There is another major consequence that I will simply mention, because space does not permit further development. Skepticism today is not just about marriage, but about sex itself. It does not take extraordinary anthropological and psychological perception to see that sex today, under an appearance of glorification, is the object of distrust and even fear of sex. There is a growing diffidence about the positive value of sexuality, a diminished sense of the importance of properly developed sexual identity and sexual roles, a barren fascination with physical sex that frequently develops into a revulsion towards it. and, worst of all, a loss of mutual respect and a growing abyss of mistrust, between men and women.
2.
The 1917 Code, in c. 1013, § 1, stated: “The primary end of marriage is the procreation and education of offspring; the secondary end is mutual aid and the remedy of concupiscence.”
3.
Procreation is highly personalistic; we have not grasped the unity of the human-divine sense of marriage unless if children are seen as mere biological by-products of marriage (now available by other methods) or perhaps as optional extras according to the preferences of the couple, and not as a logical fulfillment of the loving personal aspirations of the spouses.
4.
Cf. BurkeC.: “Marriage: A Personalist or an Institutional Understanding?”Communio19 (1992), 287–289.
5.
Whereas Vatican II does not once mention the “bonum coniugum” as an end of marriage.
