A. Opinion of Others

1. Exposition of the Opinion

8. Here it is said [Richard of Middleton, Sent. IV d.31 princ. 1 q.1] that he who contracts matrimony obligates himself to carnal union, at least under the condition if it be asked for; and certitude about not asking for it is found in very few. But in that act a man is deprived of the greatest good, namely the use of reason, according to the Philosopher Ethics 7.7 15-18, “such an act robs the wisest man of intellect.” Hence Augustine, City of God 14.16 [Lombard, Sent. IV d.31 ch.5 n.1]: “Pleasure, than which there is none greater among bodily pleasures - in the moment of time when its extreme is reached, almost all the keenness and as it were vigilance of thinking is overthrown” But no one, according to right reason, should obligate himself to anything by which he suffer so great an evil unless there be there some compensating good; therefore no one ought to contract matrimony unless there are goods compensating this throwing away of the use of reason; and those are said by the saints to be goods excusing the carnal act [Lombard, ibid., ch.5 n.7]. Now these goods are the good of faith, of offspring, and the sacrament [Lombard, ibid., ch.5 n.1].

2. Rejection of the Opinion

9. Against this: that in the state of innocence there would have been a matrimony having these goods, and yet they would not then have been goods excusing the carnal act or the contract of matrimony, because neither the act nor the contract would then have needed excuse.

10. Again, in the matrimony of Mary and Joseph there was no need to set down these excusing goods, nor universally in the case of spiritual matrimony with an equal vow by the spouses of chastity.

11. Again, much more is a man deprived of use of reason by sleep than by that act, and this both according to intensity (hence Ethics 1.13.1102b6-7, “The happy man only differs from the miserable man as to half his life, namely when awake”) as according to extension, because sleep deprives [use of reason] for a long time, but this act deprives it as it were momentarily. Therefore no one, according to right reason, should expose himself to sleep, unless there were goods excusing it and goods better at that time than the use of reason, which however is not admitted.

12. It is said here [Richard of Middleton, ibid.] that there are recompensing and excusing goods in sleep, namely necessity of nature, invigoration of bodily members, strengthening of the organs - because without sleep there would be too much weakness and dullness of sense powers, and consequently impediment of intellect, because the intellect is impeded when imagination is impeded. In another way is it said that one does not in sleep suffer loss, the way one does in that act; because after sleep the intellect is strengthened; after this act it is dulled, so that not only is one deprived of this good through that act, but one is rendered less apt for this good after that act; it is the opposite in the case of sleep.