Can a Widow or Widower Enjoy Sexual Thoughts About Their Deceased Spouse?

Overview

Can a widow or widower morally take enjoyment in sexual memories of their deceased spouse? This article explains Catholic teaching on marriage, sexual pleasure, widowhood, and the proper role of memory, affection, and grief in the spiritual life.

After the death of a spouse, many faithful Catholics may find themselves wondering whether the physically affectionate, sexual, or otherwise sensual memories of their marriage still have a place in the life of grace. In what way can these memories be enjoyed? Is it ever moral to take sensual or sexual enjoyment in some of those memories? We realize this can be a very touching subject for many, so before proceeding with the article I just wanted to say that one of the main purposes of our Apostolate is to address very concrete moral issues or scenarios that may not be brought up easily in the confessional. For this reason, we aim to offer very clear and precise answers to these moral questions, regardless of how emotionally charged the matter may be.

In treating the potential role of sexual thoughts after the death of a spouse, we must begin by asking this critical question: what precisely is it that legitimizes any sexual enjoyment in the first place? In other words, by virtue of what cause is the sexual dimension of the human person able to be activated without sin? The Catholic Church has always taught that it is the state of marriage alone which fulfills this criterion. It is the state of marriage, whether natural or sacramental, that allows for the deliberate enjoyment of even slight or momentary sexual pleasure, whether internal or external, incomplete or consummated.

As such, not only is premarital sexual intercourse gravely sinful, but all incomplete expressions of the sexual appetite as well, insofar as carnal or sexual pleasure is deliberately enjoyed. Therefore, outside of marriage, all sexually stimulating activity or pleasure is prohibited under pain of grave sin.

The question, then, more precisely, is not so much whether a widow can licitly enjoy sexual thoughts about his or her spouse, but whether there is any sense in which we can consider the widow to still be truly married in the sense relevant to the nature and purpose of human sexuality. Is there any way in which the state of marriage, understood as a sexual or conjugal partnership, persists after death?

The teaching of the Church that marriage essentially ends at death is not a result of longstanding development of doctrine, it originates in the words of Jesus Himself: “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.” [1]

Hence, nothing pertaining essentially to the sacrament of marriage as such persists, except for the bond of friendship which underlies the conjugal state. Therefore, when one spouse dies, the basis for legitimizing sexual pleasure is dissolved. Death dissolves the sacrament and therefore the right to the marriage act and by extension the right to all accessories surrounding the marriage act. It is for this reason that remarriage after the death of one’s spouse is permitted, and why the widow or widower is no longer bound by the conjugal rights or duties proper to matrimony.

Therefore, when it comes to sexual enjoyment, thinking about, say, past sexual encounters one had with their deceased spouse would pose no less a danger of gravely sinful consent to sexual pleasure than it would for someone who was never married. Even if the memory pertains to what was once a holy and grace-filled act, the act of presently seeking or consenting to sexual pleasure in the state of widowhood no longer has the objective foundation that once legitimized it in the moral order. For here, the sexual act is no longer actualized within the relationship which alone can realize "the full sense of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love." [2]

There is, however, an important distinction to be made. While sexual enjoyment cannot be had and its danger must be removed, it is quite another thing to think back with spiritual fondness on the fruits of marital intimacy that was once shared with one’s spouse. Memory, gratitude, and love can recall the tenderness and gift of the conjugal union without deliberately awakening sensual pleasure. Such recollection can even deepen the widow’s gratitude to God for the gift of marriage and for the soul of the beloved who now awaits eternal reunion.

It must also be recognized that grief, loneliness, and the longing for closeness can blur these lines. In such cases culpability may be mitigated, for the heart that mourns is often caught between memory and desire, between love sanctified and love deprived of its bodily expression. A passing movement of the passions or a brief recollection of marital intimacy need not be mortally sinful unless there is full and deliberate consent to sexual pleasure as such.

The Church, as a tender mother, understands that the human heart cannot easily be stripped of its memories or affections. What she calls us to is not repression but reordering, a lifting of love beyond the temporal signs of the body toward the eternal reality they foreshadowed.

While the conjugal state ends at death, the bond of love and charity, in addition to the friendship that underlies the conjugal union, can remain and become far more radiant and excellent in heaven. It will yield a level of intimacy that the sexual embrace could only faintly symbolize. What was once expressed through the language of the body will one day be transfigured into a communion of souls in the vision of God, where no pleasure is lost but all is purified into perfect beatific joy.

References

1. Matthew 22:30, The Holy Bible: Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition. (2006). Ignatius Press.

2. "Gaudium et Spes," 51 AAS 58 (1966), p. 1072.

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