456. (xi) Care must be taken to prevent conjugial love being destroyed by uncontrolled and immoderate indulgence in fornication.

By uncontrolled and immoderate indulgence in fornication which is destructive of conjugial love is meant fornication which not only saps the strength, but also does away with all the richness of conjugial love. For unrestrained indulgence in them causes not only weakness and poverty, but also uncleanness and impropriety. These prevent conjugial love being perceived and felt in all its cleanness and chastity, and so in all its sweetness and delightful flowering. Not to mention the damage to body and mind, or the impermissible enticements which not only rob conjugial love of its blessed joys, but even do away with it, turning it to coldness and thus to distaste. Such instances of fornication are orgies, which transform the games of marriage into scenes from tragedy. For uncontrolled and immoderate fornication is like a fire, which starting from the lowest level burns up the body, roasts its fibres, corrupts the blood and infects the rational faculty of the mind. It bursts forth like a fire in the basement which destroys the whole house. It is up to parents to see that this does not happen, because an adolescent boy smitten by lust is not yet rational enough to impose restraint on himself.