“Conjugal episodes” is a term invented for discussing the morality of birth control methods for a married couple. An action before, during or after a conjugal episode to prevent conception is morally wrong. Only a married couple can have conjugal episodes. Conjugal episodes are colloquially referred to as a couples’ “making love.” “Episode” is a better term than a technical term such as “coitus” because we need consider foreplay and perhaps what happens after the man has reached a climax. I offer no precise definition of “conjugal episodes.” But a couple realizes fairly well when it starts and is finished. A healthy young couple could enjoy three or four during a single night. Of great importance of using a term which covers a wide variety of activities is that it allows us to focus on some central activities for moral consideration and not engage in moral casuistry about each of the wide variety of acts a couple may perfrom in their conjugal episodes.

The fundamental moral law runs: Promote basic human goods and never intentionally inhibit a basic human good for the sake of a lesser good. Conjugal episodes are for the basic human good¹ of a life-long monogamous union of a man and woman. Proceation by itself is not a basic human good; nor is male/female bonding by itself a basic human good. Definitely, the good of pleasure by itself is not a basic human good. So, the fundamental moral law applied to conjugal episodes tells us that conjugal episodes should be open to conception and enhancement of bonding and never entered into with an intention to inhibit bonding or procreation.

A clear violation of this application is a husband forcing coitus on his wife. Such a violent act is clearly done with reckless disregard for enhancement of bonding. Here, though, my topic is birthcontrol. The application of the fundamental moral law to conjugal episodes is provided in Paul VI’s 1968 Encyclical Humanae vitae – the challenging official teaching of the Catholic Church on birth control.

So, I seem not to have added anything new to the controversy about birth control methods. However, by locating the discussion about the marital sexual morality on simply the relation of conjugal episodes to openess to unity and procreation, we can set aside attempts to evaluate morally the variety of acts a couple may perform in the course of a conjugal episode.

1. Finnis, John. “Marriage: A Basic and Exigent Good.” The Monist, vol. 91, no. 3/4, 2008, pp. 388–406.