Should I Ask My Husband? (Clearing Up the Marital Debt Confusion)

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St. Thomas Aquinas - Summa Theologiae


Question 64:  Things annexed to marriage, and first the payment of the marriage debt

Article 9: Whether one spouse is bound to pay the debt to the other at a festal time?
"I answer that, Since the wife has power of her husband's body, and "vice versa," with regard to the act of procreation, the one is bound to pay the debt to the other, at any season or hour, with due regard to the decorum required in such matters, for this must not be done at once openly."

"For it is ordained by God, on account of the weakness of the flesh, that the debt must always be paid to the one who asks lest he be afforded an occasion of sin."

Article 4:  Whether a menstruous woman should or may lawfully pay the marriage debt to her husband if he ask for it?
“[...] she would not be bound to pay it if she had some personal ailment so as to make it dangerous for herself [...]”

Article 5: whether husband and wife are equal in the marriage act

"[...] But with reference to the second kind of equality, they are equal in both matters, because just as in both the marriage act and in the management of the household the husband is bound to the wife in all things pertaining to the husband, so is the wife bound to the husband in all things pertaining to the wife. It is in this sense that it is stated in the text that they are equal in paying and demanding the debt."
Pope Pius XI Encyclical  - Casti Connubii

Paragraph 23
“For matrimonial faith demands that husband and wife be joined in an especially holy and pure love, not as adulterers love each other, but as Christ loved the Church. This precept the Apostle laid down when he said: "Husbands, love your wives as Christ also loved the Church," that Church which of a truth He embraced with a boundless love not for the sake of His own advantage, but seeking only the good of His Spouse. The love of which We are speaking is not that based on the passing lust of the moment nor does it consist in pleasing words only, but in the deep attachment of the heart which is expressed in action, since love is proved by deeds. This outward expression of love in the home demands not only mutual help but must go further; must have as its primary purpose that man and wife help each other day by day in forming and perfecting themselves in the interior life, so that through their partnership in life they may advance ever more and more in virtue, and above all that they may grow in true love toward God and their neighbor, on which indeed "dependeth the whole Law and the Prophets."

St. John Paul on 1 Cor 7:2-5
These statements of St. Paul have given rise to the opinion that marriage constitutes a specific remedy for concupiscence. However, as we have already observed, St. Paul teaches explicitly that marriage has a corresponding special "gift," and that in the mystery of redemption marriage is given to a man and a woman as a grace. In his striking and at the same time paradoxical words, St. Paul simply expresses the thought that marriage is assigned to the spouses as an ethos. In the Pauline words, "It is better to marry than to be aflame with passion," the verb ardere signifies a disorder of the passions, deriving from the concupiscence of the flesh. However, marriage signifies the ethical order, which is consciously introduced in this context. It can be said that marriage

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