If children need years of guidance and formation, then another question follows: what kind of relationship is capable of sustaining that responsibility?
Aquinas’s answer is marriage. His argument is not simply that parents should ideally stay together, but that human nature itself points toward a stable, lasting union because raising a child is a long-term project. From there, he makes a further move: when something is essential to the common good, it cannot remain merely a private arrangement—it becomes something society has reason to protect through law.
That takes Aquinas’s argument into more controversial territory. What should we make of exceptions? What if a father does take responsibility for a child born outside marriage? What if an arrangement happens to work? Aquinas’s answer is that laws have to account for what generally happens, not merely what is possible in individual cases. And that raises a much bigger question: should our social rules be built around exceptional cases, or around what human beings generally need to flourish?
Read the relevant article of the Summa here:
Summa Theologica. Part 2 of 2. Question 154. Article 2. Is simple fornication a mortal sin?
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