Dear Paul:

Well, interesting enough, I thought you were mixing up the notions of subjective guilt and objective evil.

In your scenario you classified the man's actions, performed under duress and fear, as "adultery". That is a term of positive guilt. The man in your scenario did not commit adultery since to do so requires is full consent.

There is a similar notion in criminal law. Homicide is not always murder. There are different types of homicide. Some forms of homicide are even justified and not a crime -- such as in the case of self-defense in which the aggressor is killed. It is still a homicide, but not a crime.

In terms of the sexual faculty there is a similar notion. All sex acts outside of the marriage bed is a violation of the virtue of chastity and marriage. There are various forms of this violation such as adultery, fornication, masturbation, concubinage, homosexual sex, open marriage, rape, incest, etc.

In some Muslim countries a woman who is raped is considered to have committed adultry and is punished, which, of course, is ridiculous. The man in your scenario is a victim, by the way, of a form of rape. The sex was forced. Forced sex is rape regardless of whether or not the victim is female or male. Rape may also be when an aggressor forces two other people to have sex. Men, by the way, do get raped, and I mean raped by females as well as by other men. When this happens the male victim has not committed adultery, or homosexuality in the case of a male rapist.

The virtue of marriage and chastity is being violated in your scenario, but not adultery. The violation of the virtue of marriage and chastity is an objective moral evil. The one culpable for this violation is the aggressor, not the man. The act is still a moral evil, but it is not a moral crime for the man.

As for the act itself, independent of the culpability of the person who does the act under duress, the act is a material evil. All things contrary to the perfect good of God is a material evil. Thus, killing someone in self-defense is a material evil, as is a baby dying of a birth defect, or a tornado destroying your house.

In the double-effect analysis can be debated. But, in my analysis the act of the first criteria is the good of saving one's wife, not the act of sex. The act of sex is the result mentioned in the second criteria. You are mixing up the good act of saving the life of the wife with the bad result of the forced sex. These are two distinct things.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary