COHABITATION. — From the earliest centuries the Church forbade the cohabitation of ecclesiastics with women, except where they were close relatives or otherwise gave rise to no suspicion.
Many of the texts cited under the heading agapetae, in addition to forbidding subintroductae, establish more general norms on this matter, both regarding the prohibition and the exceptions. The most important is Canon 3 of Nicaea, which permits ecclesiastics to cohabit only with their mother, sister, aunt, or with those persons who do not give rise to suspicion; this canon was always considered in force and was also included in the Decree of Gratian (c. 16, D. XXXII). Canon 17 of the Third Council of Carthage (of 397) relaxed the discipline for its region, permitting cohabitation also with a grandmother (evidently included, even if not mentioned, in the canon of Nicaea), granddaughters, daughters-in-law, the wives of slaves, and finally with family members who were already cohabiting with the cleric before his ordination (this text is also found in Gratian, c. 27, D. LXXXI).
St. Gregory the Great was more rigorous, and, appealing to St. Augustine, admitted only the mother, sister, and wife (c. 24, D. LXXXI; cf. also cc. 23 and 29, D. LXXXI). In general, while Canon 3 of the Council of Nicaea is recalled or reproduced, more or less textually, in very many later canonical texts, numerous other texts from the 6th century onward give stricter norms, and not a few absolutely forbid clerics from cohabiting with any woman (sometimes, in the case of married clerics, even with their own wives). Among the latter, the most famous was the decree of the Council of Nantes (of 658 or 893), which is found reproduced in the collection of decretals of Gregory IX (c. 1, X, III, 2).
The insertion of this text in the collection of Gregory IX is rather strange, since less than a century earlier (in 1123) Canon 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 admitted with those women who, because of kinship, give rise to no suspicion of wrongdoing.
The Council of Trent (Session XXV, de ref., c. 14) generally forbade cohabitation with any woman who might give rise to suspicion.
But on June 9, 1587, and June 18, 1597, the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars issued two responses absolutely forbidding women from residing in the canonry, even if they were close relatives of any canon.
More detailed norms were established by Benedict XIV in § 25 of the constitution *Ad militantis* (March 30, 1742), but always with 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) clarified this matter further, and many of them, among other things, established a minimum age for a woman who was not a relative to be considered free from suspicion (generally forty years, sometimes less or more, between thirty and fifty), leaving it generally to the bishop to judge individual cases.
The *Code of Canon Law* (cc. 133, 2176–81, 2359) forbids clerics from cohabiting with women who might give rise to suspicion or from associating with them, admitting only cohabitation with those for whom kinship excludes such suspicion (and, as an example, mentions the mother, sister, and aunt), and with those for whom such suspicion is excluded by outstanding moral integrity combined with advanced age; in doubtful cases, it is for the Ordinary to judge whether there is danger of scandal or incontinence. The transgressor is gradually subjected to warnings and various penalties; and, in case of persistence, is considered a concubinary and subject to the penalties established for concubinage (v.).
Mixed Monasteries. — From the very origins of monasticism, double or mixed monasteries were common in the East (especially in Egypt), sometimes in separate but contiguous buildings, chiefly so that the nuns might have spiritual assistance and be protected from assault, and the monks might be aided in domestic services. But because of the not infrequent abuses that resulted, Justinian in 529 and 546 (C. 1, 3, 43; Nov. 123, 36) absolutely forbade them throughout the Empire. The prohibition, evidently not always observed, was reaffirmed in Canon 20 of the Second Council of Nicaea (of 787), which, however, tolerated existing double monasteries, provided that monks and nuns did not live in the same building. Similarly forbidden was the practice, which soon arose, of having female servants permanently residing in male monasteries; St. Plato, abbot of the monastery of Saccaudium, toward the end of the 8th century, went so far as to forbid the entry of female animals into the monastery to put an end to this abuse (other similar norms cited or reproduced in L. Ferraris, *Prompta bibliotheca*, s.V. *Canis*, and in G. Crispino, *Trattato della visita pastorale*, part 2, § 42, n. 155).
In the West as well (where between the 5th and 8th centuries they spread in England, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, and especially Ireland) double monasteries were soon forbidden (Council of Agde of 506; Council of Seville of 619), and they had in fact almost everywhere disappeared (except in Spain) by the 9th century, only to reappear in the 11th. In the 12th and 13th centuries ecclesiastical authority tolerated them, provided that the separation between monks and nuns was well assured; and Callistus II, in 1119, even approved the establishment of the double monastery of Fontevrault, subject to an abbess. Opposition to such monasteries came especially from monks of outstanding virtue (particularly Benedictines); and around 1300 the Benedictines no longer had any double monasteries, which in later centuries became increasingly rare even among other Orders. In the East, however, until the last century texts are still found forbidding mixed monasteries.