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The Object of Matrimonial Consent: A Personalist Analysis
[original Italian: L'Oggetto del Consenso Matrimoniale: un'analisi personalistica, Giappichelli, Torino, 1997. This version published in Forum 9 (1998)1: pp. 39-117]

I. Matrimonial Consent and Christian Personalism

The Vocation of Marriage Faith, vol, 43, no. 4 (2011), pp. 6-9
Marriage is a vocation; it is the vocation to which the vast majority of people are called. It has two clear purposes or, as the Catechism says, a "twofold end...: the good of the spouses themselves and the transmission of life" (n. 2363). It is a call both to faithful love and to fruitful love.
1. The first purpose is that spouses grow together in goodness, and in that openness to goodness which prepares them for heaven. This means specifically that they are meant to grow in loving God (the first commandment) by means of growing in love for each other throughout their lifetime.

The De-humanization of marital sex (Faith (2011), pp. 11-15)

1. Humanae Vitae initiated a new analysis of the conjugal act

Humanae vitae, Paul VI's 1968 Encyclical is principally recalled as reiterating the Church's perennial condemnation of artificial birth-control. But it is much more than that. It opened up the way for a deeper human understanding of what, in sexual intercourse between husband and wife, justifies its being termed the conjugal act.

Sex and Love before Marriage [1]
The sexual relationship is a key factor in the normal process by which each man or woman grows to maturity. Sexuality presents itself to the vast majority of people as filled with interest and indeed fascination. It holds out the hope of a special happiness; and yet is so often characterized by tension and strife. It can be colored by idealism, and clouded by obsession. Tending to draw people powerfully together, it can also leave them bitterly separated.
If sexuality is so important in personal development and in interpersonal relationships, why should it be such a delicate matter to handle, and so filled with complexities and dangers?
It may help towards unraveling this mystery if we start from the concept of simple friendship, especially as the sexual relationship we wish to consider here implies or should imply a special form of friendship.
Friendship