Note 984 — Chapter II · THE TREATMENT OF PENITENTS IN DIFFERENT EXTERNAL CIRCUMSTANCES

Everything is allowed which is necessary, or conducive, to the furtherance and attainment of the object of matrimony. The chief object of matrimony is the procreatio prolis; the secondary object remedium concupiscentiæ, and mutuum adjutorium et solatium in vitæ societate. All that is necessary, and conducive, to the attainment of the principal object, or which serves these secondary objects, having regard for the first, is allowed; whatever frustrates the principal object is mortally sinful, whatever goes beyond this principal object, without counteracting it, is venial sin. For further particulars upon this subject, the confessor should consult the compendiums of moral theology; for example, Aertnys, De Matrim. P. IV. cp. 2, n. 479 ss.; Lehmkuhl, l. c. De Matrim. Sect. IV. n. 834 ss.