Nicomachean Ethics

Description

PDF pp. 270-1 (bk. 8, ch. 12, n. 27-29)

Children are regarded as the bond that holds them together, and that is why childless marriages break up more easily. Children are a good common to both partners, and what people have in common holds them together.

St. Thomas's commentary:

1724. Next [B, 2], at “Children seem,” he indicates a means of making this friendship strong. He remarks that children seem to be a cause of a stable and lasting union. Hence, sterile couples who fail to have children are separated more readily. In fact, divorce was granted in former times because of sterility. And the reason for this is that children are a common good of both husband and wife whose union exists for the sake of children. But what is common continues and preserves friendship which also consists in sharing (communicatio), as has been pointed out (1702).