Vatican document praises (monogamous) marriage [News Analysis]

November 25, 2025

Una Caro, the document released on November 25 by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), was advertised as a Vatican statement on polygamy. But actually the DDF document is a paean to marriage, with only infrequent references to polygamy.

The subtitle “In Praise of Monogamy” accurately describes the content of Una Caro, which is an extended discourse of marriage as a one-flesh union. “Every true marriage is a union of two people, which requires such an intimate and total relationship that it cannot be shared by others,” the DDF argues.

Unfortunately Una Caro, which is written in Italian, was made public only in that language. The document is lengthy (40 pages) and heavily footnoted, with 256 references to sources that include the Scriptures, Church fathers and councils, papal teachings, theological reflections, and poetry.

The DDF document clearly affirms the Church teaching that marriage is an exclusive relationship between two people, husband and wife. “Polygamy, adultery, or polyamory are based on the illusion that the intensity of the relationship can be found in a succession of faces,” the statement says.

But the main thrust of the Vatican document is a teaching on the unique dignity of marriage, and Una Caro stresses that “monogamy is not simply the opposite of polygamy.” At the outset, the document notes that a newly married couple soon begins speaking about “the two of us,” and notes that “this expression appears when there is a strong feeling in a marriage of reciprocity, or the perception of the beauty of an exclusive love, of an alliance between two who share life in its entirety, with all its struggles and hopes.”

Such a union, involving a total gift of the self to the other partner, cannot leave room for another partner, the DDF reasons. However, the document teaches that the love that is shared by the married couple can inspire them toward acts of charity to others.

Una Caro sketches the treatment of marriage in the Bible, beginning with Adam’s recognition of Eve as “flesh of my flesh. Conceding that polygamy is common in the Old Testament, the document notes however that monogamy is always the ideal, and God’s covenant with the people of Israel is portrayed as a model of faithfulness. In the Gospel, Jesus confirms that “in the beginning,” God’s original plan for mankind was for an exclusive and permanent marriage.

The DDF proceeds with a survey of Church teaching through the ages, citing authors from the Eastern and Western traditions, the ancient and modern eras. The document draws on the writings of theologians and popes, drawing heavily on the teaching of St. John Paul II. Una Caro concludes with a section on the fertility of marital love—which emphasizing that a childless couple also participates in the full beauty of the marital bond. That bond, the DDF says, “is the main and most perfect moral and spiritual expression that gives marriage different forms of fertility.”

—PFL

 

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Further information:

• Doctrine of the Faith: Monogamy is not a limitation but a promise of the infinite (Vatican News)
• UNA CARO: Elogio della monogamia (full text in Italian)