Marriage was instituted to beget children; that is the proper end of the contract, its basic justification. Whenever the debitum is used it must be with the intention of generating children. Even the use of marriage as a remedy of concupiscence is so secondary an end that it alone is not enough to legitimize marriage. Because a woman does not always have ova present in the tubes,--and there is no means of knowing just when the ova are present,--it is justifiable to repeat the conjugal act until the woman is impregnated; secondarily and dependently, the repetition may be a remedy of concupiscence. The sexual act does not form either the spermatozoa or the ova; these pre-exist. The spermatozoa are always released in a normal sexual act; the ova are not always present when the spermatozoa are released. A copula which is perfectly _de se apta ad generationem_ supposes not at the time the presence of both sperm and ovum, but it does suppose the possibility of the ovum, otherwise generation is utterly impossible; and every copula becomes justifiable solely because there is a hope that it may be present. It is a mere quibble to say that an act is _de se apta ad generationem_ if by no possibility generation ever can take place; nevertheless the congregations in four cases have apparently judged to the contrary. In these special decisions, however, Rosset, Antonelli, Bucceroni, and Palmieri hold there was a doubt in the minds of the members of the congregation as to the complete removal of the ovaries or uterus. Bucceroni expressly states[244] that the Cardinal Secretary of the Holy Office told him personally the members of the congregation supposed in the particular cases that generation could follow. Therefore these decisions do not say that the _mulier excisa_ in general is not impotent or potent; they merely gave the women of these cases the benefit of the doubt. Tho question is entirely open so far as these decisions are concerned. [244] _Theologia Moralis_, 5th ed., vol. ii, p. 391, n. 994. Those who hold that vasectomy causes canonical impotence say also the constitution of Sixtus V. forbidding the marriage of eunuchs is applicable necessarily to the vasectomized man, because the semen from the vasectomized man, inasmuch as it lacks spermatozoa, is not genuine semen, and Sixtus V. said eunuchs cannot produce true semen. The relevant passage in the constitution is: "Cum frequenter in istis regionibus eunuchi et spadones, qui utroque teste carent, et ideo certum ac manifestum est eos verum semen emittere non posse; quia impura carnis tentigine atque immundis complexibus cum mulieribus se comiscent, et humorem forsan quemdam similem semini, licet ad generationem et ad matrimonii causam minime aptam, effundunt, matrimonium ... contrahere praesumant ... mandamus ut conjugia per dictos et alios quoscumque eunuchos ... contrahi prohibeas."