This is a translation of a judgment of the Holy Roman Rota which refers, according to its attributions and conforming to the will of the Supreme Pontiff, to the principles themselves of Canon Law. The publication of this sentence in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis (36th year [1944] pp. 179–200), and the constant use which seems to have been made of it in the addresses of the Holy Father Pius XII, stress the importance of this document, which, though occasioned by a particular case, constitutes an official interpretation of previous texts and the most authoritative act of ecclesiastical jurisprudence as regards to the matter.
11. — A) The primary end of Matrimony.
The primary and principal, one and indivisible finis operis of matrimony which uniquely specifies its nature is the procreation and education of the offspring. This end can be considered a) active, b) passive, c) sub utroque respectu. Considered as active it regards the activity of the wedded couples, namely, the wedded couple inasmuch as they procreate and educate the offspring; intended as passive it regards the offspring inasmuch as they are procreated and educated; taken sub utroque respectu it considers the wedded couple and the offspring together. The secondary ends, then, which are ordained to the primary end, can regard rather one aspect than another — active or passive — but they can also regard in an equal measure both aspects.
17. — B) The secondary end of Matrimony
The previously mentioned canon 1013 assigns a double secondary end to matrimony, namely, the mutuum adiutorium and the remedium concupiscentiæ. These ends are fines operis and not only fines operantis.
18. — a) Only a few things need be said of the other secondary end, the remedium concupiscentiæ and of its relation to the primary end. It will be easily understood that of its very nature this end is subordinated to the primary end of generation. Indeed, concupiscence is remedied in matrimony and by means of matrimony with the lawful use of the generative faculty — a use destined, proportioned and subordinated to the primary end of matrimony, in the above mentioned manner. Therefore, even the sedatio concupiscentiæ as a result of conjugal acts, is together with these acts subordinated to the primary end of matrimony.
19. — b) The other secondary end is the mutuum adiutorium, which includes various services and mutual aids between the contracting parties, for example, cohabitation, the same table, the use of material benefits, the acquirement and the administration of the means of subsistence, the most personal help in the various conditions of life, in the psychic and somatic exigencies of life, in the use of the natural faculties and also in the exercise Of the supernatural virtues (cf. Leo XIII, Encycl. Arcanum, n. 156; Pius Xl, Encycl. Casti connubii, nn. 285–287).
20. — Recently, some authors when treating of the ends of matrimony, explain this mutuum adiutorium in a different manner. They hold that inasmuch as “the personal being” of the married couple receives a help and a complement, this evolution and perfection “of the person” of husband and wife is not a secondary but a primary end of matrimony. However, not all of these authors consider the matter in the same light. These newcomers to matrimonial matters stray from true and certain doctrine, without being able to apply solid and proven arguments in favor of their opinions. Putting aside these teachings of some recent authors, therefore, we must now examine the order and the interdependence between the primary and the secondary ends of matrimony, omitting the remedium concupiscentiæ, which we have already treated briefly above.
C) Relation of the secondary end of matrimony with the primary end.
Even outside of matrimony there can be a reciprocal help and common life between two persons of different sex either in the simple case of brother and sister living together, or in virtue of an explicit agreement to lend each other reciprocal help. This reciprocal help and common life, inasmuch as they are called and are proper to matrimony and its secondary finis operis must be considered according to a special property, which distinguishes them from any other community of life, united to reciprocal help. They are, then, distinguished by their internal relation to the primary end, which differentiates the conjugal union from every other human association.
22. — a) This relation between the secondary and the primary end is found first of all in the origin of this primary end in the origin of the corresponding right to mutual aid. It can be demonstrated thus: The immediate and essential object of the matrimonial contract is the exclusive and perpetual right over the body of the partner as regards the acts capable of generating offspring (1917 C.I.C., can. 1081, par. 2; cf. n. 268, note (b)). As a consequence and natural complement of this right, there follows the right to all that without which the right to generate — and consequently to educate — the offspring, cannot be satisfied in a manner suitable to the dignity of human nature. Now it is not possible to satisfy in the above mentioned manner the right to generate and educate the offspring if the right to mutual help is not added to such a principal right, which includes the right to common life, in other words the right to cohabitation, bed and board, and help in all the necessities of life. Let it be noted, however, that it is not a question here of the help lent by fact, but of the right to this mutual adiutorium, indeed, as the principal object of the matrimonial contract is not the “offspring”, but the “right” to beget offspring, so the secondary object is not the mutuum adiutorium but the right to it.
23. — From what has been said up to now it follows that the right to life in common and mutual help is a result of the contracting parties’ primary right to beget offspring. It also follows that a matrimonial contract cannot be concluded, which aims at mutual help and which prescinds at the same time from the given and accepted right to the body: such a contract (not conceding any right on the body) cannot be stipulated between two persons of different sex unless it be outside of marriage. A matrimonial contract attempted in such a manner would be null and would not establish in the contracting parties either a principal or a secondary basis of matrimonial rights. On the contrary, every matrimonial consent to give and accept the right over the body of its very nature, gives rise to the married couple’s right to a life in common and to reciprocal help.
24. — However, since this secondary right does not enter into the principal right as its constitutive part, nor is united to it as its prerequisite condition sine qua non, a matrimonial contract can be concluded which regards the principal right and explicitly denies the secondary end. In particular, as regards cohabitation which is one of the principal benefits united to the secondary end, and of its exclusion in the contract, Wernz-Vidal has to say: “Husband and wife, not being able to satisfy regularly and conveniently the conjugal debt without cohabitation, are, owing to this fundamental right and duty of marital life, also held by an onerous duty not only to observe cohabitation in the same house, but also to participate at the same table and have the same bed, except in cases contemplated by law. This assiduous cohabitation, common bed and board, belongs to the integrity of individual life, not to the essence of conjugal life, and therefore, sometimes, in a particular case, for a reasonable cause, they may be wanting, as in a marriage of conscience, and the obligation of justice to observe these matters admits a certain elasticity” (Ius can. Vol. V, n. 600). Gasparri on the matter teaches: “The greater number of authors maintain that the condition never to live together is against the substance Of matrimony; but if the matrimonial right is truly observed by both parties, we do not think that such a doctrine corresponds to truth, because habitation, bed and board in common do not form part Of the substance Of matrimony; and indeed, a marriage of conscience is permitted, with such a tacit or expressed condition” (De matr. 1932, ed., n. 905).