The Decretists and Marital Sex

The decretists’ treatment of the legal implications and consequences of marital sex varied widely and depended not only upon the legal and theological presup­positions of the commentators, but also upon their understanding of contempo­rary ideas about medicine, physiology, and biology.^[1120] A few of these learned but presumably celibate jurists seemed sympathetic to the ideals of love and sex advocated by the poets who celebrated the joys of fin amors.^[1121] A happy mar­riage, some decretists thought, should be a source of love and emotional satis­faction as well as a remedy for lust.^[1122]

Most commentators on the Decretum believed that sexual attraction fur­nished an unsatisfactory motive for marriage, but those who followed the Bologncse teaching considered that a sexual relationship was not merely a usual element of marriage, but an essential one." Those who married because of sex­ual attraction acted legitimately, according to Sicard of Cremona and others, because one purpose of marriage was to provide a remedy for lust.

This belief that sex played a central role in the very formation of marriage helps to explain the reappearance of the marriage bed as a marital symbol. Al­though the bed had played a central symbolic role in early medieval wedding ceremonies, especially in Gaul, it virtually disappeared from the rituals in the late ninth century, only to reappear again late in the twelfth century. Twelfth­century manuscript paintings also began to depict the marriage bed to symbol­ize matrimony itself.¹⁰¹

But as noted earlier, decretist opinions about sex and its role in marriage were divided. Even writers whose ideas about the formation of marriage dif­fered as radically as those of Rolandus and Vacarius could agree that marital sex was part of natural law.¹⁰² And while Huguceio, as we have seen, held that sex itself was not part of natural law, he taught also that natural law implanted in man an instinct that intercourse with his lawful wife was legitimate but extra­marital sex was not.¹⁰³ So also Rolandus and other decretists insisted time and

⁹⁹Paucapalea, Summa to C.

¹⁰⁰RoIandus, Summa to C. 32 q. 2 c. 2 ed. Thaner, pp. 164-65; SP to C. 32 q. 2 pr., ed McLaughlin, p. 241; Rufinus, Summa to C. 32 q. 2 pr., ed. Singer, p. 479; Sicard of Cremona, Summa to C. 32 q. 2 pr., in B.L. MS Add 18,367, fol. 59rb-va: “De inconti­nentia continet ii. q. xxxii. cause, ubi queritur utrum illi qui propter incontinentiam copulantur, uel etiam copulati propter incontinentiam commiscentur dicendi sunt for­nicarii uel coniuges?... Solutio: duplex fuit matrimonii institutio, prima in paradiso, secunda extra paradysum, prima in sobolem, secunda in remedium.... Quecumque capitula dicunt tales non esse coniuges Iocuntur de prima institutione; que uera con­iuges dicunt de secunda.”

¹⁰¹Chiara Frugoni, “L iconografia dei matrimonio e della coppia nel medioevo,” in Il matrimonio nella societa altomedioevale 2:962.

¹⁰²Rolandus, Summa to C. 27 pr., ed. Thaner, p. 113; Vacarius, Summa de matri­monio, ed. Maitland, p. 274.

^lmHuguccio, Summa to D. 1 d.p.c. 5, in MS 72 of Pembroke College, Cambridge, fol. ιi7ra-rb, and Vat. lat. 2280, fol. 2va: “Michi tamen uidetur quod SntelIigatur de Coniunctione carnali matrimoniali, non fornicaria, cum ex iure naturali peccatum non possit esse, et hec est coniunctio de iure naturali, quod dicitur instinctus nature, nec imo quod dicitur ratio. Mouetur enim homo quodam naturali appetitu sensualitatis, ut Carnaliter Comisceatur femine et statim succedat ratio dictans homini ut non com­misceatur nisi uxori et modo legitimo, scilicet causa sobolis uel causa reddendi debitum, nam alia commixtio siue cum uxore siue cum alia non est de aliquo iure naturali.” again that marital sex was a good use of an evil thing—an Augustinian tag that epitomized their belief that marital sex was (at least sometimes) moral, while other sexual activity was always immoral.¹⁰⁴

The majority of decretists agreed that the morality of marital sex depended upon the circumstances of the act and the intentions of the parties.

¹⁰⁴Rolandus, Summa to C. 32 q. 1 c. 11 v. bonus usus mali, ed. Thaner, pp. 162-63; Rufinus, Summa to the same passage, ed. Singer, p. 478, followed almost verbatim by Joannes Faventinus in B.L. Royal 9. E.VII, fol. 142rb; gloss to the same passage in B.L. Stowe 378, fol. 175ra: “Conueniendi Carnaliter quod malum dicitur quia ex malo proue- niens, id est concupiscentia carnali, uel quia facit malum, id est peccatum, uel usus mali dicatur, id est concubitus mali, id est Concupiscentie. Usus tamen bonus, id est fine bono, scilicet gratia prolis.”

¹⁰⁵Rufinus, Summa to C. 27 q. 2 pr., ed. Singer, p. 446, followed verbatim by Joannes Faventinus in B.L. Royal 9.E.VII, fol. 134va-vb; Rolandus, Summa to C. 32 q. 2 c. 4, ed. Thaner, pp. 165-66; cf. the views of Robert of Melun, cited by Leclercq, Monks on Marriage, p. 21.

^10βSP to D. 5 c. 4 v. prava and to D. 13 c. 2 v. peccemus, ed. McLaughlin, pp. 5, 13; of. John of Salisbury, Policraticus 8.11, ed. Webb 2:294-95.

¹⁰⁷Omnebene, gloss to C. 27 q. 2 c. 5, in Muller, Lehre des hl. Augustinus, p. 95 n. 162: “Quidam sunt qui dormiunt secum pro habenda prole solummodo, ut nutriant in servitio Dei. Isti non offendunt, immo benefaciunt.” The theologian Odo of Ourscamp, writing in the 1160s, expressed similar views (see Muller, Lehre des hl.

Several decretists asserted that couples who intended to avoid conception were guilty of sin. Contraceptive intercourse is a species of debauchery (lux­uria), they maintained, because it is undertaken solely for pleasure, and even in marriage this is not allowed.^los But what if a couple were naturally sterile and unable, through no fault of their own, to have children? Could they Iicitly have sexual relations? This question, Simon of Bisignano noted, was difficult, but in his opinion couples in this situation could sleep together in order to preserve the virtue of marital fidelity.^[1123] Sterility that was deliberately induced was, of course, another matter altogether and made the person responsible for it guilty of a crime—it was, according to Rolandus, the moral equivalent of prostitution.^[1124]

A small but vocal minority of the decretists, however, advocated more radi­cal restrictions on marital sex.

Decretists who believed that intercourse for procreation is blameless also tended to teach that sex in order to pay the marital debt is not sinful. The de- Cretists felt bound to accept the tenet that spouses enjoyed a mutual right to sexual intercourse and that this right was a consequence of the consummation of their marriage.^{[1127] [1128] Rolandus went so far as to hold that the partner who rendered the debt at the other’s request performed a meritorious action.[1129] Most writers rejected this view. Joannes Faventinus, for example, held that rendering the marital debt did not confer positive merit, but simply avoided the penalties that refusing it would entail.[1130]}

Huguccio took a peculiar stand on the question of the marriage debt. While virtually all of his fellow-decretists held that the party who paid the debt did not sin in doing so, Huguccio asserted that both parties always sinned.

The decretists agreed with the Fathers, penitential writers, and earlier can­onists that marital sex should be subject to certain limits, but the decretists defined those limits differently. Although they certainly believed that total sex­ual abstinence was an ideal that Christians ought to seek, the decretists real­ized that few married couples aspired to this goal.^{[1139] [1140] [1141] [1142] The decretists recom­mended periodic sexual continence, but their comments on Gratian’s scanty references to the penitential prescriptions concerning sexual abstinence during Lent and other holy seasons show no great enthusiasm for these observances.12" The decretists stressed regular restraint in marital sex rather than periodic epi­sodes of complete abstinence. Rigorists who taught the intrinsic sinfulness of marital intercourse insisted that lustful passion or excessive indulgence in sex is out of place in marriage and that sex for pleasure is wrong at any time.[1143] Im­moderate sexual intercourse is tantamount to adultery, they argued, and ought to be subject to the same penalties.[1144]}

But what constituted “excessive” or “immoderate” indulgence in marital sex? The decretists used three criteria. First there was a quantitative measure: sexual relations beyond that required for reproduction or to pay the conjugal debt constituted excessive or immoderate use of marital rights.^{[1145] [1146] The second criterion was qualitative: impulsive and unrestrained sexual relations are exces­sive and immoderate. The decretists described this type of unacceptable mari­tal sex as that of a man who made love to his wife as if he were commiting adul­tery with her.[1147] The third criterion we might call technical: that is marital sex was excessive and immoderate when it deviated from what the decretists re­garded as the “normal” mode of human coition. What they meant was what is now often called the “missionary position,” in which the woman lies supine with the man prone above her. Any variants from this position, particularly the “dog-style” (more canino) approach from the rear, or any position in which the woman was superior to the man, the decretists described as unnatural and rep­rehensible, even in the marriage bed. Likewise, other deviations from sexual behavior the canonists regarded as normal—particularly anal intercourse or oral sex—counted as grave and unnatural offenses.[1148]}

The gravamen of all of these offenses lay in the twofold belief that the reason for deviations from the sexual norm was a quest for physical pleasure and that such conduct violated the order laid down by “nature” for human sexual con­duct. The decretists’ objections to deviant positions and practices were appar­ently grounded as much in their perception that these sexual variants promoted pleasure as in the belief that they were contraceptive. While the decretists cer- ainly disapproved of contraceptive sex, they disapproved even more vehe­mently of sexual pleasure for its own sake. Pleasure might be tolerated as an accompaniment—preferably an unwanted accompaniment—of reproductive sex, but in their view carnal pleasure was absolutely intolerable in nonreproduc- tive sex. The model of marital sex that they wanted married couples to emulate was a relationship governed by reason and discretion, in which sex served the end of reproduction, but nothing more.^[1149] The twelfth-century commentators on Gratian elaborated for the first time in great detail this Stoic model of mari­tal sex, still very much alive in Roman Catholic thought.

Moralists as well as canonists sought to deter married couples from excessive or immoderate sexual behavior. Twelfth-century moral writers warned that dire consequences would result from overindulgence in sex. “Extraordinary volup­tuousness,” even in marriage, said Peter of Blois (fl. 1180-1200), would tempt God to impose a terrible judgment. Divine retribution might mean blindness, madness, and other infirmities in this life, as well as unimaginably dreadful penalties in the next.^[1150] John of Salisbury related the cautionary tale of Count Ralph of Vermandois, who died prematurely as a result of excessive intercourse with his wife, despite the warnings of his physicians.^[1151] And medieval physicians did, indeed, advise their patients to curtail sexual indulgence. Maimonides (who was an eminent physician as well as a philosopher) cautioned that exces­sive intercourse would shorten life, and later in the century Arnald of Villanova (ca 1240-1311) would turn this general advice into a very specific prescription that couples have sexual relations no more than two or at the very most three times weekly.^{[1152] [1153] Avicenna and, in the thirteenth century Albert the Great, cau­tioned that excessive sexual intercourse was likely to produce numerous un­desirable side effects including weakness, trembling, nervousness, ringing in the ears, protruding eyeballs, abdominal pain, and hemorrhage.13®}

Discounting the warnings of learned physicians, however, folk medicine taught that rigorous abstinence from sex also caused physical ailments. Even so ascetic a man as King Louis VII of France was allegedly persuaded by his physi­cians to have intercourse with a girl in order to cure a malady that afflicted him. The remedy was said to have produced good results.^[1154] Respectable medical writers also advised physicians that it was appropriate to prescribe measures designed to increase their patients’ sexual pleasure and that giving advice for this purpose did not violate medical ethics.^[1155]