Chapter 12 makes a sharper version of chapter 5’s claim that love comes from the partner. In conjugal life, the self is not the owner of the love it most desires. It receives that love through covenantal relation with the other.
This reframes sexual ethics away from mere prohibition. The issue is not simply restraining desire but learning that the deepest expression of love is not self-possessed.
It also turns marriage into a school of reverence. If love is received rather than owned, entitlement becomes one of the most destructive distortions in intimate life.