SEXUAL ETHICS 55

THE JEWISH TRADITION

~:x:and the Marital Relationship

fact, monogamous, lifelong marriage always stood as the ideal context forality. As the centuries passed, that ideal came to be emphasized more and

,reo It took precedence even over the command to procreate. GraduallyVgamy ordivorce and remarriage were less and less accepted as remedies forQless marriages. Concern for the value of the marital relationship in itself~yoverruledboth as options. In the talmudic period monogamy became the

m as well as the ideal, and polygamy later disappeared entirely in Europe.abbis came to teach that neither unilateral nor mutually agreed-upone was required or even always justified as a solution to barrenness in a wife.

arriage and Procreation

The injunction to marry is central to the Jewish tradition of ual orality.arriage is a religious duty, affirmed by all the codes 0 e\vish I .1 Two

lements in Judaism's concept of marriage account for many ot er importantaws regarding sexuality. The first is the perception of the command to~~, at the heart of the co~mand to marry. T1;ssecon<iis-lhe patriarch~In~s!: the Jewish notion of marriage is instituti~i~d. Thesetwo elements help explain proh16lfiOi1Sagainst adulteryaild regulations regard­

g divorce, prostitution, polygamous marriage, and concubinage. Thus, forxample, biblical law considered adultery primarily a violation of a husband'sroperty rights. With minor modifications this was true also of talmudic andost-talmudic law. Further, polygamy and concubinage were accepted for a longirne as a solution to a childless marriage. Prostitution was forbidden asdolatrous, but no legislation ever applied to the use offemale slaves. Early in the

tradition, custom recognized an almost unlimited right on the part of thehusband to divorce his wife. Later the rabbis introduced various restrictions butdid not abolish the right. The obvious double standard for men and for womenwhich marked much of this legislation did not hinder, and in some cases helped,th~ fulfillment of the law of procreation. It was, moreover, in accord with the

bordinate status of women in relation to men. These laws do not byemselves, however, give an adequate picture of traditional Jewish sexualorality.

Earliest Hebrew moral codes were simple and \vithout systematic theologicalunderpinnings. Like other anci~nt Near Eastern legislation, ~J: e,rescribcdmarriage laws and ~ited adlilrery, rape, and certain forms of prostitution,

. insest, and nakedness. In contrast to neighbonng~civilizations,~

be.~~~~~~Human sexuality was sacred onlv insofar as marriage and fertility were part of

",~''''''''''.'''''_''';;<''''~~_'''"'_'~''''''~ ",,,,,,,,,,.~p__"0-Y.'M"'~__,•.,,..~,=,.,.~,,~=-~~__~_.~~~

the J2t~[1;.Qfi!.~r~to~_~~:Such a VIew of sexuality, however;set1J.1eStage rora positive valuation that endured despite later tendencies toward negativeasceticism.

4Sexual Ethics

MARGARET A. FARLEY

54

..•..,;.----~.~.v

Like other issues i~~S/questions of sexuality have entailed questionsof the body's relation to the whole person, moral standards for rationalintervention in physical processes, and norms for the overall health of theindividual and society. More specifically, ethical evaluations of sexual behav­ior have at times included claims that some sexual behavior is sick (as,for example, when homosexuality has been considered an illness) and claimsthat some sexual behavior leads to sickness (as, for example, when masturba­tion has been thought to have medical consequences). Bioethical questionsregarding contraception, sterilization; abortion, venereal disease, sex therapyand sex research, and genetics are directly concerned with sexuality. Notsurprisingly, health professionals both in the past and in the present havefrequently found themselves called upon as counselors with regard to sexualmatters.

To the extent that ethical rd1ections on sexuality can provide a helpfulcontext for issues in bioethics,...3~~for.present state of sexual ethics cannot be assessed without understandingthing of its historical antecedents and their more immediate contributions to

contemporary theory and practice. It is also necessary to understand in somedegree the sources of the widespread contemporary challenge to traditionalsexual ethics. This article will limit its concern to Western traditions of sexualet~·(~he.~ematic of which have been religious). It will begin with ahi 6ncal ov~ry.~ consider next those factors which have rendered traditionalnorm ro15lematic, and finally focus on central issues that now engage ethicalrdlection on the sexual life of human persons.

ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME

57SEXUAL ETHICS

part oflife. Sensuality and reason were harmonized in a kind ofidealized virtue ofthe whole person. Rome, too, accepted sex as a natural part of life, but therefinement ofGreek culture was missing.

Marriage for both Greeks and Romans was monogamous. I~~cientGree~i,however, no sexual ethic confined sex to marriage. Human niturewasg~~erallyJ

assumed to. be bisexual, and polyerotic needs especiallyo~male were easil~

~~~e waswhatsorne-tlave referred to as sexual pOlygamy\;within marital monogamy. Monogamous marriage in Rome, on the other hand, {was the foundation of social life. In fact, the institutionalization of marriage,through the development of marriage laws, was thought to be of centralimportance in the achievement of Roman civilization.

Both .q~ceand.IZQmewere male-dominated sockties, and a doublestandard \vas ~bvious in regard to sexual morality. Divorce was an easy matterin ancient Greece, but for a long time it was available only to husbands. InRome, while there was apparently no divorce at all for a period of five hun­dred years, later a husband could divorce his wife for adultery and a variety ofother sometimes trivial reasons. Both Greek and Roman brides but not bride­grooms were expected to be vir~·.-·TheoilIY-~;o;;;:enin Greece who were g~nsome'''e'quaI status with men were a special class of prostitutes, the hetairae.Wives had no public life at all, though they were given the power to managethe home. In the Roman household, on the contrary, the husband had anentirely free hand. Indeed, perhaps nowhere else did the ideal ofpat1-ia potestasreach such complete fulfillment. Outside the home, husbands could also consonfreely with slaves or prostitutes. Adultery was not proscribed so long as it was notwith another man's wife. Fidelity was required of wives, however, primarily inorder to secure the inheritance of property by legitimate children. Though bythe first century A.D. women in Rome achieved some economic and politicalfreedom, they could never assume the sexual freedom traditionally granted tomen.

Homosexualit;y was accepted in both Greek and Roman culture. Indeed, theGreeks incorporated societal attitudes toward relationships between men intotheir most highly developed philosophies of interpersonal relations. Both Platoand Aristotle assumed that the ideal of human friendship was possible onlybetween men. In Plato's Symposium, the unequal relationship between a manand a woman could never give rise to the mutual pursuit of higher than sensualgoods. Aristotle, in his Nicomachean Ethics, could only list the friendshipbetween husband and wife among the lesser forms of friendship that existbetween those who are not equal.

Greek and Roman Philosophical. Appraisals of Sex

The ethical theory of Greek and Roman philosophers was clearly influencedby the cultural mores of their time. The reciprocal impact ofthe theory upon themores is less clear than its later influence upon Jewish and Christian thought.

MARGARET A. FARLEY56

Unnatural Sex Acts

Judaism traditionally has shown a concern for the "improper emission ofseed."Included in this concern are proscriptions of masturbation and homosexual acts.Both are considered unnatural, beneath the dignity ofhumanly meaningful sexualintercourse, and indicative of uncontrolled and hence morally evil sexual desire.4

The source ofthese prohibitions seems to be more clearly the historical connectionbetween such acts and the idolatrous practices of neighboring peoples' than thecontradiction between sexual acts and· the command to procreate. Indeed, theminimum criterion for "proper emission ofseed" is the mutual pleasure ofhusband .and wife, not the procreative intent of their act of intercourse.5

Contemporary efforts to articulate a Jewish position on questions of sexualmorality involve efforts to draw forth as yet unexplicated directions within thetradition and to correct perceived deficiencies in the tradition. Thus, forexample, in a tradition where marriage has been the ideal context for sexualactivity, contemporary questions of premarital sex are nonetheless not yetsettled.6 And contemporary concern to equalize the relation between womenand men encounters the factor of male dominance, which has characterizedsexual relationship from the beginning ofJewish history.

General Attirudes

Attitudes toward sexual behavior differed significantly between the ancientGreeks and Romans. In comparison \vith Rome, the Greeks seem to have had abalanced, humane, refined culture in which sexuality was accepted as an integral

As the tradition developed, moreover, the moral tide ran against concubinage, .and prostitution was more and more proscribed as a matter of conscience if not.oflaw."2

A conflict between the marital relationship and the command to procreate, then,could be resolved in favor of the relationship. The fabric of the relationship hasalways been of great concern in the Jewish tradition. While the core of the legalimperative to marry is the command to procreate, marriage has also always beenconsidered a duty because it conduces to the holiness ofthe partners. Holiness hererefers more to the opportunity for channeling sexual desire than to companionshipand mutual fulfillment, but the latter are clearly included in the purposes ofmarriage and are an expected concomitant result. Now it is the element ofholinessin the Jewish concept ofmarriage that has proved decisive in determining questionsof fertility control. Contraception is allowed for the sake ofpreserving the existingmarriage relationship when a new pregnancy would be harmful either to the wife orto the welfare ofexisting children.3 It is morally preferable to abstinence because itis the husband's duty to promote the happiness and holiness of his 'wife throughuniting with her in sexual union.

CHRISTIAN TRADITIONS

59SEXUAL ETHICS

uences, and expressive of change and development through succeedingenerations of Christians. Christianity does not begin with a systematic code of

s~:xual ethics. The teachings of Jesus and his followers, as recorded in the New"Testament, provide a central focus for the moral life of Christians in thetommand to love God and neighbor. Beyond that, the New Testament offersgrounds for a sexual ethic that (1 J...values marriage and procreation on the onehand and celibacy on the other; (2) gi~~ortanceor more to interna'attitudes aii'd thoughts as to external actions; and (3) affir~~~cmea.nr:rr~rf6rsex~inatesit as a value to other humanvalue-san n s in it a possibility for evil.

-'~"~~"~'-~

Stoic and Gnostic InfluencesChristian Understandings of Sex

Christianity emerged in the late Hellenistic Age when even Judaism with itsstrong positive valuation of marriage and procreation was influenced by thed~ropologiesofStQic I2bilos~ and Gnostic religious. New Testa­ment writers as well as the Fathers of the church found a special appeal in Stoicdoctrines of the mind's control of body and of reason's effecting detachmentfrom all forms of passionate desire. Stoicism, though this-worldly in itself,blended well with the early Christian expectation of the end of the world. More

it offered a way of rational response to Gnostic devaluation ofmarriage and procreation.

Gnosticism was a series of religious movements that deeply affected formula­tions ofChristian sexual ethics for the first three centuries'? Combining elementsof Eastern mysticism, Greek philosophy, and Christian belief, the Gnosticsclaimed a special "knowledge" of divine revelation. Among other things, theytaught that marriage is evil or at least useless, primarily because the procreationof children is a vehicle for forces of evil. That led to two extreme positions inGnosticism--one that opposed all sexual intercourse and hence prescribedcelibacy, and one advocating every possible experience of sexual intercourse solong as it was not procreative.

What Christian moral teaching sought in order to combat both Gnosticrejection of sexual intercourse and Gnostic licentiousness was a doctrine thatincorporated an affirmation of sex as ood bec art of crea' n but setseri.£.t.:~...2-mits to sexual activity (and hence provided an order for sexualemotion). The Stoic doctrine ofjustification ofsexual intercourse by reason ofitsrelation to procreation served both of those needs. The connection madebetween sexual intercourse and procreation was not the same as the Jewishaffirmation of the importance of fecundity, though it was in harmony with it.Christian teaching could thus both affirm procreation as the central rationale forsexual union and advocate virginity as a praiseworthy option for Christians whocould choose it.

With the adoption of the Stoic norm for sexual intercourse, the direction ofChristian sexual ethics was set for centuries to come. A sexual ethic that

MARGARET A. FARLEY

Like other religious and cultural traditio;J,Sft'Ifet:rachings within the Christitradition regarding human sexuality ar~ei, su!2j~E!e outsi~

58

Overall it must be said that Greek and Roman philosophy contributed dsubsequent distrust of sexual desire and negative evaluation of sexual pleasur:The Pythagoreans in the sixth century B.C. advocated purity of the body for thsake of culture of the soul. The force of their position was felt in the latethinking of Socrates and Plato. Though Plato moved from the general hostilito pleasl!f~.£hJ.!larks the Gorg7as; fQ a..qrefhl:WsItnction between lower anhig~~~qLe.sjn, for examp!e,.the-Republic, Phaedo) Symposium, and Philebu.sexual pleasure continued to be deprecated as one of the lower pleasures. Abov,all Plato wanted to unleash not to restrain the ower oferos, which could mov,the human spirit to union with the greatest good. I bodily pleasures could btak~ triat pursuit, there was no 05jectlon to them. But Plato thoughtfinally, that the pleasure connected with sexual intercourse diminished quantitatively the power oferos for higher things.

Aristotle, like Plato, distinguished between lower and higher pleasures,placing the pleasures of touch at the bottom of the scale. He was sufficientlymore this-worldly than Plato to caution moderation rather than transcendence,however. He never conceived o~ossibilitY of equality or mmna1ity in

~ti9E.§hipsbetween.rnenancrwomen(and opposed Plato's design for this inthe Republic and Laws). The highest forms of friendship and love, and 0

happiness in the contemplation of the life of one's friend, had no room for thlincorporation of sexual activity and even less room than Plato for the possiblnurturing power oferotic love.

Of all Greek philosophies, Stoicism had the greatest impact on RomPl-Y.1.m.2E.hy and on the early formatl]?n of l;tt@an thought. Philosophers sucas Seneca, Musonius Rufus, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius taught a strondoctrine of the power of the human will to regulat~,_,.em0tian.a[ldof thdesirability of such regulation for the sake of innerpea~~~~like th,passions of fear and anger, was in itself irrational, disturbing, liable to excess. Ineeded to be moderated ifnot eliminated. It could never be indulged for its 0

sake, but only if it served some rational purpose. The goal of procreatioprovided that purpose. Hence, even in marriage, sexual intercourse was moralljustified only when it was engaged in for the sake ofprocreation.

The Greco-Roman legacy to Western sexual ethics contained, somewhaironically, little ofthe freedom and imagination ofsex life in ancient Greece. Thdominant themes picked up by later traditions were suspicion and control;elimination, or severe restriction. This may have been largely due to the failure 0

both the Greeks and the Romans to integrate sexuality into their best insightsinto human relationships. Whether such an integration was in principlepossibility remained an unanswered question in the centuries that followed.

61SEXUAL ETHICS

The Teaching ofAquinas

Thomas Aquinas came on the scene in the thirteenth century at a time whenrigorism prevailed in Christian teaching and church discipline. His massive andinnovative synthesis in Christian theology did not offer much that was new in thearea of sexual ethics. Yet 'there was a clarity regarding all that was broughtforward from the tradition that made Aquinas's o\""n participation important forthe generations that succeeded him. Christian moral teaching as he understoodit included a disclaimer regarding the intrinsic evil of sexual desire. Moral evilalways and only tied up \vith evil moral choice and not with spontaneous bodilytendencies or desires. Yet there is in fallen human nature, as the result ofOliginalsin, a loss of order in natural human tendencies. All emotions are good insofar asthey are ordered according to reason; they become evil when they are freelyaffirmed in opposition to reason's norm.

Aquinas oftered two grounds for the pro~reati"ye nQLW......Qf rea SOD , ~h..J;be

tradinon"liaasotar affirmed. One was the Augustinian argument that sexualpleas;·;~;:-I';;;~thetallen human person, hinders the best working of the~It must, then, be brought into some accord with reason by having anoverriding value as its goal. No less an end than procreation can serve to justif)rit.9 But j..<;s:ondl··, reasor does not merely provide a ood ur ose for sexualple~e. It discovers t at u ose throu h the very facts of the biologicalfuncti().1l ofsexual organs. 10 Hence, the norm 0 reason 111 sexual behavior is notonly the conscious intention of procreation but the accurate and unimpededphysical process whereby procreation is possible. So important is this process that

and even certain positions for sexual intercourse according as they \veredepartures from the procreative norm.

The rise of the courtly love tradition and new forms of mystical ideologies inthe twelfth century presented a new challenge to the procreation ethic. Onceagain the meaning of sexuality in relation to marriage and procreation wasquestioned, and Christian moral theory reacted by renewing its commitment toAugustine's sexual ethic. In theology, Peter Lombard's Sentences led the way inrenewing the connection between concupiscence and original sin, so that sexualintercourse within marriage demanded once again a procreative justification. Inchurch discipline, this was the period of Gratian's great collection of canon law,and canonical regulations were shaped with the rigorism dictated by a sexualethics that held all sexual activity to be evil unless it could be excused under therationale of a procreative purpose.

While the tradition became more and more emphatic in one direction,nonetheless other directions were being opened. A few voices (for example,Abelard and John Damascene) continued to argue that concupiscence does notmake sexual pleasure evil in itself, and that sexual intercourse in marriage can bejustified by the intention to avoid fornication. The courtly love tradition, while itserved to rigidifY the opposition, nonetheless also introduced a powerful newelement in its assertion that sexuality can be a mediation of interpersonallove.8

MARGARET A. FARLEY60

concerned itselfprimarily with affirming the good ofprocreation and thereby thegood of otherwise evil sexual tendencies was, moreover, reinforced by thecontinued appearance ofantagonists who played the same role the Gnostics hadplayed. No sooner had Gnosticism begun to wane than, in the fourth century,Manichaeanism emerged. And it was largely in response to Manichaeanism that,Au~stine formulated his sexual ethic-an ethic which continued15ey~:md e OlC e ements already incorporated by Clement of Alexandria,Orige~Ambrose, and Jerome..._-.•.._._-_.-----The Sexual Ethics of St. Augustineand Its Legacy

Augustine argued against the Manichaeans in favor of the goodness ofmarriage and procreation (On the Good of Marriage), though he shared withthem a negative view of sexual desire as in itself a tendency to evil. Because evilwas for him, however, a privation of right order (and not an autonomousprinciple), it was possible to reorder sexual desire according to reason, tointegrate its meaning into a right and whole love ofGod and neighbor. That wasdone only when sexual intercourse had the purpose of procreation.!E,tg:coursewithout a procreative purpose was, according to Augustine, sinfu! (though notnecessanly lethaIly so). Marriage, on the other hand, had a threefold purpose:

1not only the good ofchildren, but also the goods of fidelity between spouses (as'opposed to adultery) and the indissolubility of their union (as opposed todivorce). Augustine wrote appreciatively of the possibility oflove and compan­ionship between persons in marriage, but he did not integrate a positive role forsexual intercourse.

In his writin~th.u..eI.a-g~aHs.+.Mar-J:iag.e.antLCall-..f~lcence) Augustinetried to clarifY~~of sexual desire in a theology oforigin~ thoughfor~1 'ne ori i 'n ,vas a sin 0 t e spirit (the sin 0 pn e Isobedience),its eftects were most acutely seen in the c 1aos experienced when sexual desirewars against reasoned choice of higher goods. Moreover, the loss of integrity inaffectivity (the eftect of original sin) is, according to Augustine, passed on fromone generation to another through the mode of procreation wherein sexualintercourse always interferes with self-possessed reason and will. Augustine'Sformulation of a sexual ethic held sway in Christian moral teaching until thesixteenth century. There were a few Christian writers (for example, JohnChrysostom) who raised up the Pauline purpose for marriage-that is, as aremedy for incontinence. Such a position hardly served to foster a moreoptimistic view of the value of sex, but it did ofter a possibility for moralgoodness in sexual intercourse withom a direct rclation to procreation. From thesixth to the eleventh century, the weight of Augustine's negative evaluation of.·sexuality became even more burdensome. Following the premise that sexualintercourse can be justified only by its relation to procreative purpose, thePenitentials (manuals providing lists of sins and their prescribed penances)detailed prohibitions of adultery, fornication, oral and anal sex, contraception,

63SEXUAL ETHICS

ened it. The effects of the new theories of human sexuality were felt in theortant controversies of the sixteenth-century Reformation and Counter

ormation within Christianity.

"formation Teaching on SexQuestions of sexual behavior played a significant role in the Protestantformation. The issue of clerical celibacy, for example, was raised..l!Q! just as aatter of church' disc~£Iin~ but" .~estlon'·-i'ntrmateiYne(rTnto doctrinalritroversles~over-·mture and grace, original sin, sacramental theology, andc~Martin Luther and John Cllvin were both, paradoxically, deeplyrilluenced by the Augustinian tradition regarding original sin and its conse·

'quences for human sexuality. Yet both developed a positiol1 an marriage that was"complementarv to"" ifY-91.J!1 opposition vvith, the procreative ethic. LikeAugustine and the Christian tradition that followed fum, they affirmed marriageand human sexuality as part of the divine plan for creation, and therefore good.But they shared Augustine's pessimistic view of fallen nature in which humansexual desire is no longer ordered as it should be 'within the complex structure ofthe human personality. The cure for disordered desire that Luther offered,however, was not the one~t forth by Augustine. For Luther, the remedy wasmarriage; for ;~ygJ1StiB@, it W<lS celibaqL. And so the issue was joined over a ke);--"el~ent in Christian teaching regarding sexuality. Luther, ofcourse, was not thefirst to advocate marriage as a remedy for unruly sexual desire. But he took on thewhole of the Christian tradition in a way that no one else had, challenging theoryand practice, offering not just an alternative justification for marriage but a viewof the human person that demanded marriage for almost all Christians (TheEstate of Marriage). Sexual pleasure itself, then, in one sense needed nojustification. The desire for it was simply a fact of life. It remained, like all thegivens in creation, a good so long as it was channeled through marriage into themeaningful whole of life (which included above all, for Luther, the good ofoffspring). What there was in it that was a distraction from the "knowledge andworship of God," and hence sinful, had to be simply forgiven, as did theinevitable sinful elements in all dimensions ofhuman life (A Sermon on the Estate

ofMan-iage).C~~i.n.....t.~J saw marriage as a corrective to otherwise disordered desire.s. But~-=-,- " .

Calvin went beyond that in affirm~thatthe greatest good of marriage and sex.is the mutual society that is formed between husband and wife (Commentary onGenesis). Calvin thought that sexual desire is more subject to control than didLu~thoughwhatever fault remains in it is "covered over" by marriage. 15 H"'Cworried that marriage, while it is the remedy for incontinence, could nonethelessbe it~elf a provocation to "uncontrolled and dissolute lust."

T~e converse of~uther'sandCalvin's teaching regarding marriage wastheir opposition to premarital and extramarital sex less out of a concern forirres onsib1e procreation than out of a belief that sexuahty not restrained by th~marriage bond was whollY disor ere. 0 concerne was u er to proVI e some~-

MARGARET A. FARLEY62

Fifteenth-Century Justifications ofNonprocreative Sex

Though what had cystallized in the Middle Ages canonically and theologicallywould continue to influence Christian moral teaching into the indefinite future,the fifteenth century marked the beginning of significant change. Finding somegrounds for opposing the prevailing Augustinian sexual ethic in both Albert theGreat and in the general (ifnot the specifically sexual) ethics ofThomas Aquinas,writers such as Denis the Carthusian began to speak ofthe possible integration ofspiritual love and sexual pleasure. Martin LeMaistre, teaching at the Universityof Paris, argued that sexual intercourse in marriage is justified for its own sake;that is, sexual pleasure can be sought precisely as sexual pleasure, as the oppositeof the pain experienced in the lack of sexual pleasure. When it is enjoyed thus itcontributes to the general well-being of the persons involved. The influence ofLeMaistre and others was not such as to reverse the Augustinian tradition, but it

)

' whether or not procreation is in fact possible (that is, whether or not acI concc;ption can take place-as it could not in the case of the sterile), i' sufficient that the process of intercourse be complete and there be no intenti

to avoid procreation. If per accidens generation cannot follow, nonethelessintercourse is in its essence justifiable.

It was the procreative norm for sexual intercourse that provided specific morules to govern, either directly or indirectly, a variety of sexual activitiesrelationships. In addition to a general proscription of anything that producsexual pleasure for its own sake (not justified by the purpose of procreation)Aquinas argued from the assumption that sexual intercourse would be procreative to considerations of the morality of instances of intercourse from thstandpoint of the progeny that might result. Thus, for example, he ara ainst for . a . n and adultery on the grounds that they injure a child bornthe union bv not rovidin a responsible context or Its reann. e argueagaInst divorce because the children 0 a marriage need a stable home in order togro}YintQ_xlKfullness ot hte. He c~I?:?!~exua:racts that could not meet therequirements of the biological norm for heterosexual mtercourse immoralbec~there was no way in \vhich they could be procreative. And he opposedcontraception not oilly because it was in mtentlon nonprocreative but because iconstituted an injury against an unborn child and/or the human species. ll

Aquinas's treatment ofmarriage contained only hints ofpossible new insights\ regarding the relation of sexual intercourse to marital love. He worked out aItheo.q!... ve as a assion that had room in it for an assertion that sexual unionIcar:..£~.an aid to interpersonal love, and_~~.!Lad the bare beginnings ofa

iof marria~~,.~h"~!....QQ~ned it to the_p_Q~~~_of maximum friendshi{2,.13 Indeed,someThomistic scholars assert that a closer analysis ofAquinas's texts shows thathe broke with Augustine's theory of procreative sex and fully justified maritalintercourse as an expression of the good of fidelity. In so doing he rejected onlyantiprocreative marital intercourse. 14

65SEXUAL ETHICS

In ProtestantismIn the meantime, twentieth-century theological reflection on sexual behavior

has developed as dramatically in the Protestant communities as in the RomanCatholic. After the Reforrnation, PLQ.te~nt sexual ethics continued to affirmhete~~xual marriage as tbs:-on1y acceptable context for sexual activity. Lutheranpietism and CalvinisticE.uritanism...c.Q~exin marriage only as acorrec:P,Y~.t.2~9isordered sexual desl~.~_.2L.~.§..jt.!Jle(,l..ll.S...to."proa~tiGfl-G-t2liildren 1~Exc~pt for th~'-dlfterences-'re'g;~ding celibacy and divorce, sexual norms inProtestantism looked much the same as those in the Roman Catholic tradition.Nineteenth.~centur.XJ;>IQi-~.sianti~m:;~slliiI~~Iiinii.eiiCea:J)¥::me::::u.~nalsexual attim'd~s'~TRomanticism (with the exception ofperhaps Schleiermacher),and it shar-e(rthe"'~clm~;lpressures ofVictorianism. But in the twentieth centurvProtestantti~was deeply attectcd-by historical studies that revealed th~early roots of Christian sexual norms,20 biblical research that questioned directrecourse to explicit biblical sexual norms,21 and new philosophical anthropolo­

gies and psychoanalytic theories.It is difficult, of course, to trace one clear line of development in twentieth-

century Protestant sexual ethics, or even as clear a dialectic as may be found inRoman Catholicism. The fact that Protestantism in general was less dependentfrom the beginning on the procreative ethic may have led it almost unanimously

'asti Connubii, the full rationale for the procreative ethic.16 At the same time,e gave approval for .the use ofthe rhythm method for restricting procreation, anpproval that Pius XII reiterated in an address to midwives in 1951.17 Theolo­'ans such as Bernard Haring, JosefFuchs, John Ford, and Gerald Kelly began to

move cautiously in the direction of allowing sexual intercourse in marriageWithout a procreative intent and for the purpose of fostering marital union..... The change in Roman Catholic moral theology from the 1950s to the 1970swas' dramatic. The wedge introduced between procreation and sexual inter­course by the acceptance ofthe rhythm method joined with new understandingsof the totality of the human person to support a radically new concern forsexuality as an expression and cause of married love. The effects of thistheological reflection were striking in the Vatican II teaching on marriage. Hereit was affirmed that the love essential to marriage is uniquely expressed andperfected in the act of sexual intercourse (Second Vatican Council). 18 Althoughthe Council still held that marriage is by its very nature ordered to theprocreation of children, it made no distinction between the primary andsecondary ends of marriage. Nonprocreative marital intercourse thus was ac­cepted by the Catholic community. This' was recognized by Paul VI in hisencyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968, although at the same time he insisted thatcontraception is immoral. The .. de,bate continues between_ thQ~e WhQ rejectcontracep~gg.:;lDdJ:h.ose..whG.believe::thit;c~~~ro.cre~ti'ys;J?urposesfor marl."taI intercourse entails acceptance of contraception. For some, a distinC:­tion between nonprocreative and antiprocreative behavior mediates the dispute.

MARGARET A. FARLEY

In Roman Catholicism

During and after the Reformation, new developments in the Roman Catholictradition alternated with the reassertion of the Augustinian ethic. Though theCouncil ofTrent became t ,f.st-e-{~'l=HTlerric:rI-eotlftcil t'O treat the Fol~..J@lTe inm~~g~it a so reaffirm e m T of the procreative ethic and reem ha-size:5!...!E..~_.~t:.~!i!Y.. of celibacy. The move away rom the procreative ethic bysixteenth-, seventeenth-., and eIghteenth-century Roman Catholic tl1eologiansproved to be primarily a move to lean like Luther and Calvin in the direction ofjustifying marriage for the sake of continence. In the seventeenth centuryJansenism reacted against a lowering of sexual standards and brought back theAugustinian connection between sex, concupiscence, and original sin. Thenineteenth century stagnated in a manualist tradition that never moved beyondAlphonsus Liguouri's eighteenth-century attempt to integrate the Paulinepurpose of marriage with the purpose of intercourse. Then came the twentiethcentury with the rise of Roman C~1hQlif..JJleol.2.&.~'!Unteres -i:n ersr5"f! . m andthe mo\'-e_QQ_~p:~J2~n.Qf!h~J,~:!:~fi~ &:;hurcll'<:~acce t irth contra .

It was the issue of ,cbntr<!.ce· tllatserved once aga' ocus RomanCatholic teaching firmfioo the procreative ethic. In 1930 Pius XI responded tothe Anglican approval of contraception by reaffirming in his encyclical letter,

Post-Reformation Developments

In the four centuries following the Reformation, development occurred, ofcourse, in Christian attitudes and theory regarding sexuality. Yet the fundamen­tal directions of both Roman Catholic and Protestant thought changed surpris­ingly little before the twentieth century. Even now, basic norms and patterns ofjustification for norms affirmed by Augustine and Aquinas, Luther and Calvin,remain intact for many Christians despite the radical challenges put to them inrecent years. The fundamental struggle in each of the Christian traditionsthrough the centuries has been to modulate an essentially negative approach tosexuality into a positive one, to move from the need to justify sexual intercourseeven in marriage by reason of either procreation or the avoidance of fornicationto an affirmation of its potential for expressing and effecting interpersonal love.The difficulties in such a transition are more evident in the efforts ofthe churchesto articulate a new position than in the writings of individual theologians.

institutionally tempering form to sexual desire that he preferred a seconmarriage to adultery (yet so inevitable did he consider the need for sexual activithat he allowed adultery for either a husband or wife whose spouse was impotenor frigid). Both Luther and Calvin were opposed to divorce, though j'

possibility was admitted in a situation of adultery or impotence. Overall, evesexual moral norm \vas influenced by the belief that any sex outside the forgivingcontext of marriage was sinful. Hence, Calvin unquestioningly opposed homo­sexuality and bestiality along with adultery and fornication (though he followedthe scholastics in considering the first two a violation ofnature).

64

NOTES

67SEXUAL ETHICS

11. Josef Fuchs, Die Sexualcthik des heiligen Thomas von Aquin (Cologne: J.P.

achem, 1949), 181.12. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, 26,11.13. Aquinas, Summa Comra Gentiles III, 123.14. Fabian Parmisano, "Love and Marriage in the Middle Ages," New Blackfriars 50

599-608, 649-60; Germain G. Grisez, "Marriage Reflections Based on St.and Vatican Council II," Catholic Min.d (June 1966): 4-19.

John Calvin, Institutes ofthe Christian Religion 2,8,44.16. Pius XI, "Casti Connubii," Acta Apostolica Sedis 22 (1930): 539-92, trans. as

Christian Marriage," Catholic Mind 29 (1931): 21-64.17. Pius XII, "His Holiness Pope Pius XII's Discourse to Members of the Congress

ofthe Italian Association ofCatholic Midwives, Castle Gandolfo, Monday, 29th October,1951," Catholic Documents: Containing Recent Pronouncements and Decisions of HisHoliness Pope Pius XII, no. 6, 1952, 1-16.

18. Second Vatican Council, "Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the ModernWorld," T71C Sixteen Documents of Vatican II and the Instruction on the Liturgy (Boston:St. Paul Editions, 1962),511-625, esp. chap. 1, sec. 49, pp. 563-64, Gaudium et Spes.

19. William Graham Cole, Sex in Christiani~yand Psychoanalysis (New York: Oxford

University Press, 1955), 162.20. Derrick Sherwin Bailey, Sexual Relation in Christian Thought (New York: Harper

& Brothers, 1959); London cd. titled The Man- Woman Relation in Christian T710Ught.21. Heinrich Baltensweiler, "Current Developments in the Theology of Marriage in

the Reformed Churches," The Future of Ma1"1'iage as Institution, ed. Franz Bockle;Concilium: Theology in the Age of Renewal, vol. 55 (New York: Herder & Herder,

1970),144-51.22. Alastair Heron, TOn'ard a Quaker Vien' of Sex: An Essay by a Group of Friends

(London: Friends Home Service Committee, 1963, 2d rev. ed. 1964).23. Helmut Thielicke, The Ethics ofSex (New York: Harper & Row, 1964),269-92;

Derrick Sherwin Bailey, Homosexuality and the Weste1'11 Ch1'istian Tradition (New York:Longmans, Green & Co., 1955). Reprint, Shoe String Press, 1975.

24. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, ed. by G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance, vol. 3pt. 4: "The Doctrine ofthe Word of God" (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1961), 166.

MARGARET A. FARLEY66

1. David Feldman, Mal'ital Relations, Bil,th Control and Abortion in jewish Law(New York: Schocken Books, 1974),27.

2. Eugene B. Borowitz, Choosing a Sex Ethic: A jewish Inquil)1, Hillel Library Series(New York: Schocken Books, 1969),47.

3. Feldman, Marital Relations, 42-53.4. Louis M. Epstein, Sex Lan's and Customs in judaism (New York: Block Publish-

ing Co., 1948; reprint, Ktav Publishing House, 1967), 134-47.5. Feldman, Marital Relations, 104.6. Borowitz, Choosing a Sex Ethic, 50.7. John T. Noonan, Jr., Contraception: A History of Its Tnatmmt by the Catholic

Theologians and Canonists (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press,1965), 78-136.

8. Denis.De Rougemem, Love in th£Westirn W01'ld, crans. Montgomery Belgian,rev. ed. (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday/Anchor Books, 1957),65.

9. Thomas Aquinas, Summa T71eologiae I-II, 34 1 ad 1.10. Ibid., II-II, 154, 11; Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles III, 122,4 and 5.

to a much easier acceptance of, for example, contraception. The AnglicLambeth Conference in 1930 marked the beginning ofnew official positions 0

the part ofmajor Protestant churches in this regard. Protestant theologians froBonhoeffer to Barth, Brunner to Reinhold Niebuhr, Thielicke to Ellul, havtconcurred with this change.

Th$ fact that Protestant serna! ctl'l:tCS"11as more neqaclItI5rrreenbiblical rather than a natural 1a~-t-l9:"i( may acc~ for its earlier (than RomCatholic) WiIliiigness to favor the civil rights of homosexuals. This would not

( account as easilY···1Or-ili:e~Tact that a number of Protestant churches and. theologians ha~.!ffiKe_~ted~\'position on the morality of homosexuali

well. In 1963 a group of Quakers published a formal essay in which a generalsexual "eth"J.COf mutual consent did not rule out homosexual relationships asaChristian option.21 lhe Lutheran theologian Helmut Thielicke23 and the

glican Derrick S. Bailey have both advocated a new openness to the needs ofhe homosexual at least for the pastoral concern of the churches. On the other

hand, Karl Barth called for "protest, \varning, and conversion," because homo­sexuality violates the command of God,24 and the Lutheran Church, MissouriSynod, condemned homosexuality in 1973 as "intrinsically sinful."

Overall, Protestant sexual ethics is moving to integrate aD lwde;rsr3DdiDg ofthe h~anperson~eand female, int~~ theology of marriage that no longerdeprecates sexual deSIre anasexuaI pleasure as primarily occasions of moraldanger. For the most part, the ideal context for sexual intercourse is still seen tobe heterosexual marriage. Yet questions of premarital sex, homosexuality,masturbation, and new questions of artificial insemination, genetic control, andin vitro fertilization are being raised by Protestant theologians in Protestantcommunities.