Conjugial Love (Rogers) n. 456

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456. (11) Care must be exercised to prevent conjugial love from being lost as a result of unrestrained and excessive fornications. By unrestrained and excessive fornications resulting in the loss of conjugial love, we mean instances of fornication which not only debilitate one's energies, but also do away with the refinements of conjugial love. For unbridled license in such matters gives rise not only to infirmities and consequent conditions of indigence, but also to unclean and wanton immoralities, which make it impossible for conjugial love to dwell in its purity and chastity, and so cause it not to be perceived and felt in its sweetness and in the delights of its bloom - to say nothing of the harm and damage done to body and mind, and of forbidden enticements which not only deprive conjugial love of its blessed delights, but also expel it, turning it into coldness and so into loathing. Such cases of fornication are contemptible orgies which turn conjugial sports into tragic scenes. For unrestrained and excessive fornications are like fires which rise up from below and ravage the body, searing the fibers, polluting the blood, and corrupting the rational elements of the mind. Indeed, they burst up like a fire from the basement into the house, totally consuming it. Care must be exercised by parents to prevent this from happening, because an adolescent boy impelled by lust is not yet able in accordance with reason to impose restraint upon himself.


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