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7. PARTNERS IN LIVING

There is no human act in which a person reveals himself or involves himself so totally as in love. In love the best that is in man is brought out to the best advantage. How true this is of marital love! In the sacrament of marriage a man and a woman become one with Love Himself. Whatever brings a husband and wife closer to one another (mutual consent, devotion, and sacrifice) can bring them closer to God; and whatever brings them closer to God brings them closer to one another.1

Marriage Requires Mature Personality

One of marriage's chief contributions to those who enter into it is the enrichment of the personality of partners. This is so because love urges one's personality to go beyond itself. If the marriage has constant sharing and there is mutual giving, husband and wife together become finer personalities than either could have been alone. The strengths of one offset the weaknesses of the other. When in one person there is deep need for comfort, affection, and reassurance, the other gives with generosity. Each contributes love, respect, and happiness to the other. Partners with mature personalities in the making always give of themselves in marriage. This is not a 50-50 sort of arrangement, but a total 100-100 living of giving. In marriage, husband and wife belong entirely to each other — one in mind, one in heart, and one in affections. This unity of love is essential to marital fulfillment and success.

The Honeymoon

To help the newly married couple make the new and more intimate adjustments to each other that marriage requires, a honeymoon of some fashion is planned. "Very commonly the honeymoon takes the form of a trip. This affords a change in environment and removal from old associations. It has importance also in that it affords restful quiet. All this should be helpful in making memorable and pleasant the important transition from courtship to marriage, from the exciting or hectic anteroom to the deeper and more real joys of married life."2

The honeymoon trip, so much a part of today's marriage, is of fairly recent origin. In planning such a trip, newlyweds should keep in mind that they are beginning a long journey through life together. A honeymoon, therefore, is no time for strenuous traveling and sight-seeing, especially if the time at their disposal is short. It should be long enough to escape the horseplay of their friends and short enough so that they will not become bored with each other. Because of the strain and tension during the days preceding their wedding, newlyweds should seek a place of rest and quiet. Getting off on the right foot in marriage is important.

In making honeymoon plans, the couple should not only eliminate fatiguing sight-seeing, they should face up squarely to the problem of finances. To avoid financial difficulties, it is well for them to form a budget at the outset. Overspending on a honeymoon is no way to start a marriage.

Making use of the matter of the sacrament and the contract of marriage also has its problems. Newlyweds will have no difficulty here if they remember that sex adjustment takes time, patience, respect, and consideration for the other person's feelings and attitudes. Haste, lack of the most tender consideration, ignorance of each other's sex nature, and an absence of complete trust in each other can shatter the happiness of the honeymoon, if not the happiness of marriage itself. That is why it is all important for those about to marry to consult an intelligent Catholic doctor and priest to learn the positive side of chastity in marriage.

In planning a honeymoon trip, newlyweds should keep in mind that they are beginning a long Journey through life together.

H. Armstrong Roberts

Some newlyweds spend their honeymoon in the privacy and comfort of their own apartment or home. They do this to eliminate the problems of fatigue and finances that so frequently take their toll of those beginning married life. There is something to say for this type of honeymoon. Providing adequate privacy is assured, money the couple save which otherwise would have been spent on traveling and hotel accommodations can now be spent on home or apartment furnishings. It has frequently happened that honeymooners have returned home only to wish that they had not made such an expensive wedding trip. Before embarking on the road of life together, a smart couple should weigh well both types of honeymoon.

Adjustment in Marriage

The big problem in the early days, months, and even years of married life is adjustment. The word "adjustment" comes from two Latin words ad and juste which mean "justice toward." Adjustment, therefore, means full willingness to recognize, accept, and promote the entire personality of one's spouse so that both will be able to bear the burdens and responsibilities of married life. Adjustment also has reference to the couple's acceptance of God's plan for marriage. There is no room for selfishness in His plan. That is why the best marital adjustments are those that are made by unselfish, generous people. Where the "unselfish spirit of perfect sacrifice guides their every action," a married couple is assured of success.

Complementary Differences

God made man and woman partners not competitors in marriage. How important it is to realize this fact. Before describing the various marital adjustments that will have to be made by both partners, therefore, it is essential that the partners themselves realize that they differ not only biologically but also psychologically. What God has made distinct, let no man confuse.

Philosophers down through the centuries have pointed out the complementary differences of men and women.

Man . . . has initiative, power and origin. Woman has intuition, response, acceptance, submission and cooperation. Man lives more in the external world ... it is his mission to rule over it and subject it. Woman lives more in the internal world. . . . Man is more interested in the outer world; woman in the inner world. Man talks about things; woman more about persons. Man fashions the products of the earth; woman fashions life. . . . Man makes sacrifices for things which are in the future and which are abstract; woman ... is more inclined to make sacrifices for persons and for that which is immediate. Because more objective, man is inclined to give reasons for what he loves and what he does; woman, being more subjective ... is more inclined to love just for love's sake. Man's reasons for loving are because of the qualities and attributes of the beloved. Man builds, invents, conquers; woman tends, devotes, interiorize. The man gives; the woman is a gift.3

According to Dr. Alphonse Clemens, director of the Marriage Counseling Center of the Catholic University of America, there are some very differing traits of men and women in our culture that should be considered. Without such knowledge marital adjustment is extremely difficult, if not impossible. The various traits of men and women are as follows:

Men

Men prefer generalities. Men are more objective. Men tend to be stern. Men tend to be forceful. Men prefer essentials. Men are more passionate. Men are more materialistic.

Women

Women prefer details.

Women are more subjective.

Women tend to be tender.

Women tend to be tactful.

Women prefer accidentals.

Women are more romantic.

Women are more spiritual.

Men are more self-contained

Women are more social.

Men are more egoistic.

Women are more altruistic.

Men tend to dominate.

Women are more submissive.

Men are more steady.

Women tend to moodiness.

Men are content with the prosaic.

Women prefer the poetic.

Men are more conceited.

Women are more jealous.

Men are more pugnacious.

Women are more tenacious.4

From comparing these differences it can be said that ideally every woman possesses the psychological qualities for motherhood: a great capacity for generous and unselfish love, a loving attention to details, a strong intuitive sense, tenderness, patience, long-suffering; while every man manifests the qualities required of fatherhood, namely: strength, clear and logical thought, wisdom to command, resolute and determined will, courage. In practical living, however, it is important to remember that few "pure" types of the masculine and feminine traits can be found. It is perhaps more accurate to say that the perfect human being is a composite of both. There are times when a man should know how to be tender, meek, sympathetic, patient, and understanding. And he does not become less a man for so doing. No man is "just like a man."

The same holds true for a woman. No woman is just another member of her mysterious sex. She has personal feminine characteristics similar to those of her sisters, but nevertheless quite different. At times she may and must display some very definite masculine traits.

Marriage, a Discord or Symphony in Relationships

Getting married is one thing, establishing a happy home quite another. A Christian home is not an outright gift of God; it must be built up by the contracting parties themselves, upon the fixed principles of the law of God. No matter how well matched the newlyweds may seem to be, no matter how well they think they know and understand each other, there will be great need for mutual adjustments in every phase of married life. This requires a great amount of sacrifice. The priest reminds the couple of this at the marriage ceremony. "Sacrifice is usually difficult and irksome. Only love can make it easy; and perfect love can make it a joy. We are willing to give in proportion as we love. And when love is perfect, the sacrifice is complete."

Making marriage a symphony of good living takes time. It is not achieved overnight. It sometimes takes 25 hours a day, as newlyweds are soon to discover, because some days are very long. This adjustment to living harmoniously with one another is best made alone, and by the newlyweds themselves. To paraphrase Sacred Scripture, it is good for them to be alone during this period. If they are forced to live with in-laws, there is usually a serious hazard to peace and happiness. Doting parents do the young couple no great favor in offering them an upstairs apartment. It is almost axiomatic that newlyweds do better when away from the prying eyes and free advice of parents or other in-laws. This is no reflection against in-laws. They may be well intentioned, but studies show that God's command to man to leave father and mother and cleave to his wife is still the best.

Little Things Mean a Lot

The first important duty of newlyweds is to get acquainted. Living under the same roof gives them their first real opportunity to do this. If they are unwilling to make the concessions that are necessary to bring harmony between two dissimilar natures, there is very little chance of success. The emotionally immature person is fundamentally selfish, but unselfishness is a key habit in seeking happiness. Differences will occur, and both partners must make a high resolve to sink their differences. In every case it takes intelligence, character, and time to become an excellent husband or wife. Fortunately nature defers the advent of a child, and in ordinary cases nine to twelve months pass before newlyweds are permitted to become fathers and mothers. This gives time for the mutual adjustments which must be made. Not that adjustments and the need for virtue are exclusively marital characteristics. In every human relationship there must be a harmonious give-and-take between individuals; each must adapt to the other. The same characteristics which make a good child, a good parent, a good employee, a good employer, or a good neighbor will make him or her a good husband or wife.

Thoughtfulness is a good indicator of the vitality of a marriage. Do not let the passing of the years allow this trait to pass out of your married life.

H. Armstrong Roberts

Two important virtues sorely needed by both husband and wife are patience and charity — patience, to bear each other's shortcomings willingly; and charity, to help each other unselfishly in family tasks for the mutual good of the family.

"The Gift of the Magi," a short story by O. Henry, vividly points up how natural it is for two people in love to think first of each other. Briefly, a poor couple, newly married and in love, faces a penniless Christmas. The husband pawns his one good possession, a gold watch, to buy his wife a beautiful comb. She in turn sells her luxuriant hair to buy him a handsome watch fob. Without the magic of love, this story would be a masterpiece of irony. With it, however, each succeeds in giving the other a priceless, precious gift — the devotion of a selfless marriage.

How to Handle a Tense Situation

Tensions will and do arise in marriage. It is important, therefore, that both husband and wife learn right from the outset of married life how to handle such situations. The first thing to keep in mind is that each partner has a right to his likes and dislikes, which may be different from the other's. Understand your partner's way of looking at a situation. Never make a decision when emotionally upset. Leave the place of a tense situation. Develop a saving sense of humor. This is invaluable in tight situations. Never attribute an ulterior motive to another's actions. Few people are truly malicious. Before declaring war on your spouse, talk out your problems. St. Paul warns about never letting the sun go down on an argument, and his advice is as modern as today. Psychologists and marriage counselors all agree that lack of communication between husband and wife is the beginning of the end. "Who is to blame?" is not so important as "How can we set this situation right?"

Money/Matters

Riches are by no means essential for the happiness of marriage, but there should be enough money on hand to provide a home, if only in a small way, and a reasonable certainty of being able to meet the expenses of the new household. Many young men and women today are partners in earning until their children come. Sometimes it becomes necessary for the mother to continue as a wage earner even after the children are born, but this should be the rare exception. Ordinarily the family income is earned solely by the husband. It should be remembered, however, that both husband and wife should decide how the family income is to be portioned out — how much for housekeeping and clothes, how much for luxuries, entertainments, and holidays, and how much for the work of God's Church and the needs of others. This is only just, because marriage is a partnership. It is essential, therefore, that newlyweds know how to budget their income. Listed below are typical expenditures of young couples whose take-home pay from the husband's job ranges from $425 to $575 a month in the first year of marriage.5 These figures can help determine where adjustments in a family's expenditures should be made. If the wife works, net proceeds (after job expenses) from her job should be used to build up a reserve for starting a family or buying a home, rather than for raising the standard of living.

H. Armstrong Roberts

Too many marriages are shipwrecked by financial crises or at least imperiled by them. A realistic attitude toward family finance must be considered a requirement for successful marriage.

Per Month

Food, including meals away from home. $80-100
Rent, or mortgage payments.................... 75-100
Transportation and automobile................. 40-55
Clothing, plus cleaning and repairs........... 30-40
Personal insurance and taxes................... 30-35
House furnishings and payments............... 25-30
Education, hobbies, recreation................. 20-25
House operation, supplies, utilities............ 20-25
Personal care (barber, beauty shop, etc.) 20-25
Contributions (church, charity, etc.)......... 15-35
Medical and dental care, drugs............ 15—20
"Special" (tobacco, alcohol, etc.)......... 15-20
Savings for vacation and Christmas...... 15-20
Savings (or debt payment)................... 25-45

Keeping and Making Friends

Marital adjustment also requires that the couple make every effort to be courteous and agreeable to each other's friends. Sarcastic comments or criticisms of a partner's friends or any minor objections to their visiting the home because of personal dislike should be avoided. "'Marriage does not mean that one gives up the right to keep friends he or she had before marriage. It is taken for granted, of course, that neither partner to a marriage would encourage a visit to the home by any friend who might sow seeds of discord in the home or be an occasion of scandal to the children."6 Marriage partners should realize from the outset that at times relatives will arrive unannounced, even at mealtime. Common courtesy should be practiced at all such times.

Two in One Flesh

Unity in marriage implies many adjustments — social, psychological, practical, spiritual, and physical. This occurs because marriage is the partnership of two whole lives, not of parts of two lives. Marriage has a spiritual side because true love is spiritual and comes from God; it has a social side because husbands and wives and children have to live in a wide world of human beings like themselves; it has a psychological and practical side because not only does it require many mental adjustments, but takes plenty of common sense to face problems like work and money and to keep the home together. It also has a bodily side. In this world, soul and body are united, and the soul cannot do without the body, any more than the body without the soul. Because of this, it is important that the newly married couple possess a healthy attitude toward sex. It is essential that both husband and wife recognize that the use of sex in marriage is virtuous. It was for this reason that God designed its use. Though we are naturally reticent about the basic fact of marriage, it is nevertheless true. Sex was designed by God for marriage. That is why any use of sex outside of marriage is a betrayal of the trust God has given to man. For the unmarried, this means that the deliberate arousing of sensual desire or feeling or the consenting thereto is a degradation of sex that goes contrary to the will of God.

God's Purpose

It is not from anthropology, not from biology, not from any merely human source that we learn the true meaning of sex. It was not human society, but God Who instituted marriage, and He Himself tells us its purpose. In the inspired account of the creation of man we read that God created man in His image — male and female He created them. Then God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it."7

God might have willed that new human bodies come into existence other than the way they do. He could have willed that human bodies periodically divide, as do one-celled animals, and two new beings exist where formerly there had been one. But God willed otherwise. In creating sex, God gave to man a share in His own creative power. He willed that husband and wife become His co-creators in marriage. This was the chief purpose of sex, namely, creation of new life. His second purpose was to unite the souls of man and woman through the union of their bodies in a pleasurable act. Sexual intercourse in marriage, therefore, is of itself the closest possible union of two human beings — a union which is meant to give fulfillment to both body and soul. This unique union is God's reward to men and women who enter into marriage and cooperate with Him in the creation of new life. It is because of this that Pius XII could write:

The Creator Who in His goodness and wisdom has willed to conserve and propagate the human race through the instrumentality of man and woman by uniting them in marriage, has ordained also that in performing this function (marital intercourse), husband and wife should experience pleasure and happiness both in body and soul. In seeking and enjoying this pleasure, therefore, couples do nothing wrong. They accept that which the Creator has given them.8

Marriage Is Sex Sacramentaliied

For a Christian, sex in marriage has a far greater meaning than pleasure and production. It is part of the very matter of the sacrament. By its proper use in marriage the couple receive an increase of sanctifying grace in their souls. In the sacrament of marriage Christ unites husband and wife to each other and to Himself, gives them an increase of divine life and a pledge of all the graces they will need throughout life to deepen their union with one another and with Him.

In His sacraments Christ uses the good things of nature in order to bring us His divine life and His graces. He makes use of water to signify and to effect the rebirth which He gives us in Baptism. In marriage, it is the love of husband and wife which He so uses. Their very union, the expression of their love, is the means He uses to give them an increase of His life. As they grow in love for one another, as they give love to one another, they grow in love for God and increase in holiness. Each endearing act, therefore, each demonstration of affection, each sacrifice made for one another is the vehicle of God's grace, because their very love is part of a sacrament.9

It is sometimes difficult for young people who have not had gradually unfolded to them the beauty of God's plan for sex to realize this at first. But it is true nevertheless. Christ raised the contract of marriage to a sacrament. In so doing He deepened and enhanced the natural union of marriage, already uniquely intimate, into a virtuous act. To use sex properly in marriage, therefore, is a positive act of the virtue of purity. On the other hand, whenever sex is indulged in solely for its own sake apart from marriage, its use is sinful.

The vague feeling sometimes met with that even within the marital bond sexual relations are indecent or little short of sinful, or only reluctantly tolerated, is in no sense Catholic teaching and can find no shadow of support therein. God placed in men and women mutual sex attraction. God purposely attached to the exercise of sex strong sensual pleasure so that men and women would be led to accept the responsibilities of marriage. Within marriage the sex relation is perfectly legitimate in itself and so too is all pleasure taken in it by married couples. The married couple assume the responsibilities and sacrifices of marriage and have the right to its satisfactions. A healthy attitude toward sex implies that one has made a successful adjustment from the misconceptions of childhood to the reality of sex as God created it.lu

The true Christian approach, therefore, to the marital act should be one of awe at a reality sacred in itself. "How it is possible for two people, a man and a woman, to communicate with each other so deeply and intimately and, in the communication, to cooperate with God in the procreation of a child is a mysterious and never-to-be-understood fact. No amount of scientific frankness will help the human being to enter any more deeply into the mystery."11

Parenthood

No marriage is fully perfect that has not a baby in it. This is so because procreation and education of children is the primary end and the greatest blessing of marriage. Everyone contemplating marriage should realize this. For this reason it is presumed that those preparing for marriage know how new life is created.

A baby is a living parable. It tells as no poet can the story of God's infinite wisdom and love and life's real values.

Courtesy of Corler's

Briefly, the life story of every child begins with conception, which takes place within the mother's body. Conception is the meeting of an egg cell of the mother with one of the fertilizing cells of the male substance or semen which comes from the body of the father in sexual intercourse.

It is God's plan that humans created by Him in His image and likeness should love each other, that husband and wife should have sexual intercourse because it is an external expression of their internal love for one another. Sex in its proper context, therefore, has spiritual roots, it comes to us from God and when married couples use sex properly, they honor God with a positive act of chastity, an act intended to share with Him in the creation of another of His creatures. This is done when male cells which are introduced into the wife's body come in contact with the egg cell of the woman. (An egg cell is released from one of the ovaries of the woman approximately once a month.) When this happens, fertilization or conception takes place. Husband and wife by their act of love place the matter into which God gives life or an immortal soul. By this act, man and wife become co-creators with Almighty God.

Fertilization normally takes place in the fallopian tube as the egg passes through it into the uterus. The uterus is where the baby lives while he is growing inside the mother's body. Shortly after reaching the uterus the fertilized egg becomes attached to the lining of the uterine wall and there begins its development into a human being. A saclike membrane filled with fluid, called the "bag of waters," forms around the developing baby to protect him from any jolts or bumps he might get from mother's actions during pregnancy.

The meeting place for the blood vessels of the mother and the baby is the placenta, an organ which develops in the lining of the uterus. The baby is connected with the placenta by the umbilical cord. Through the umbilical cord blood vessels run from the baby out to the placenta and back to the baby. The mother's blood does not actually circulate through the baby. Food, water, and oxygen from the mother's blood stream, and waste products from the baby's blood stream, pass to and fro through the blood vessel walls in the placenta, which is often called the afterbirth because it passes out of the uterus normally after the birth of the baby.

The development of the baby normally takes about nine months. During these months doctors have recorded various phases of the child's development as it grows in the uterus of the mother. At two months, for example, the baby, medically termed "fetus," is about one inch long and weighs 1/30of an ounce. He has a big head and a human face, with eyes, nose, and mouth; he has fingers and toes, elbows and knees. His sex organs have started to develop, and his bones have begun to form.

At three months the baby is a little over three inches long and weighs about one ounce. Teeth are beginning to develop in the jawbone.

Hair begins to grow on the skin and head at four months. The baby is now six and one-half inches long and weighs about four ounces. The eyes, ears, and nose are well formed.

At five months the baby can usually be felt by the mother and heard through the stethoscope of the doctor. At this time the average baby is about ten inches long and about eight ounces in weight.

At six months the baby is about twelve inches long and weighs one and one-half pounds. Eyebrows and eyelashes appear on the baby's head. If born at this time, the baby never survives.

At seven months the baby is about fifteen inches long and weighs about two and one-half pounds. At this stage of life the baby is viable, that is to say, capable of living apart from his mother should premature delivery occur. An incubator will, of course, be required. Despite aids, many babies born at this time die.

At eight months the baby weighs approximately four pounds and is about sixteen and one-half inches in length. At nine months or about termination (childbirth) the baby is about twenty inches long and weighs from seven to seven and one-half pounds on the average.12

Some Medical Problems

Modern medicine has achieved great things in our times. One of its achievements is reducing the number of deaths of both mothers and babies at childbirth. In 1933, 6.2 mothers died for every 1000 live births in the United States. This means that 1 mother died for every 162 live births. By 1960 the maternal death rate dropped to 1 mother for every 3100 births. The infant mortality rates have been reduced from 99.9 per 1000 live births in 1915 (1 out of 10) to 27.1 per 1000 live births in 1957 (1 out of 37).13

While doctors are able to determine by various tests whether a woman is pregnant or not, science has not yet found a foolproof method of determining the sex of the baby. Expectant parents who speculate about this, however, should keep this biological fact in mind. It is the father's cells which determine the sex of a child. Male sperm cells are of two types — X and Y, one which will produce a girl baby, and one which will produce a boy baby. The mother's egg cells are always constantly the same — X.

The Rh Factor

A modern medical problem connected with childbirth which has been exaggerated in our time is the Rh factor. The Rh factor is present in the blood cells of most people. If you have it, you are Rh positive; if you don't, you are considered negative. An expectant mother who is Rh negative and whose husband is Rh positive may develop certain conditions which can affect a baby who has inherited Rh positive blood. This usually happens only if the mother has had previous transfusions with Rh positive blood, or if she has had more than one pregnancy with Rh positive babies. (Babies which possess Rh negative blood are not affected.) A few Rh women may, under these circumstances, develop substances in their blood called antibodies, which while they are not a danger to the mother, can cause a rare type of severe anemia in the Rh positive babies. This is a rare complication (less than one mother out of two hundred), since only a few Rh negative women form antibodies, and most have normal babies. Statistics show less than 5 per cent of Rh negative mothers will have babies who have any difficulty at childbirth.14

The So-Called Dilemma Case

Should the child have any difficulty at childbirth, or should the mother have any medical complications with childbirth, every effort is made by medical science to save both persons. Both have equal rights to life. Under no circumstance does a doctor take the life of a mother under pretense of saving her baby or vice versa. Somehow this old wives' tale has been perpetuated down to our present day, but it is unfounded in fact. For a doctor to choose between the life of the mother or the baby is a hypothetical situation and in practice it does not exist.15

Adoption

"Adoption is the privilege of raising someone else's child as your own. Annually some 100,000 couples receive a child from a social service agency and take on the role of adoptive parents. Another 200,000, encouraged by the word 'approved' stamped in bold letters on their applications, hopefully wait in line. Spread across the country are 700,000 disappointed would-be adoptive parents who fail to qualify under the rigid restrictions imposed by the 500 licensed private agencies and state welfare departments."16 This means that there are approximately ten to fifteen applicants for every child put up for adoption. Selections of suitable parents for the child are carefully made by social workers. An adoption agency's principal assignment is to find homes for children, not children for homes. This frequently takes time. A year, perhaps longer, usually passes before an approved couple receives a child.

Frequently a couple tires of waiting for a child and turns to the black market. Each year at least 20,000 babies are sold or placed in homes under questionable procedures. In 1955 Senator Estes Kefauver and a Senate judiciary committee startled the country by dragging this black-market operation out into the open. According to their findings, the black market is a $35,OOO,OOO-a-year business with couples paying from $1,000 to $10,000 and higher for a baby. Placement by such procedures are usually performed by unscrupulous lawyers and doctors who prey on the misfortune of young girls in trouble.

Ten times more widespread is gray-market adoption. "Gray-market adoptions are 'under-the-counter' placements of babies and young children, private deals worked out by go-betweens, who may include friends, relatives, doctors, lawyers, clergymen. There is no question of willful wrongdoing, and certainly nobody profits from this financially as in black-market transactions. But these placements hover between legality and illegality, hence the term 'gray.' This is because adoption statutes are complex and differ widely from state to state."17

While adoption practices of agencies may leave much to be' desired, black-market and gray-market adoption procedures have nothing to recommend them. When adoptions are the product of independent placements, the blind frequently lead the blind. Good intentions are no substitute for trained and experienced personnel. That is why while it may require some time, sound medical and counseling services by authorized adoption agencies, public or private, are the only way to make sure the right home is found for the right child.

Sterility in Marriage

Marriage does not always guarantee having children. One of today's problems among many a devoted husband and wife is the problem of sterility. "Statistics seem to show that fifteen per cent of all married couples will never have children because of some involuntary sterility for which apparently there is no remedy. An additional nine or ten per cent of married couples will have at most one child because sterility will set in after the first birth."18

Sterility does not void a marriage and should never be confused with impotency. Sterility means that either husband or wife or both lack the necessary qualities for the conception of a child. Impotency, on the other hand, means the inability to have marital relations because of some physical or psychological defect or abnormality.

Involuntary sterility (not to be confused with direct sterilization which shall be considered in the next chapter) in married couples may be due to many causes, some known, some unknown. Sterility may be due to nervousness, tension, fatigue, the result of heredity, the operation of natural laws, a known disease, or a surgical operation. Individuals suffering from sterility should seek out expert medical advice. Frequently doctors will recommend the use of the rhythm method. It was precisely for this reason — to alleviate sterility — that this method was originally designed. Today, however, rhythm is usually practiced for another reason — not to help husband and wife have children but to keep them from having them. (This natural method of birth control will be discussed in more detail in the next chapter.)

Artificial Insemination

During the past fifteen years, 10,000 to 50,000 pregnancies have allegedly occurred in the United States by artificial insemination. The general term of "artificial insemination" is used to include any process outside the purely natural marital act which might be employed to bring about the conception of a child. There are two ways of bringing about a "test-tube" baby, as artificial insemination is popularly called. One is by using the seed of an unknown "donor" in cases where the husband is sterile (AID), the other, when the husband supplies the seed but in an unnatural way (AIH). Both forms are sinful because they violate the natural law of the contract of marriage. "No substitute for human intercourse is morally right as a means of effecting insemination. And this verdict stands no matter how successful artificial procedures have proved in breeding livestock. Animals have sexual functions like human beings, but human beings are not brutes nor can their reproductive activities be dealt with exclusively on the animal level."19 It is for this reason that artificial insemination has been called "artificial adultery."

Pope Pius XII in 1949 informed doctors that "artificial insemination outside of marriage must be purely and simply condemned as immoral. Only the marriage partners have mutual rights over their bodies for the procreation of a new life, and these are exclusive, nontransferable, and inalienable rights. So it must be out of consideration for the child."20 He went on to say, however, that certain forms of medical help within marriage designed to assist the proper act of husband and wife toward attaining fulfillment may be morally used.

Later he cautioned:

The church rejects the attitude which would pretend to separate in generation, the biological activity in the personal relation of the married couple. The child is the fruit of the conjugal union when that union finds full expression by bringing into play the organic functions, the associated sensible emotions, and the spiritual and disinterested love which animates the union. It is in the unity of this human act that we should consider the biological conditions of generation: Never is it permitted to separate these various aspects to the positive exclusion either of the procreative intention or of the conjugal relationship. The relationship which unites the father and the mother to their child finds its root in the organic fact and still more in the deliberate conduct of the spouses who give themselves to each other and whose will to give themselves finds its true attainment in the being which they bring into the world.21

Natural Childbirth

When a mother gives birth to her baby in full awareness of what is going on and cooperates in the process from beginning to end, that action is popularly known as "natural childbirth." Natural childbirth or, as it is sometimes termed, "painless childbirth" or "childbirth without fear" has come into its own in recent years. This has been due mainly to the efforts of Dr. Grantly Dick-Read, a British obstetrician, who discovered that the pains of childbirth were frequently caused by the unnecessary and frequently unfounded fears of mothers regarding childbirth. Since his discovery that fear is caused by lack of understanding of the entire birth process, there has been increased effort by medical authorities to educate women for childbirth. While knowledge leads to understanding and this in turn to confidence, it must not be concluded that childbirth becomes automatically painless with some schooling on the subject. It merely points up the fact that pregnancy should be a most healthful time in a woman's life, not a time of unwarranted fears and anxieties.

SUGGESTIONS FOR READING

Adaption Is It for You?, Children's Service Society of Wisconsin, 734 North Jefferson Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. "Artificial Insemination and the Law," Rev. Anthony F. LaGatto,

The Catholic Mind, June, 1956, p. 323 ff. "Artificial Insemination and Society," Rev. Anthony F. LaGatto,

The Catholic Mind, Vol. 54, July, 1956, p. 396 ff.

*Childbirth Is Natural, Barbara Francis (Notre Dame, Ind.: Ave Maria Press, 1952).

*Childbirth Without Fear, Grantly Dick-Read, M.D. (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1944).

"Fundamental Marriage Counseling, John R. Cavanagh (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1957).

How to Face the Problems of Married Life, Donald F. Miller, C.SS.R. (Liguori, Mo.: Liguorian Pamphlets, 1956).

If You Adopt a Child, Helen and Carl Doss (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1957).

New Problems in Medical Ethics, Dom Peter Flood, O.S.B. (Westminster, Md.: The Newman Press, 1954).

Ten Signs of Love in Marriage, Donald F. Miller, C.SS.R. (Liguori, Mo.: Liguorian Pamphlets, 1956).

When the Honeymoon's Over, Godfrey Poage, C.P. (St. Louis, Mo.: The Queen's Work, 3115 South Grand Blvd., 1948).

Why Not Adopt a Child?, Thomas Tobin, C.SS.R. (Liguori, Mo.: Liguorian Pamphlets, 1956).

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