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Roman Catechism
“His Wife”
The Commandment which forbids us to covet the goods of our neighbour, is followed by another, which forbids us to covet our neighbour’s wife—a law that prohibits not only the adulterer’s criminal desire of his neighbour’s wife, but even the wish to marry her. For of old when a bill of divorce was permitted, it might easily happen, that she who was put away by one husband might be married to another. But the Lord forbade the desire of another’s wife lest husbands might be induced to abandon their wives, or wives conduct themselves with such bad temper towards their husbands as to make it necessary to send them away.
But now this sin is more grievous because the wife, although separated from her husband, cannot be taken in marriage by another until the husband’s death. He, therefore, who covets another man’s wife will easily fall from this into another desire, for he will wish either the death of the husband or the commission of adultery. The same principle holds good with regard to women who have been betrothed to another. To covet them is also unlawful; and whoever strives to break their engagement violates one of the most holy of promises. And if to covet the wedded wife of another is entirely unlawful, it is on no account right to desire in marriage the virgin who is consecrated to religion and to the service of God. But should anyone desire in marriage a married woman whom he thinks to be single, and whom he would not wish to marry if he knew she had a husband living, certainly he does not violate this Commandment. Pharaoh and Abimelech, as the Scripture informs us, were betrayed into this error; they wished to marry Sarah, supposing her to be unmarried, and to be the sister, not the wife of Abraham.