460. 14. Resorting to a courtesan is preferable to promiscuous lust, provided that the arrangement is not made with more than one, or with a virgin or untouched woman, or with a married woman, and that it is kept separate from conjugial love. We have already indicated just above when, and for what men, resorting to a courtesan is preferable to promiscuous lust.
1. An arrangement with a courtesan must not be made with more than one, because with more than one a polygamous element enters, inducing in the person a merely natural state and dragging him down into a sensual one, to the point that he cannot be elevated into a spiritual state, which is necessary for conjugial love (see nos. 338, 339).
[2] 2. The arrangement must not be made with a virgin or untouched woman, because conjugial love in women is coupled with their virginity. From it comes the chastity, purity and sanctity of that love. Consequently, for a woman to promise and commit her virginity to some man is to give a token that she will love him to eternity. Because of that a virgin cannot with any rational assent pledge it except with the promise of a conjugial covenant. It is also the crown of her honor. Therefore to snatch it away without a covenant of marriage and afterwards reject her is to make a trollop of some virgin who might have become a chaste bride and wife, or to cheat some other man, either of which is hurtful. Accordingly, if anyone takes a virgin as a his courtesan, he may indeed cohabit with her and so introduce her into the friendship of love, but still with the constant intention of making her his wife if she is not unfaithful.
[3] 3. An arrangement with a courtesan clearly must not be made with a married woman, because that is adultery.
[4] 4. The love in resorting to a courtesan must be kept separate from conjugial love for the reason that these loves are different in nature and therefore ought not to be mixed together. For the love in resorting to a courtesan is an unchaste, natural and external love, while the love in marriage is chaste, spiritual and internal. The love in resorting to a courtesan divides the souls of the two and joins only the sensual elements of the body, whereas the love in marriage unites their souls, and as a result of the union of their souls, also the sensual elements of the body, until from being two they become as one, which is to say, one flesh.
[5] 5. The love in resorting to a courtesan enters only into the intellect and into such elements as depend on the intellect. But the love in marriage enters also into the will and into such elements as depend on the will, thus into each and every element of the person. Consequently, if the love in resorting to a courtesan becomes the kind of love found in marriage, the man cannot by any right withdraw from the relationship without violating the conjugial union; and if he does withdraw from it, and marries another, in the breaking of that union conjugial love perishes. A man should know that the love in resorting to a courtesan is kept separate from conjugial love by his not promising to marry the courtesan and by his not leading her on into any hope of marriage.
Nevertheless, it is preferable that the torch of love for the opposite sex be kindled for the first time with one's wife.
