Aquinas on the End of Marriage

Angela McKay, Phd

School of Philosophy

112 McMahon Hall

The Catholic University of America

Washington, D.C. 20064

Phone: (202) 319 6692

fax: (202) 319 5523

email: mckay@cua.edu

Abstract

This paper examines the question of whether and to what extent Aquinas is attentive to “personalist” considerations in his treatment of marriage. I argue that although Aquinas appears unconcerned with the interpersonal character of marriage in his early Commentary on the Sentences, Aquinas is markedly more attentive to the married relationship in his later Summa Contra Gentiles.

In his seminal work, Love and Responsibility, Karol Wojtyla argues that love plays a pivotal role in sexual ethics in general and marriage in particular. To the extent that men and women love each other in the appropriate way, their relationship is well ordered, and to the extent they fail to do so, their relationship is disordered. All the requirements associated with sexual ethics and marriage, Wojtyla argues, can be derived from considerations about the things that are necessary for or prohibitive of the cultivation of the appropriate sort of love between a man and woman. Even more importantly, Wojtyla argues that while adherence to the Church’s teachings on sexual ethics is necessary for a well-ordered relationship, it is not sufficient: which is to say, adherence to the church’s teachings on sexual ethics provides the foundation on which a well-ordered marriage can built. Obedience to the letter of the Church’s sexual teachings is only the first step of a far more difficult undertaking.

At a first glance, a similar emphasis on the relationship between man and wife seems markedly absent from Aquinas’ writings on the purpose of marriage. For while Wojtyla claims that “the inner and essential raison d’etre of marriage is not simply eventual transformation into a family but above all the creation of a lasting personal union between a man and woman based on love,” (Woytjla 1981, 218) Aquinas remarks that man is naturally ordered to marriage for two reasons: first, because man is naturally inclined to beget and raise children, and secondly, because “among those works that are necessary to human life some are becoming to men, others to women. Wherefore nature inculcates that society of man and woman which consists in matrimony” (Aquinas 1252, 2699). While Aquinas does make some remarks about the proper character of the relationship between men and women in later texts, it is not immediately clear why he makes those remarks, and given the absence of any claim that love is a central purpose of marriage, these remarks often seem to play a rather ad hoc role in his arguments.

Scholars have attempted to explain Aquinas’ apparent lack of concern for the interpersonal character of marriage in a variety of ways. Rita Ranke-Heinemann, calling Aquinas a “pleasure-hating cleric” (Ranke-Heinemann 1990, 156), charges that Aquinas simply despised women, believing them to be accidents of nature whose capacity for child-bearing “exhausted their usefulness” (Ranke-Heinemann 1990, 188). If a woman is no more than, to use Ranke-Heinemann’s phrase, “a kind of flower pot for the male semen” (Ranke-Heinemann 1990, 187), then Aquinas’ lack of attention to the interpersonal aspects of marriage would be easily explained: for on such an analysis it would seem that – contrary to Wojtyla’s claim – the woman simply is an object to be used; in this case, for the production of children. The more charitable John Noonan, who correctly notes that Aquinas displays at least some concern for the character of the married relationship, hypothesizes that the lack of emphasis on married love on the part of medieval theologians in general (and Aquinas in particular) had to do not with a failure on the part of the clerics, but with medieval culture itself: “the theologians of the great theological age were, I would suggest, somewhat in advance of their society in their declarations on the ideal of married love. If they generally phrased their arguments against sexual sins not in terms of this ideal but in terms of an offense to nature or to life, an unarticulated reason for their approach must have been the social acceptance of their arguments” (Noonan 1965, 256).

In this paper, I wish to examine the question of whether and to what extent Aquinas recognized the “personalist” concerns so central to Wojtyla’s account. The key to answering this question, I will argue, lies in Aristotle’s account of friendship. The differences between the ways that Aquinas appropriates Aristotle’s remarks on friendship into his early derivations of the requirement that marriage be monogamous and indissoluble and the way he incorporates them into his later derivations of the same requirements demonstrate an increasing attentiveness to the character of the relationship that should exist between a man and wife.

The Aristotelian Background

Aquinas’ account of marriage, especially his arguments for the necessity of monogamous, indissoluble marriage, is heavily indebted to Aristotle. In both his earlier treatise on marriage in the Commentary on the Sentences and his later account of marriage in the Summa Contra Gentiles, Aquinas draws heavily on Aristotle’s account of the natural friendship that exists between men and women in order to argue first that marriage is in keeping with the natural law and second that the natural law requires that marriage be monogamous and indissoluble. The differences in the portions of Aristotle’s discussion of friendship that Aquinas relies on in order to make his case, however, indicate an important shift in Aquinas’ thinking. In order to see this, it will be necessary to examine the Aristotelian background that Aquinas assumes.

Aristotle’s account of the friendship that naturally exists between men and women occurs after a more general account of friendship. In his broader discussion of friendship, Aristotle has already explained the difference between “true” or complete friendships and friendships of pleasure or utility, which are incomplete and called friendships only by similarity. All friendships, however, consist in some sort of shared activity, and it is the assertion that there are activities that men and women naturally share that forms the basis of Aristotle’s claim that there is a “natural” friendship between men and women.

For Aristotle any friendship – be it a true friendship or merely a friendship of pleasure or utility – consists in a shared activity. Friends, Aristotle says, desire to live together, and not merely to live together but to share in the same activities: “Whatever someone regards as his being, or the end for which he chooses to be alive, that is the activity he wishes to pursue in his friend’s company….They spend their days together on whichever pursuit in life they like most; for since they want to live with their friends, they share the actions in which they find their common life” (Aristotle 1999, 153). This feature of friendship – shared activity – is a feature of complete and incomplete friendships alike, and this is why friendships with good people make one better, while friendships with vicious people make one worse (Aristotle 1999, 153).

It is the activities that men and women naturally share that form the basis of Aristotle’s claim that there is a natural friendship between men and women. Men and women naturally share two of the most basic activities in life. First, they naturally come together for childbearing – which, says Aristotle, “produces a certain gentle association even among beasts” (Aristotle 1999, 134). Secondly, while animals only come together for procreation, men and women “share a household not only for childbearing, but also for the benefits in their life. For the difference between them implies that their functions are divided, with different ones for the man and woman; hence each supplies the other’s needs by contributing a special function to the common good” (Aristotle 1999, 134). Because men and women naturally share the basic activities of life, Aristotle argues that friendship between them is not only natural, but even more natural than man’s inclination to live in society (Aristotle 1999, 133).

Aristotle’s argument that there is a “natural” friendship between men and women, however, only establishes that men and women naturally associate with each other. His argument in this text does not address the character that this association should take. In fact, Aristotle notes that this natural association can take the form of either complete or incomplete friendship. Since men and women share in the basic activities of life, there is at the very least some form of incomplete friendship between them, for they at the very least come together for the advantages that each gains from the other (Aristotle 1999, 134). However, Aristotle also notes that there can also be true friendship between them: “…their friendship seems to include both utility and pleasure. And it may also be a friendship for virtue, if they are decent” (Aristotle 1999, 134).

While the existence of at least some sort of friendship between men and women is established by the fact of shared activity, the kind of friendship that exists between them has to do not with the activities they share but they way they share those activities, something Aristotle has already addressed earlier in book 8. Although Aristotle defines friendship in its most general sense as “reciprocated goodwill,” with the added stipulation that the parties involved must be aware of the goodwill they bear each other, he distinguishes between different types of “reciprocated goodwill” and hence between different types of friendship. Some friendships, says Aristotle, are based on either the pleasure or the utility that the parties involved derive from the relationship. To the extent that a friendship is based solely on the pleasure or utility that each derives from the other, it lacks something of the character of true friendship. This is the case because the friendship is based not on the love the friends feel for each other, but on the benefits that each derives from the other. The other person is, as it were, coincidental to the relationship: it is not the person that is loved but the benefits that the person provides:

“Those who love each other for utility love the other not in his own right, but insofar as they gain some good for themselves from him. The same is true of those who love for pleasure; for they like a witty person not because of his character, but because he is pleasant to them. Those who love for utility or pleasure, then, are fond of a friend because of what is good or pleasant for themselves, not insofar as the beloved is who he is, but insofar as he is useful or pleasant. Hence these friendships as well as the friends are coincidental, since the beloved is loved not insofar as he is who he is, but insofar as he provides some good or pleasure” (Aristotle 1999, 121).

Such friendships, moreover, are fragile and easily dissolved: the friendship ceases as soon as one or both parties cease to provide either pleasure or usefulness (Aristotle 1999, 121).

In true friendship, on the other hand, the parties involved do not love each other merely for the sake of personal benefit. Although true friendships may involve both pleasure and utility, it is neither pleasure nor utility that forms the basis of the friendship. Rather, in true friendship, the love is directed at the person rather than the benefits that derive from the relationship. This is the sort of friendship that virtuous people have for each other:

“But complete friendship is the friendship of good people similar in virtue; for they wish good in the same way to each other insofar as they are good, and they are good in their own right. Hence they wish goods to each other for each other’s own sake. Now those who wish goods to their friends for the friend’s own sake are friends most of all; for they have this attitude because of the friend himself, not coincidentally” (Aristotle 1999, 121).

Unlike friendships of pleasure and utility, these friendships are enduring and difficult to dissolve. Only good people, moreover, are capable of forming such friendships, because vicious people are incapable of loving any but their own advantage: “only good people can be friends to each other because of the other person himself; for bad people find no enjoyment in one another if they get no benefit” (Aristotle 1999, 123).

While friendships of pleasure and utility arise quickly, dissolve easily, and can be had with many different people, complete friendships are rare, and enduring. They must be cultivated over a long period of time, and can be had with very few people. The scarcity of true friendship is due not merely to the fact that the virtuous people needed to sustain such a relationship are rare, but to the fact that such friendships must be cultivated over a long period of time:

“These kinds of friendships [i.e. true friendships] are likely to be rare, since such people are few. Further, they need time as well, to grow accustomed to each other; for as the proverb says, they cannot know each other before they have shared their salt as often as it says, and they cannot accept each other or be friends until each appears lovable to the other and gains the other’s confidence” (Aristotle 1999, 123).

Although complete friendships are rare and must be cultivated over a long period of time, once such a friendship is formed, it endures, for it is based on the other person’s character, something that is far less changeable than the incidental goods the other provides.

Although both complete and incomplete friendships involve some sort of equality, Aristotle argues that complete friendships are the most equal of all forms of friendship. Friendships of pleasure and utility involve a sort of equality, because each party receives something from the other in exchange for what they themselves provide (Aristotle 1999, 126). Complete friendships, however, are the most equal of all friendships because each loves the same thing: “in loving their friend they love what is good for themselves; for when a good person becomes a friend he becomes a good for his friend. Each of them loves what is good for himself, and repays in equal measure the wish and pleasantness of his friend; for friendship is said to be equality. And this is true above all in the friendship of good people” (Aristotle 1999, 125).

Applying the distinction between complete and incomplete friendship to the friendship that naturally exists between men and women, we can see why the mere fact of shared activity is an insufficient determinant of the kind of friendship that exists between them. To the extent that a man and woman associate with each other only for the benefits that each receives from the other – because one, perhaps, desires children, or because the other desires the benefits the other provides – they do not love the other person, but only the things that the other person provides. Hence the other person is coincidental to the relationship, and the friendship is incomplete. If, however, the man and woman love each other “in their own right” and not merely for the goods that each provides, they will have a true friendship.

Aristotle’s explanation of the differences between true and incomplete friendships also illustrates the difficulty that would be entailed in an attempt to make shared activities alone the basis for arguments that marriage should be monogamous and indissoluble. For if the man and woman share in those activities merely for the sake of pleasure or utility, then at least on Aristotle’s account, the relationship will be by its very nature prone to dissolution, and also one which could be shared with many people rather than one alone.

This last point sets the stage for the remainder of our discussion. For, as I will show in what follows, although Aquinas consistently constructs his natural law arguments for the necessity of monogamous, indissoluble marriage on an Aristotelian framework, in his early writings he attempts to derive these arguments entirely from the activities that men and women naturally share. In his later writings, by contrast, he is demonstrably attentive not merely to the shared activity, but to the way men and women should engage in that shared activity.

II. Aquinas on Marriage

Chronology

Although Aquinas offers isolated discussions of topics connected with marriage in other texts, his most extensive treatments of marriage occur in his Commentary on the Sentences and in his Summa Contra Gentiles. Aquinas wrote his Commentary on the Sentences between 1252 and 1256, while his Summa Contra Gentiles appeared between 1259 and 1265 (Torrell 1996, 328). In both texts, Aquinas addresses the question of the “naturalness” of marriage – which is to say, in both texts Aquinas argues that human beings are naturally ordered not only towards marriage, but towards monogamous, indissoluble marriage. In both cases, it is clear that Aquinas draws heavily from Aristotle’s account of friendship in constructing his arguments. Thus, it is clear that at the very least, Aquinas understands marriage as a kind of friendship. Only in the later text, however, does it become clear that Aquinas recognizes that marriage should be a complete friendship, rather than merely one of pleasure or utility.

Marriage in the Commentary on the Sentences

Aquinas’ treatment of marriage in the Commentary on the Sentences is a lengthy one, and much of it is concerned with theological topics outside the scope of this paper. Because my primary concern in this paper is to compare the natural law arguments that Aquinas makes in the earlier text with those he offers in his later Summa Contra Gentiles, I will be primarily concerned to examine Aquinas’ arguments that (a) the natural law requires marriage and that (b) the natural law requires that marriage be monogamous and indissoluble. It is worth noting, however, that the lack of interest in the character of the relationship between man and wife that pervades Aquinas’ natural law arguments also seems characteristic of the theological arguments that appear in this text.

Aquinas’ derivation of the requirements associated with marriage in the Commentary on the Sentences is clearly indebted to Aristotle’s account of the “natural” friendship that exists between man and woman. However, as I shall show in what follows, his arguments in this earlier text are concerned exclusively with the activities that men and women naturally share.

In the Commentary on the Sentences Aquinas argues that marriage falls under the natural law. Aquinas offers two reasons in support of this claim, both of which look to Aristotle’s account of the activities that men and women naturally share. First, man is naturally inclined towards the begetting and rearing of children. However, although man can beget children outside of marriage, the proper education of children requires the institution of marriage:

“nature intends not only the begetting of offspring, but also its education and development…Now a child can not be brought up and instructed unless it have certain and definite parents, and this would not be the case unless there were a tie between the man and a definite woman, and it is in this that matrimony consists” (Aquinas 1981, 2699).

Marriage, then, is required because the rearing of children requires “certain and definite” parents. In response to the objection that some animals do not remain together after procreation, Aquinas explains that the education of human children requires more time and hence requires that the man and the woman remain together (Aquinas 1981, 2670). The second reason Aquinas offers for the “naturalness” of marriage has to do with the natural division of labor. Since men are naturally suited for some activities and women for others, they naturally come together for the “benefits of life”:

“just as natural reason dictates that men should live together, since one is not self sufficient in all things concerning life, for which reason man is described as being naturally inclined to political society, so too among those works that are necessary for human life some are becoming to men, others to women. Wherefore nature inculcates that society of man and woman which consists in matrimony” (Aquinas 1981, 2670).

These two activities – the begetting and rearing of children and the “benefits of life” – are, Aquinas argues, the primary and secondary “ends” of matrimony. Man is naturally inclined towards both ends; matrimony provides the context in which those ends can be realized.

As Aquinas himself notes, the argument that matrimony is in keeping with the natural law is a relatively straightforward appropriation of Aristotle’s description of the two activities that men and women naturally share. Aquinas has simply added the further claim that these two activities cannot be properly carried out unless there be “a lasting association with some definite woman.” After stipulating that this “lasting association with a definite woman” is matrimony, Aquinas argues that even the requirements that marriage be indissoluble and monogamous derive from the two activities that men and woman naturally share.

Just as the proper education of children requires that man “form a lasting association with some definite woman,” so, Aquinas argues, does the proper education of children require that the association so formed be indissoluble. Aquinas argues against divorce on the grounds that the rearing of children, which as we saw above requires that the man remain with the woman, is an occupation which extends over the course of a lifetime: it is never finished, and hence never appropriate for the man to leave the woman. Divorce is thus incompatible with man’s natural ordering to the begetting and rearing of children:

“By the intention of nature marriage is directed to the rearing of the offspring, not merely for a time, but throughout its whole life. Hence it is of natural law that parents should lay up for their children, and that children should be their parents heirs. Therefore, since the offspring is the common good of husband and wife, the dictate of natural law requires the latter to live together for ever inseparably: and so the indissolubility of marriage is of natural law” (Aquinas 1981, 2806).

Just as the man needs to remain with the woman after procreation for the sake of the offspring so created, then, so does he need to remain with her for his entire life. Men and women ought to remain married, Aquinas seems to be arguing, for the children’s sake.

Aquinas attempts to apply the two activities naturally shared by men and women in a similar way to the question of whether it is licit to have more than one wife and to the question of whether it is allowable to have a concubine. Although many wives would not hinder either the begetting or the rearing of children (Aquinas will contradict himself on this point in the Summa Contra Gentiles), it might hinder the second end of marriage, namely the cooperation of man and woman in the works necessary for life, because the presence of many wives can cause strife in the household:

“plurality of wives neither wholly destroys nor in any way hinders the first end of marriage, since one man is sufficient to get children of several wives, and to rear the children born of them. But though it does not wholly destroy the second end, it hinders it considerably, for there cannot easily be peace in a family where several wives are joined to one husband, since one husband cannot suffice to satisfy the requisitions of several wives, and again because the sharing of several in one occupation is a cause of strife: thus potters quarrel with one another, and in like manner the several wives of one husband” (Aquinas 1981, 2794).

Even the “strife” that Aquinas is concerned with here, we should note, is not that which might arise between man and wife, but between the wives themselves: and this strife, it seems, is objectionable primarily because it hinders the completion of household tasks. Aquinas gives roughly the same analysis of concubines: taking a concubine is directly contrary to the natural law insofar as it is opposed to the begetting and rearing of children, though only indirectly opposed if the man intends to have children with the concubine and sees to their education (Aquinas 1981, 2801). It would be directly contrary to the natural law, on the other hand, for a woman to have many husbands, because the male would not know which offspring were his, and hence would not be able to rear them (Aquinas 1981, 2797).

What we see in Aquinas’ early arguments, not only for the necessity of marriage but also for the requirements that marriage be monogamous and indissoluble, is an attempt to derive these requirements strictly from the two activities that men and women naturally share. We see no mention on Aquinas’ part regarding the character of the relationship that ought to exist between men and woman. It is the absence of this, I think, that causes the arguments themselves to be deeply unsatisfying. It is certainly true that the task of raising children occupies a long period of time, and it is also certainly true that the possession of many wives is hardly conducive to harmony within the household. But surely this is not all there is to be said about the matter? If divorce, for instance, is unlawful only because of the time that the upbringing of children requires, then why should it not be licit for those spouses who are infertile or whose children have died to divorce? Or, on the other hand, suppose that by some lucky accident one managed to find women who didn’t mind sharing a husband. Would it then be licit to have several wives? In his derivation of the indissoluble and monogamous character of marriage Aquinas is certainly rigorously attentive to the two “ends” of marriage he specified earlier in his discussion of marriage – i.e., to the two activities that men and women naturally share – but this might lead us if anything to think that there must be more to marriage than he says, for the arguments that he provides aren’t very convincing.

When we consider the above derivations against the background of Aristotle’s account of friendship, it is easy to see where Aquinas’ early arguments fall short. In this early text, Aquinas attempts to derive the requirements that marriage be monogamous and indissoluble solely from the activities that men and women naturally share. Yet, as Aristotle notes, men and women can share in these activities in different ways: the friendship that consists in these shared activities is not necessarily complete friendship, but might merely be a friendship of pleasure and utility. Without further specifying what sort of friendship ought to exist, it is difficult to see how Aquinas could argue that the union should be indissoluble and monogamous, especially since relationships predicated solely on pleasure and utility are by definition both easily dissolved and capable of being shared with many different people.

Given Aquinas’ silence regarding the character of the friendship that ought to exist between a man and wife, moreover, it is easy to see why so many find Aquinas’ treatment of marriage unsatisfactory. For Aquinas’ lack of attention to the character of the relationship, together with his assertion that the two “ends” of matrimony are the begetting of children and the necessities of life, almost seems to imply that marriage is a rather utilitarian arrangement. One who reads the text from the Commentary on the Sentences in isolation might well think that Aquinas believed that marriage could be justified only by procreation and the other necessities of life.

Aquinas may well have found his own arguments insufficient, for in his later Summa Contra Gentiles he offers rather different arguments for the indissoluble and monogamous character of marriage. In order to do so, however, he is also forced to move beyond the “ends” of marriage he offered in the sentences and to introduce more “personalistic” considerations – namely considerations having to do with the relationship that ought to exist between the man and the woman.

Marriage in the Summa Contra Gentiles

In his later Summa Contra Gentiles Aquinas again argues that man is naturally ordered towards marriage, and that, moreover, marriage should be monogamous and indissoluble. The arguments he offers in this text, however, are markedly different than his earlier arguments, for rather than attempting to derive all the requirements of marriage from the shared activities that constitute it, Aquinas argues on the basis of both the activities and the character of the friendship that ought to exist between a man and a woman. The new emphasis on the kind of friendship that ought to exist between a man and woman, I will argue in what follows, indicates a recognition on Aquinas’ part that monogamous, indissoluble marriage can only be defended if the friendship that ought to exist between a man and wife is a complete friendship.

Although Aquinas offers a more detailed explanation in the Summa Contra Gentiles, his argument for the naturalness of marriage is for the most part identical to the argument he gives in the earlier text. Marriage falls under the natural law, Aquinas argues, because man is by nature ordered towards the begetting and rearing of children, and although children can be begotten without marriage, they cannot be properly reared without it (Aquinas 1975, 144). In this text, however, Aquinas offers a more detailed explanation of this claim. Women are insufficient for the upbringing of children, not only because they cannot adequately provide for them, but because they lack the strength required to punish them and the intelligence needed to educate them. Thus while it is not necessary for the male of other species to remain with the female after procreation, it is necessary for the man to remain with the woman in order to see to the children’s education (Aquinas 1975, 145). Aquinas’ argument against promiscuity, then, remains more or less unchanged, or if anything becomes even less palatable. For those looking for a defense of married love will hardly be heartened to find that the man must remain in order to compensate for the female’s intellectual and physical insufficiency. A marked change occurs, however, when Aquinas considers the question of whether marriage should be monogamous and indissoluble.

Although Aquinas initially offers the same reason for the indissolubility of marriage that he offered in his Commentary on the Sentences, namely that it takes a lifetime to raise children, he no longer seems to believe that this argument is sufficient, for he supplements it with a number of other points. After offering relatively the same argument found in his earlier account, Aquinas offers a string of further arguments based on the proper character of the relationship that should exist between a man and woman – namely the importance of equality in the relationship between the man and the woman, and even more tellingly, the friendship that ought to exist between a man and his wife. It is clear from Aquinas’ remarks that he believes that a man and wife ought to have a complete friendship, and that it is the need for complete friendship that now grounds his assertion that marriage should be indissoluble.

After remarking that it requires a lifetime to raise one’s children, Aquinas offers a markedly different argument for the indissolubility of marriage, one that focuses on the equality that ought to exist between a man and woman. If a man were to take a woman when she was young and fertile and then send her away when she had reached advanced years and was incapable of associating with anyone else, Aquinas argues, he would damage the woman “contrary to natural equity” (Aquinas 1975, 148). Moreover, since women are not allowed to send away their husbands, if the man were allowed to send away his wife the relationship between a man and his wife “would not be an association of equals, but instead, a sort of slavery on the part of the wife” (Aquinas 1975, 148). Aquinas’ attention to the equality that should exist between man and wife is a marked change from his earlier statements, particularly because as evidence for this assertion Aquinas references Aristotle’s assertion that equality is above all a condition of complete friendship (Aquinas 1975, 148). Allowing divorce would not preclude the sort of equality that exists in friendships of pleasure and utility, for equality in such friendships exists only so long as there continues to be an exchange of services. It would, however, preclude the kind of equality that exists in complete friendship.

In the immediately following remarks, Aquinas offers a reason for the indissolubility of marriage that goes beyond even the assertion that the relationship between a man and his wife should be a relationship of equals. In the earlier text, recall, Aquinas based his argument for the indissolubility of marriage on the claim that childrearing is an occupation that occupies an entire lifetime. Although Aquinas reiterates this argument in the Summa Contra Gentiles, he then offers a second argument, one that has to do with the relationship that ought to exist between a man and woman. The sort of friendship that exists between a man and woman, Aquinas argues, requires that marriage be indissoluble:

“the greater friendship is, the more solid and long lasting it will be. Now, there seems to be the greatest friendship between husband and wife, for they are united not only in the act of fleshly union, which produces a certain gentle association even among beasts, but also in the partnership of the whole range of domestic activity. Consequently, as an indication of this, man must “leave his father and mother” for the sake of his wife, as is said in Genesis. Therefore, it is fitting for matrimony to be completely indissoluble” (Aquinas 1975, 148).

This is a pivotal text, not only because it goes far beyond Aquinas’ earlier account of the requirement of indissolubility, but because for the first time Aquinas mentions friendship between the man and wife as a component of marriage.

It is clear from Aquinas’ description of the friendship, moreover, that he is deriving his remarks about the character that the friendship between man and wife should have from Aristotle’s description of complete friendship, and not a friendship of pleasure or utility. Aristotle certainly does say that the greatest friendships are solid and long lasting, but what makes a friendship solid and long-lasting has to do not only with the activities that are shared but with the kind of friendship that exists: friendships are solid and long-lasting when the parties involved love each other rather than the goods they derive from the relationship.

A similar shift is evident in the explanation Aquinas offers in the Summa Contra Gentiles regarding the need for marriage to be between one man and one woman. As in his earlier account, Aquinas notes that the possession of many wives by one husband or many husbands by one wife would be a cause of discord, and that “certainty as to offspring” would be precluded if one woman were allowed to have many husbands (Aquinas 1975, 151). He also adds here what he appears to deny in the earlier text, namely that it would be difficult for one man to raise the offspring of many wives (Aquinas 1975, 151). Having offered these reasons, however, Aquinas again appeals to the considerations about the equality and friendship that should exist between a husband and wife in order to explain why it would be wrong for one man to have many wives and vice versa. As with the dissolution of marriage, Aquinas points out that since a woman cannot have several husbands (certainty as to offspring would be precluded) it would be contrary to natural equity and hence create a servile relationship between the man and his wife:

“Besides, friendship consists in an equality. So, if it is not lawful for the wife to have several husbands, since this is contrary to certainty as to offspring, it would not be lawful, on the other hand, for a man to have several wives, for the friendship of the husband and wife would not be free but somewhat servile. And this argument is corroborated by experience, for among husbands having plural wives the wives have a status like that of servants” (Aquinas 1975, 152).

Strong friendships, moreover, can not be had among many people:

“Furthermore, strong friendship is not possible in regard to many people, as is evident from the Philosopher in Ethics VIII. Therefore, if a wife has but one husband but the husband has several wives, the friendship will not be equal on both sides. So, the friendship will not be free, but servile in some way” (Aquinas 1975, 152).

In direct contrast to Aquinas’ earlier version of the same argument, then, we find a distinct concern not merely for equality, but for the type of friendship that ought to exist between a man and his wife, a concern that is strikingly absent from his earlier remarks. Aquinas’ reference to Aristotle’s stipulation that “strong friendship is not possible between many people,” moreover, is clearly a reference to true friendship. For Aristotle contrasts complete and incomplete friendships precisely on these grounds: friendships based on pleasure and utility can be shared with many people, while true friendships cannot.

Conclusion

The comparison between the arguments for the necessity of monogamous, indissoluble marriage that Aquinas offers in his early Commentary on the Sentences with those that he offers in his later Summa Contra Gentiles, then, reveals that Aquinas is progressively more aware of the importance of the character of the married relationship. Marriage, Aquinas increasingly seems to recognize, is a friendship that consists in the sharing of a certain kind of activity. The norms associated with marriage, however, cannot be derived entirely from these activities alone. For what Aquinas’ remarks seems to demonstrate is an increasing awareness that marriage consists not merely is not merely about sharing activities, but about sharing those activities in a highly specific context, namely in the context of complete friendship.

The progression of Aquinas’ natural law arguments is of more than historical interest, particularly for those of us interested in formulating philosophical defenses of the church’s position on contraception. For the differences between Aquinas’ early arguments in the Commentary on the Sentences and those he offers in his later Summa Contra Gentiles should serve to remind us of Wojtyla’s foundational point: the Church’s teachings about the morality and immorality of individual sexual acts can only truly be understood in the context of the Church’s deeper teachings about the proper character of married love. To the extent that we attempt to defend the church’s stance only via philosophical analysis of the isolated actions involved in the sexual act, we run the risk of obscuring the true depth of Church’s sexual ethics.

Works Cited

Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Contra Gentiles (V. Bourke, Trans.). Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. 1975.

Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica (Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Trans.), vol.5. New York: Benziger Bros. 1948.

Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics (T. Irwin, Trans.) 2^nd edition. Indianaopolis: Hackett. 1999.

Noonan, J. (1965). Contraception. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

Ranke-Heinemann, U. Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven (P. Heinegg, Trans.). New York: Doubleday. 1990.

Torrell, J. Saint Thomas Aquinas (R. Royal, Trans.) Washington D.C.: Catholic University Press. 1996.

Wojtyla, K. Love and Responsibility (H. Willetts, Trans.). San Francisco: Ignatius Press. 1981.