Conjugial Love (Acton) n. 456

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456. XI. THAT CARE MUST BE TAKEN THAT CONJUGIAL LOVE BE NOT DESTROYED BY IMMODERATE AND INORDINATE FORNICATIONS. By immoderate and inordinate fornications whereby conjugial love is destroyed are meant fornications whereby not only the powers are enervated but all the delicacies of conjugial love are taken away; for from unbridled license in fornications arise not only weaknesses and consequent lack, but also uncleanness and shamelessness. By reason of these, conjugial love cannot be perceived and sensated in its cleanness and chastity and so in its sweetness and the delights of its flower; to say nothing of injuries to body and mind and of the forbidden allurements which not only deprive conjugial love of its blessed delights but also take it away and turn it into cold and thus into loathing. Such fornications are wild revels whereby conjugial sports are turned into tragic scenes; for immoderate and inordinate fornications are like fires which rise up from the ultimates and burn the body, parch the fiber, defile the blood, and vitiate the rational things of the mind; for, like a fire, they burst out from the foundation into the house and consume the whole. It behooves parents to provide against this; for an adolescent youth excited by lust cannot as yet impose restraint upon himself from reason.


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