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 TOPIC 23.2
What is Conjugal Love?

Reference: Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 1643-1654

 What is Conjugal Love?

What makes love authentic? What makes love conjugal? Sexuality: substratum
of the gift of self

Conjugal identity: The specific object The two dimensions

being “one-in-the-flesh” of conjugal love of conjugal love

3 essential requirements Why exclusivity Why openness

of this subordination and indissolubility? to life?
What makes love authentic?
True love in general (on the part of the one loved)

loving someone, not for his utility, but for his value as a person, i.e., for his own sake, not for what he has but for what he is
(e.g., love of parents for their special child).

Ultimate foundation for this: each person is loved by God in his uniqueness and unrepeatability, as a some-one, as He loves His only-begotten Son

God shows this love in the very act of creating man in His own image (Gen 1:27-28),
and by giving up His only-begotten Son to redeem man (Jn 3:16).

“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love.” Jn 15:9

True love in general (on the part of the subject of love)

the one who loves gives himself disinterestedly, by helping the one loved attain his true (objective) good
as one made unto God’s image.

Note: loving someone for his own sake doesn’t mean endorsing everything one finds in him, especially if it offends God.

Patience in helping the other overcome character traits that may offend God or make getting along with others difficult.
loving others only insofar as we find them congenial is selfishness.
 What makes love
conjugal?
Conjugal love
◦ a man loves his wife as a person
◦ but insofar as she is a woman
and precisely because she is a woman.

◦ He expresses this love by giving totally

and exclusively to her the life-long gift
of his masculinity
◦ and by accepting her total and exclusive gift
of her femininity.

“I give myself to you as husband,

accept you as wife.”
 Sexuality:
substratum
of the gift of self
Masculinity and femininity: the vehicle or substratum for the
exclusive and indissoluble reciprocal gift
of husband and wife to each other

◦ Why possible: the body (in its specific sexual modification) represents
the person.
◦ The man in his masculinity no longer belongs to himself,
but to his wife. He no longer has the right to give himself (even in mind)
to another.

◦ Reason: the new ontological identity of spouses.

◦ Insofar as their respective sexualities are concerned,
they constitute only “one flesh” (Gen 2:24).

The man is now no longer just “man” but “husband;” the woman,
“wife”.
 Conjugal identity: being
“one-in-the-flesh”

◦ Gen 2: “18  God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone
(man is made for communion)…(So God put Adam to sleep, and
from his side formed, not another man but a person with a different
sexual modification) … 23 Then Adam said, ‘This at last is bone of
my bones and flesh of my flesh (a person equal in dignity to
himself); she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of
Man.’ (cf. “kabiyak”) 24 Therefore a man leaves his father and his
mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh. 25 And
the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed (they
did not look at each other with lust).”

◦ (Jesus questioned about divorce): “It was not so in the beginning…

What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.” Mt 19:6

◦ God instituted man when he created Adam and Eve,

and joined them as man and wife.
 The specific object
of conjugal love
Conjugal love differs from other forms of love
(parental, filial, etc) because it is based on the objective sexual
differentiation and complementation
between male and female.

◦ It has a specific object, viz., the person in his/her sexuality

◦ the man loves his wife as a person, as a some-one loved
for her own sake: “I need you because I love you.”
◦ Not: “I love you because I need you.”

◦ But he loves her insofar as she is a woman

and precisely because she is a woman
◦ conjugal love is conjugal inasmuch as sexuality is used
as the substratum for the reciprocal gift of self
between man and wife
 The two dimensions of conjugal love
Conjugal love has two inseparable dimensions: the personal and sexual.

A personal dimension: A sexual dimension:

it involves the affirmation of the person sexuality is the means or substratum
to express this.
the other is loved as a person for his own sake; the wife’s sexual value must always be subordinated
as an end, not as a means. to her value as a person by her husband

(A wife is hurt if she is noticed by her husband

only when he needs her.)

Fidelity in case of prolonged sickness or disability

of either spouse.
 3 essential requirements
of this subordination
The subordinate role of sexuality in the affirmation of the person does not mean indifference
or insensitivity to the sexual values of one’s spouse:
care for the physical and affective dimensions of the relationship is important.

Exclusivity Indissolubility Openness to Life

not to artificially frustrate
one man, one woman till death to us part its procreative purpose

What it does imply: fidelity to the 3 essential properties of conjugal love

Why exclusivity and
indissolubility?
The exclusivity and indissolubility of conjugal love is not the result
of social or religious convention, but an inherent demand of it

◦ Reason: in conjugal love, the whole of one’s sexuality is the substratum

for the affirmation of the person of the beloved (cannot be “shared”
with another)

◦ Conjugal love: inseparable from the new conjugal identity of being-

one-in-the-flesh.

◦ The marital act: the unique, physical expression of this total, exclusive,
self-giving in the flesh (an expression of a deep spiritual --and
religious– truth).
◦ the enjoyment experienced when one’s sexuality to referred to another
woman (even in one’s mind), would not have a higher meaning except
itself.
◦ Even the tenderness and affection in extra-marital relations is selfishness.
 Why openness
to life?
In conjugal love, every facet of masculinity
and femininity is donated.

◦ To love the conjugally

◦ to love the other in all his/her dimensions
as a man/woman, in all that is sexually different
and complementary
◦ the totality of the donation is missing when some aspects of
masculinity/femininity are not donated.

◦ Contraceptive love: husband/wife exclude

the dimension of potential parenthood in the very act that is
meant to be express total self-giving.
◦ the entire focus of sex is placed on the sensual/affective enjoyment it
gives

◦ The person in his/her totality as a person

is left in a subordinate position
 TOPIC 23.2
What is Conjugal Love?

Reference: Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 1643-1654