It was the earliest form of what the Church has always regarded as 'the last rites'. Josef Jungmann, who still stands today as the greatest Catholic scholar of the history of forms of worship and prayer, made a similar point. For in the early centuries it was presupposed that the Christian, once having received grace in Baptism, should never be guilty of such sins. The majority of the faithful never received the Sacrament of Penance, throughout their whole lives. So it must also be with one who, having sinned, has found forgiveness through God's mercy in Baptism.
All human relationships can be fraught with sinfulness.
Partnerships, whether sexual or otherwise, whether heterosexual or homosexual, carry the possibility of turning in on themselves through selfishness, hurt, rancour or pride, suffocating the other, stifling growth, through power or greed. I include here clerical-lay relationships. Human nature does not change. When the shiver of fear or the sensation of alarm shocked a community, there was a call for repentance to allow healing. In the infancy of the Church, the background of Christian social identification was in terms of the colonising presence of the Roman Empire.