COEXISTENCE. - From the earliest centuries the Church forbade the cohabitation of clerics with women, unless they were close relatives or otherwise gave no occasion for any suspicion.
Many of the texts cited under the entry AGAPETAE, besides forbidding the subintroductae, lay down more general norms in this regard, both as to the prohibition and as to the exceptions. The most important is that of can. 3 of Nicaea, which permits clerics to cohabit only with their mother, sister, aunt, or with those persons who give no occasion for suspicion; this canon was always considered in force and was also reproduced in the Decree of Gratian (c. 16, D. XXXII). Can. 17 of the Third Council of Carthage (of 397) relaxed the discipline for its own region, permitting cohabitation also with the grandmother (evidently included, though not mentioned, in the canon of Nicaea), with nieces, daughters-in-law, the wives of slaves, and finally with family members who were already cohabiting with the cleric before he was ordained (this text too in Gratian c. 27, D. LXXXI).
St. Gregory the Great was more rigorous; appealing to St. Augustine, he admitted only the mother, the sister, and the wife (c. 24, D. LXXXI; and cf. also cc. 23 and 39, D. LXXXI). And in general, while can. 3 of the Council of Nicaea is found cited or reproduced, more or less verbatim, in very many later canonical texts, numerous other texts, from the 6th century onward, give more rigorous norms, and not a few absolutely forbid clerics to cohabit with any woman whatsoever (sometimes, in the case of married clerics, even with their own wife). Among the latter the most famous was the decree of the Council of Nantes (of 658 or of 895), which is reproduced in the collection of decretals of Gregory IX (c. 1, X, III, 2).
The insertion of this text into the collection of Gregory IX is a rather strange fact, given that less than a century earlier (in 1123) can. 3 of the First Council of the Lateran expressly recalled the canon of Nicaea; and in the same collection there is found (c. 9, X, III, 2) a decretal of Innocent III (of 1199) in which, with a more flexible formulation, cohabitation is permitted with those women who, by reason of kinship, give no suspicion of anything evil.
The Council of Trent (sess. XXV, de ref., c. 14) generically forbade cohabitation with any woman concerning whom some suspicion could arise.
But on 9 June 1587 and 18 June 1597 the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, in two replies, absolutely forbade that women should dwell in the canonry, even if they were close relatives of some canon.
More detailed norms were established by Benedict XIV in § 25 of the constitution Ad militantis (30 March 1742), but always in reference to the canon of Nicaea; and both before and after Benedict XIV, various particular councils and diocesan synods (both in the West and in the East) determined this matter better, and many of them, among other things, established the minimum age for an unrelated woman to be considered free from suspicion (generally forty years, sometimes less or more, between thirty and fifty), leaving in general to the bishop the judgment in individual cases.
The CIC (cann. 133, 2176-81, 2359) forbids clerics to cohabit with women who can give occasion for suspicion or to frequent them, admitting only cohabitation with those for whom kinship excludes such suspicions (and, as an example, it mentions the mother, the sister, and the aunt), and with those for whom such suspicions are excluded by unblemished moral uprightness combined with advanced age; in doubtful cases it is for the Ordinary to judge whether there is danger of scandal or of incontinence. The transgressor is subjected gradually to warnings and various penalties; and, in case of persistence, he is considered a concubinarian and subject to the penalties established for concubinage (v.).
Bibliography3 works
Mixed monasteries. - From the very origins of monasticism, double or mixed monasteries were frequent in the East (especially in Egypt) (sometimes, however, in separate but adjoining buildings), above all so that the nuns might have spiritual assistance and be protected from assaults, and the monks be helped in domestic services. But, because of the not infrequent inconveniences that followed from them, Justinian in 529 and in 546 (C. 1, 3, 43; Nov. 123, 36) absolutely forbade them in every part of the Empire. The prohibition, evidently not always observed, was reaffirmed in can. 20 of the Second Council of Nicaea (of 787), which nevertheless tolerated double monasteries already existing, provided that the monks and nuns did not dwell in the same building. Equally forbidden was the practice, introduced early, of having, in male monasteries, female servants who dwelt there permanently; St. Plato, hegumen of the monastery of Saccudion, toward the end of the 8th century, to put an end to this abuse, went so far as to forbid the entry of female animals into the monastery (other similar norms cited or reproduced in L. Ferraris, Promptua bibliotheca, s.v. Canis; and in G. Crispino, Trattato della visita pastorale, part 2, § 42, n. 155).
Also in the West (where between the 5th-8th centuries they spread in England, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, and above all Ireland) double monasteries were soon forbidden (Council of Agde of 506; Council of Seville of 619), and indeed they ceased almost everywhere (but not in Spain) in the 9th century, only to reappear in the 11th century. In the 12th-13th centuries ecclesiastical authority tolerated them, provided however that the separation between monks and nuns was well assured; and Callistus II, in 1119, even approved the constitution of the double monastery of Fontevrault, subject to an abbess. The opposition to such monasteries came above all from monks of more distinguished virtue (especially Benedictines); and around 1300 the Benedictines no longer had double monasteries, which subsequently became ever rarer also among the other Orders. In the East, moreover, down to the last century texts are still found forbidding mixed monasteries.