Fertility as a person’s characteristic

Abstract

Summary The human phenomenon is revealed in full only in both sexes. The definition of a human Adam (“human being” from Hebrew) includes a man and a woman. Being so different and yet equal personalities they are created to build a relationship. Primarily, the most important is the relation of a person with the Creator. However, the fundamental value of a relation, as well as generally of a human community is attained to the relations of a man and a woman in marriage. The publication aims to disclose what happens when the fertility is on purpose eliminated from these relations. How does it influence the changes of the conjugal act in marriage? What is its impact on the married couple? To find the answers, first of all, the anthropological truth has been revealed: it is essential for human nature, which is perceived as the embodiment of spirit, to treat fertility not only as the feature of the flesh, but also of the personality. Then, elimination of fertility aspect changes and depreciates the meaning of the conjugal act in marriage and depersonalizes the married couple. The human sexuality is expressed through his body. As taught by the Pope John Paul II, the human body, both man’s and woman’s, has the nuptial meaning, since it leads to the communio of persons through conjugal act. However, a person is more than flesh, he is an embodiment of spirit which is manifested through the body that is the vessel of the immortal spirit. Thus a person is called to love as a single whole, since it takes the human body which is an integral part of spiritual love. The conjugal act in marriage is the manifestation of self-giving love. Assuming that it is the revelation of a personality as a single whole, both in flesh and in spirit, then the denial of the procreational opportunity affects both the married people and the mutual self-giving love. In fact, they eliminate not only the biological element of the conjugal act. They change the nature of it partially depersonalizing the conjugal act. The conjugal act is not only an intercourse between a man and a woman, but also the relation aimed at procreation. When a married couple excludes fertility from the conjugal act, then disappears the value of self-giving love and a spouse is not accepted unconditionally as a gift. In other words, a spouse is rather being “used”. The willful elimination of fertility due to contraceptives hurts an individual, as it undermines the spiritual powers and insults a person in sense of his physical body. It is impossible to subdue the human essence by brutalizing it, but only by cognition of its development laws and awakening its inner powers. A person remains faithful to the true love values, if he is faithful to his own nature; once the human nature is brutalized the same happens to personality itself, turning it to an object of consumption, rather than love.