Marriage and the transmission of life

In Genesis, God creates man in his own image, male and female, and blesses them: “Increase and multiply.” The blessing is given at creation, before the fall. The Church cites it for the institution of marriage, as Casti Connubii does. It bears on the teaching that marriage is ordered to children as a gift of God from the beginning.

And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them. And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth.

The account of Onan in Genesis tells that he spilled his seed upon the ground lest children be born in his brother’s name, and that the Lord slew him for a detestable thing. The tradition reads it as bearing on the generative act turned from its end, as Casti Connubii does. It bears on the teaching that the act is not to be frustrated of the begetting of children.

Juda, therefore, said to Onan his son: Go in to thy brother's wife and marry her, that thou mayst raise seed to thy brother. He knowing that the children should not be his, when he went in to his brother's wife, he spilled his seed upon the ground, lest children should be born in his brother's name. And therefore the Lord slew him, because he did a detestable thing:

The psalm calls children the inheritance of the Lord and the reward, the fruit of the womb, like arrows in the hand of the mighty. It is among the gradual psalms, the psalms of ascent. It bears on the teaching that children are a gift of God and a blessing.

Behold the inheritance of the Lord are children: the reward, the fruit of the womb. As arrows in the hand of the mighty, so the children of them that have been shaken. Blessed is the man that hath filled the desire with them; he shall not be confounded when he shall speak to his enemies in the gate.

This psalm of ascent, numbered 127 in the Vulgate, pictures the man who fears the Lord blessed in a wife like a fruitful vine and children like olive plants round about his table. It bears on the teaching that children are a blessing on a home that fears God.

Thy wife as a fruitful vine, on the sides of thy house. Thy children as olive plants, round about thy table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord. May the Lord bless thee out of Sion: and mayst thou see the good things of Jerusalem all the days of thy life.

In Malachias the prophet asks what the one who made the marriage seeks, and answers “the seed of God,” then warns against despising the wife of one’s youth. It bears on the teaching that marriage is ordered to godly offspring and to the fidelity of the spouses.

Did not one make her, and she is the residue of his spirit? And what doth one seek, but the seed of God? Keep then your spirit, and despise not the wife of thy youth.

In Tobias, the younger Tobias prays on his wedding night, recalling Adam and Eve, and says he takes his wife not for fleshly lust but for the love of posterity. The Church has used the prayer as a model of marriage entered into rightly. It bears on the teaching that spouses enter marriage with children and the praise of God in view.

And Tobias said: Lord God of our fathers, may the heavens and the earth, and the sea, and the fountains, and the rivers, and all thy creatures that are in them, bless thee. Thou madest Adam of the slime of the earth, and gavest him Eve for a helper. And now, Lord, thou knowest, that not for fleshly lust do I take my sister to wife, but only for the love of posterity, in which thy name may be blessed for ever and ever.

In 1 Corinthians, Paul says husband and wife owe each other the debt and have no power of their own body, and may defraud one another only by consent, for a time, for prayer. It bears on the teaching that the conjugal act belongs to the shared life of the spouses.

Let the husband render the debt to his wife: and the wife also in like manner to the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body: but the husband. And in like manner the husband also hath not power of his own body: but the wife. Defraud not one another, except, perhaps, by consent, for a time, that you may give yourselves to prayer: and return together again, lest Satan tempt you for your incontinency.