Article 3 — Whether it is licit for a menstruating woman to request the marriage debt?

Objection 1: In addition, it seems that it is licit for a menstruating woman to request the debt from her spouse. For under the old law, just as a menstruating woman was unclean, so also was a man suffering an outflowing of semen. (See, e.g., Leviticus 15.) But a man suffering in this way can request the debt. Therefore, by the same reasoning, a woman in menstruation can also.

Obj. 2: Likewise, leprosy is a greater infirmity than suffering a menstrual period. And it causes, so it seems, a greater corruption in children. But a leper may request the debt. Therefore, etc.

Obj 3: Further, if a menstruating woman is not permitted to request the debt, this is only because of a defect which is feared in the children. But if the woman were barren, such a defect would not be feared. Therefore, it seems that at least a barren woman may request the debt during menstruation.

On the contrary, Leviticus 18:19 says*: you shall not approach the woman who undergoes menstruation*. To which Augustine adds, although he had sufficiently prohibited it, here again he repeats, so that it would not perhaps seem to be taken figuratively in higher things. (This is not how Augustine words it, but the thought is the same: see Augustine, Quaestionum in heptateuchum (CCSL 33), Bk. 3, Quaest. Levitici, q. 64.)

Further, According to Isaiah 64:6: all of your justices are like the rags of a menstruous woman. About which Jerome says: At that time men must abstain from their wives, since those damaged in their members are conceived—blind, lame, leprous—so that because the parents were not ashamed to commingle in their chamber, their sins might be evident to all, and more openly are they rebuked in their little ones. (See the Glossa ordinaria, PL 113:1308. A text like this is found in Jerome on Ezekiel: see PL 25:173.) And thus the same conclusion as above.

I answer that, It should be said that to approach a menstruating woman was prohibited under the law for two reasons: both because of uncleanness as well as because of the harm which frequently resulted in the children from this kind of commingling. And so as to the first, this precept was ceremonial, but as to the second, it was moral; for since matrimony is principally ordered to the good of offspring, the use of matrimony is ordered by what is employed for the good of offspring: and therefore this precept also obliges under the new law because of the second reason, even if not for the first.

The menstrual flow can, however, be natural or unnatural. It is natural when women suffer it at the determined times, when they are healthy. However, it is unnatural when they suffer a flow of blood inordinately and almost incessantly because of some infirmity. Therefore, in an unnatural menstrual flow it is not prohibited to approach the menstruating woman under the new law: both because of the infirmity, since a woman cannot conceive in such a state, and also since such an issue of blood is perpetual and long-lasting, whence it would be necessary for her husband to abstain perpetually. But when the woman naturally undergoes the menstrual flow, she can conceive; and again such a period does not last but a little time. Whence it is prohibited to approach such a one, and likewise it is prohibited for the woman in such a period to request the debt.

Reply Obj. 1: The flow of semen in a man proceeds from an infirmity, and semen flowing like that is not suitable for generation. Furthermore, such a condition is long-lasting or perpetual, like leprosy; whence there is no similar argument.

Reply Obj. 2: And by this answer the second objection is also resolved.

Reply Obj. 3: As long as a woman undergoes menstruation, one cannot be certain that she is barren. Certain women are barren in their youth who become fertile by the process of time, and vice versa, as is stated in Book 10 of the History of Animals. (See Aristotle, History of Animals, Bk. 10, ch. 5.)