Necessary Sins

by Elizabeth Bell

  — John D. Bryant, describing his heroine’s reaction to the Eucharist, Pauline Seward (1847)

  Several days later, after making sick calls, Joseph was returning the pyx to the cathedral when he noticed the new bride sitting alone in the pews. At first, he hardly recognized her. She wore such fine gowns now (this one of violet silk) and her long hair was hidden beneath a large, frilly bonnet. But more than that, her posture had altered. Her shoulders, neck, and head—everything above her corset—drooped like a bruised flower. She stared down at her hands, sheathed in black lace mitts. They lay limp on her lap beneath a crumpled handkerchief.

  He could not pass her by. “Are you all right, Miss Conley? Pardon me: Mrs. Stratford?”

  She released a harsh puff of breath. “I wish—” She broke off suddenly and closed her eyes. Her jaw clenched, and the tendons in her slender neck tensed above her lace collar. “Please, Father: I wish you’d call me Tessa.” She turned her reddened eyes to him and attempted a smile—the barest quiver at the edges of her lips, as if they’d forgotten the shape. “We shall be family soon, after all.”

  “Then you must call me Joseph.”

  “I-I couldn’t, Father.” She dropped her eyes to her lap again. “It wouldn’t be right.” She raised the handkerchief and blotted her nose. Before Joseph could formulate a question, she looked up to the altar. “’Tis such a comfort, knowing He is always here, whenever I need Him.” Her strained voice belied her words, as if she sought comfort but had not found it. “In County Clare, most of the churches must also be used as schoolhouses or threshing-floors. So God resides in the Tabernacle only when the Priest is celebrating Mass.” Her fingers worried the handkerchief in her lap. “I only wish I could receive Him every day. When I take Him into my body, I can feel His strength suffusing me. I can feel Him inside me—not an invasion but a completion.”

  “Daily communion isn’t only for Priests. You are welcome to receive every day.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. “How am I to approach Someone so holy when I feel so unclean?”

  “You haven’t been reading any Jansenists, have you?”

  She kept her eyes closed. “If I’ve—lain with my husband… ” It was only a whisper.

  Suddenly her distress and her exhaustion made sense. She was passionate about their Lord, horticulture, and music; of course she would bring that passionate nature to her marriage bed. Perhaps she’d startled her husband (hadn’t he thought ladies incapable of desire?) and they’d quarrelled. Now, she was struggling to reconcile the yearnings of her body with the yearnings of her soul.

  Nervously Joseph glanced behind him to confirm that no one else had entered the cathedral. He should speak of sexual matters only inside the confessional. But how could he ask her to uproot herself when she looked too weak to stand? Slowly Joseph sat, an arm’s length away from her, and lowered his voice. “Provided you do nothing to preclude conception, finding pleasure in the marital act is only a venial sin, and you need not confess venial sins before you receive Our Lord. He recognizes your contrition.”

  “But if I refuse my husband, that is a mortal sin?”

  They should definitely be inside the confessional. “Has he asked something unnatural of you?” Please, please don’t ask me to define—

  She shook her head.

  “Then, yes: if your husband desires intercourse and you refuse him, you commit a mortal sin.”

  Her eyes opened slowly, though she only stared at the back of the bench before them. “What if I want to refuse him? Is that also a mortal sin? I feel nothing but dread and repulsion and…”

  Joseph had been wrong.

  “I knew it would be painful the first time, but not— I think there is something wrong with me.” She shielded her face with her hands, muffling her words. “I’m so sorry, Father; I shouldn’t be telling you this.”

  “Have you discussed it with your husband?”

  “How can I?” She opened her hands. “It would humiliate him!”

  “He must know something is wrong.”

  She shook her head fiercely. “He is quite content.”

  The man was even more obtuse than Joseph had feared. Had her husband really mistaken discomfort for purity? “But—the act remains painful for you?”

  She nodded miserably.

  This was so far beyond his ken… What would a physician of the body ask? She’d been married only a week; perhaps this despair was premature. “How many times…?”

  She gripped the back of the other pew for support. “Every night.”

  Joseph swallowed. “Surely his ardor will fade in…” A month? A year? If she were his wife…

  She nodded again, pulled herself to her feet—merciful God, did Joseph only imagine it, or did she wince at the movement?—and turned away from him. “I will bear it. I must.” She hurried into the aisle. “He is my husband. ’Tis all he asks of me, and all I have to give him.”

  Joseph followed. “Tessa, wait.”

  She was muttering as if to herself. “I want children; if this is the cost, I must—”

  “Tessa!” Joseph loped ahead of her. As gently as he could, he grasped her arms just below her shoulders. Finally she stopped her flight, though still she trembled. Joseph stooped so he could look up into her distraught face instead of down at her. She must not feel threatened; she had already suffered enough at men’s hands. “First and above all: Never think that your body is all you have to give. It is not even the most remarkable part of you.”

  Her eyes flickered to his—only a moment, but her breaths seemed to be calming.

  “Second: Would you allow me to consult with my father?”

  Was her new gasp relief, or trepidation?

  “He will not know I am asking on your behalf,” Joseph promised.

  At last she nodded. “If I were braver, I would ask him myself. He has been nothing but kind. But this; ’tis so difficult to speak of.”

  “I am glad you spoke to me. You can, Tessa, always—no matter the problem. I will find you a remedy.”

  Joseph went immediately to his parents’ house. The sign declared his father at home. Through the open window, Joseph saw him at his desk. Yet Joseph lingered on the sidewalk as if he were mired in quicksand. How exactly did one begin such a conversation with one’s father, with the rapist of one’s mother? But who else could he possibly ask? Joseph wished Hélène and Liam were already married. Sometimes his father seemed so compassionate…

  Joseph hesitated so long that his father looked up from his medical journal and peered through the window. “Is that you, Joseph?”

  He made sure no one on the street was close enough to hear. “Your offer of a medical-sacerdotal consultation…”

  “It remains open.” His father stood, pulled the door wide, and smiled. “My door is always open to you, son.”

  Joseph was careful to shut it behind him. He closed the windows and the door to the hall. Keeping his eyes on the rug, he crossed to face the desk where his father waited. He felt he should not sit, and he could not look at his father. “The marital act…it should not be consistently painful for the wife?”

  “It should not.”

  “If it is painful, might there be a medical reason?”

  “There might. I don’t suppose this woman described the nature of her pain to you?”

  “No.” Joseph gulped the word.

  “Could you not persuade her to see me?”

  “I promised her anonymity. She is understandably reluctant to speak of such matters.”

  “Then I must find my way blindfolded. But in my experience, it is most likely that her husband is simply an idiot.”

  I think that is very likely.

  “This couple, how long have they been married?”

  Joseph could not be specific without betraying Tessa’s confidence. “Not long.”

  “Did both of them enter the marriage as virgins?”

  “Yes.”

  “I stand by my diagnosis: their problem is ignoranc
e, and it is easily remedied. If I cannot see them… Are they literate?”

  “They are.”

  “Then I shall write a letter. I shall offer as much information as I can and extend my own invitation. Will that suit?”

  “Yes; thank you.”

  “Thank you for coming to me. I should address this letter to the wife?”

  Again Joseph nodded.

  His father began hunting among his books. “I will need a few hours to prepare my prescription.”

  What his father produced wasn’t a letter or a prescription. It was a treatise—so many pages crammed into an envelope that it bulged.

  At Joseph’s incredulous expression, his father shrugged. “I have seen the cost of ignorance too many times. I would write a book, but your mother would probably die of mortification upon its publication. And I might be arrested for indecency. So, I must disseminate my gospel one couple at a time. I left it unsealed purposefully, Joseph, so you can read it yourself. This woman will not be the first wife who will come to you anguished and confused. You are wise to reach out, and you would be wise to educate yourself for the future.” Now his father seemed reluctant to release the letter. “Whether you read it or not, promise me you will deliver it tomorrow.”

  “I promise.” Joseph took the envelope.

  His father must have heard the hesitation in his voice. “Make no mistake: This woman is in pain—unjust, utterly unnecessary pain. Pain that is not only physical but spiritual. She doubts her love for her husband, his love for her, her decision to marry at all—she doubts even God, that He should require such a thing of her. If that doubt is not lifted, it will drive a chasm between this woman and her husband, between her and God. You hold her salvation, there in your hands.”

  Passing the library, Joseph bid good-night to Bishop England and Father Baker. The bulging envelope felt like a heated brick in his coat pocket. Joseph retired to his chamber and set the letter on his desk. He resolved not to read it.

  He finished reciting the prayers for the day. He reviewed his notes for his homily tomorrow. He undressed for bed and washed his face and hands. He leaned over to blow out his lamp.

  But the envelope beckoned to him from his desk. Much like the Serpent in the Garden, promising forbidden knowledge. Things other men already knew.

  It was the mention of God and the Psalms in the first lines that lured him in.

  Dearest daughter—for I shall speak to you as I have my own daughters—God has given you a remarkable gift. “I praise Thee for my wondrous fashioning,” the Psalmist cries, “marvelous are Thy works.” None of God’s works is more marvelous than your body, my daughter. You know already its capacity to nurture and bear life. God has also fashioned your body for limitless pleasure.

  A woman’s body is as capable of experiencing pleasure and pleasure’s climax as a man’s. In fact, your pleasure will be more complex and of longer duration than your husband’s—if you continue to read this letter.

  A woman’s climaxes do require more skill and patience than a man’s. For this reason, they are more rare. Women cannot climax through penetration alone—but this is all husbands think they must do. When his climax is complete, the man believes the act successful. He is only half right. He is entirely wrong to leave you incomplete.

  “But his seed in my womb is all that is necessary for conception,” you say. “That is the purpose of sexual intercourse. To do more simply for the pleasure of it is sin.” I may not be a catechist, but I know the female body. And I return to your “wondrous fashioning.” God has given you a unique organ called a clitoris. He created it for one purpose only: to transmit pleasure from the crown of your head to the tips of your toes. But you must give yourself permission to experience this pleasure.

  You do not yet believe that God wishes you to do so? Open a Bible. Find the Canticle of Canticles. Do not tell me it is only an allegory of Christ’s love for the Church. Would an allegory make us blush? Would it stir our blood and make us desire our mates?

  The Canticles do use poetic symbolism. The woman’s body is a garden. The man’s genitals are fruit. Her arousal is honey and wine. Pay particular attention to the first verse of the fifth chapter. The couple has consummated their love—and God definitely approves: “Eat, O friends, and drink, and be inebriated!” These lovers do far more than penile-vaginal intercourse. Experiment! Discover one another fully! “Everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving” (Saint Paul to Saint Timothy).

  Do you think me too Protestant, to quote only from Scripture? Then I shall add the wisdom of Blessed Alphonsus Liguori. Rome has decreed his writings “free from error.” Liguori concludes that the female climax has a purpose because “nature does nothing in vain.” If their husbands are unable or unwilling to do so, wives “may excite themselves before copulation” or stimulate themselves afterwards in order to achieve climax—without sinning. Spouses may engage in sexual acts not only to conceive children but also “for reason of health” and “to foster mutual love.”

  His father went on like this, page after page. He described in shameless detail how to locate the clitoris and stimulate it—not only with the penis but also with fingers and mouth! How to caress the breasts. The signs by which a husband might recognize his wife’s excitement and when she “came.” How she might heighten his excitement. “A true lover will find his greatest joy not in pursuing his own pleasure but in pleasing his beloved.”

  How could this be the same man who had raped a deaf girl, who had forced her to marry him and abused her for years afterward? Joseph had realized long ago what his father must have been doing with his head between his mother’s thighs—but the fact remained that he had been doing it against her will. Her bonds and her tears proved she had not consented. The man himself admitted here: “Not all women enjoy all kinds of stimulation.”

  His father also explained that when a woman was excited, her “glands of Bartholin” should produce a mucus (hardly honey and wine!) to facilitate penetration. If this mucus was insufficient, intercourse would be painful, so he recommended…!

  Olive oil was the matter of Sacraments. It had anointed Joseph’s forehead at Confirmation and his hands at Ordination. Joseph himself used it to cleanse the five senses of sin when he administered Extreme Unction. But the application his father suggested… The olive oil could hardly be called virgin after that.

  If their father had told Cathy half of what was in this letter, no wonder she had thrown herself beneath the first man to flatter her. The Devil could certainly quote Scripture—out of context—to serve his own ends. Joseph’s father blithely ignored most of Liguori, such as his condemnation of “imperfect acts” that served no purpose, like kissing.

  This letter was a prescription for sin. A manual of lust. A carnal catechism. Joseph should burn it immediately. He stood up abruptly, gripping the vile pages. The indecent state of his own body was proof these obscene words must be destroyed.

  Then his father’s plea returned to him: “Promise me you will deliver it tomorrow… This woman is in pain—unjust, utterly unnecessary pain.” But pain was part of God’s plan. It taught you humility and—

  Tessa was in pain. Even now, at this very moment…

  Ashamed at last, his arousal subsided, and Joseph sank back into his chair.

  How could he face Tessa again empty-handed? How could he see the desperation and hope in her eyes and crush her with a platitude? She was a pious woman as well as an intelligent one. She would take what she needed from this letter and discard the rest.

  His lamp was sputtering. Instead of extinguishing it, Joseph replenished the oil and read his father’s manual a second time before he sealed the envelope.

  When he slipped Tessa the letter after Mass, she clutched it to her breast and thanked him as if it were the pardon for a death sentence.

  Two weeks later, Joseph called on her at home. Her husband was at his law office. Tessa showed Joseph around the garden they
had planned together, and he recommended a few more plants to fill the gaps.

  Before he left her, Joseph managed to ask: “Was my father’s letter a help to you?”

  Tessa blushed and averted her eyes. At last she nodded and whispered: “’Tis not so painful now.” The words were grim, not joyous, as if she meant: “’Tis still painful, but less so.”

  Joseph frowned. As Tessa walked beside him, he allowed himself to read in her posture and her countenance what he’d been trying to deny. Very little had changed since the day he’d found Tessa slumped in the pews beneath the weight of her marriage.

  “You must give yourself permission to experience this pleasure,” his father had written. Joseph had feared Tessa would embrace too much of his father’s advice. Now he feared she had embraced too little.

  Chapter 26

  From time immemorial, women have regarded the barren womb as a great calamity. All their hopes of happiness are centered around the hope of giving birth to children.

  — William B. Mills, Inaugural Dissertation on the Signs of Pregnancy, University of Nashville (1857)

  On the Feast of Saint John Chrysostom, when the worst of the summer heat had passed, Joseph and his sister called on Tessa together. Now that she herself was provided for, the young Irishwoman eagerly joined Hélène in her charity work, and Joseph often combined his visits with theirs. Today they would bring baskets of food to the tenements near the wharves. Tessa had not forgotten her former neighbors.

  As they approached the Stratfords’ house on Friend Street, Hélène squeezed his arm. “Joseph, look!”

  The door leading onto the piazza was open; and within its frame, Mr. Stratford was kissing his wife good-bye. Far more importantly, Tessa smiled after her husband. Whistling, he sauntered down the street.