Sacred Energy

Aquinas wrote that virginity, freely vowed, surpasses even marriage in excellence, though marriage itself remains fully good and honorable

Aquinas ranks virginity above marriage as two distinct real goods rather than treating marriage as a lesser or merely tolerated compromise.

In the Supplement to the Summa Theologica, compiled from Aquinas's earlier commentary on the Sentences, question 152 asks directly whether virginity is a virtue and how it compares to marriage. Aquinas answers that virginity is more excellent than marriage not because bodily integrity is superior in itself, but because a freely vowed abstention undertaken for undivided attention to God ranks higher among goods ordered toward contemplation than a good ordered toward procreation and mutual support. He is explicit that this ranking does not make marriage evil or merely tolerated — it remains, in his terms, fully honorable, with its own proper goods of children, fidelity, and sacramental bond. The distinction he draws is between two real goods, not between a good and a lesser evil, which is part of why his position became the standard Catholic framing of consecrated celibacy for centuries afterward.

The Supplement was assembled by Aquinas's students after his death in 1274 from his earlier Commentary on the Sentences, since the Summa itself was left unfinished.

Summa Theologica

Written about in

• What the celibate traditions say about envy and comparison

  Then Aquinas ranks them. The Supplement argues virginity is more excellent than marriage — not because bodily integrity is superior in itself, but because a good ordered toward contemplation outranks one ordered toward procreation. He insists marriage stays fully honourable, but this is a hierarchy, and the Hindu and Taoist entries are not.