific connection that the child is more likely to have birth defects or something like that. So I think given that, the principle he's invoking is, and turns out to be a biological fallacy, I think it's probably something too you can kind of disregard, quite frankly. Yeah. Well, so there you go. This has been excellent. Yeah. And I think hopefully really helpful for folks.

But suppose they've listened to this, they still have questions. Is there any books you'd recommend recommend anything that they do that could be helpful the book i would recommend that people check out is a book called holy sex by dr gregory popchack yeah i'm familiar with that one yep yep um i don't i'm not always on board with everything popchack says but i thought this book was excellent and it really does kind of get into certain details that one might feel embarrassed to ask about. Yeah. Yeah.

I think that's right. I haven't read it thoroughly. And so I always have, just for my own personal integrity, a certain hesitation about signing on for books if I haven't read the whole thing. But I trust you, Matt. So if you think it's good for you. Well, I mean, again, yeah, I don't want to kind of give a total agreement to everything that's in there because I actually don't remember everything that's in there. But I remember what I read thinking, this is really good because people have legitimate questions and they are afraid to

ask it to anybody. And this really, I would not recommend reading this book if you're not married because it's quite, it can stir up a lot of stuff. So there's that. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's a real prudence in. And then if people wanted to learn more about, you know, what we had talked about with John Paul II and climaxing at the same time and things like that, I know you and Charity did an episode or two episodes with my wife Cameron on her podcast Among the Lilies. Yeah, I think it was just one, but, boy, it was long. I think it ended up we – it was a four-hour conversation that was awesome.

And I think the first like two hours or maybe two and a half were on the regular, um, you know, among the lollies podcast. And then the last hour and a half that were much more detailed, intimate, and perhaps inappropriate, uh, ended up on the Patreon. So if you want to support, uh, well, it was episode. Well, it was episode 89. Episode 89 of Among Little Leaves is called Love, Sex, and Orgasms. And then you clarified the episode in episode 92 because you got some pushback from it. So if people want to check that out, they can.

Yeah. Awesome. Well, I feel like I have a lot more of a clearer understanding of the marital debt, what it means, what it doesn't mean. So thanks for being so awesome. Oh, my pleasure. It was great being on again. Thanks, Matt. Yeah. All right. God bless.

God bless you too. Take care. Okay. Thank you very much for listening to this week's episode. I hope that it was a help for you. I hope it cleared up what Thomas Aquinas means by the marital debt. I want to invite you to consider supporting Pints with Aquinas on Patreon because, you know, it's funny. It's not just me now. There's about seven other people that I pay regularly, monthly to get all of this work done on the Matt Fradd Show and Pints with Aquinas and all the other things that we're doing. If you want to be a part of this team, you can get a bunch of free things in return, not just online things like audio books and post-show wrap-up videos of the Matt Fradd Show. You get all that, but you'll even

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