Chapter IV: Of Diriment Impediments

§ 1. A man before the completed sixteenth year of age, and likewise a woman before the completed fourteenth year, cannot enter a valid marriage.

§ 2. Although a marriage contracted after the aforesaid age is valid, nevertheless pastors of souls are to take care to turn young persons away from it before the age at which, according to the received customs of the region, marriage is usually entered.

§ 1. Antecedent and perpetual impotence, whether on the part of the man or on the part of the woman, whether known to the other or not, whether absolute or relative, invalidates marriage by the very law of nature.

§ 2. If the impediment of impotence is doubtful, whether by doubt of law or by doubt of fact, marriage is not to be impeded.

§ 3. Sterility neither invalidates nor impedes marriage.

§ 1. One who is held by the bond of a prior marriage, although not consummated, invalidly attempts marriage, with the privilege of the faith preserved.

§ 2. Although the prior marriage is invalid or dissolved from any cause whatever, it is not for that reason lawful to contract another before the nullity or dissolution of the prior marriage has been legitimately and certainly established.

§ 1. A marriage contracted by a non-baptized person with a person baptized in the Catholic Church or converted to the same from heresy or schism is null.

§ 2. If at the time the marriage was contracted a party was commonly held as baptized, or his baptism was doubtful, one must stand, according to the norm of can. 1014, for the validity of the marriage until it is certainly proved that one party was baptized and the other was not baptized.

Those things which are prescribed concerning mixed nuptials in canons 1060-1064 must also be applied to marriages to which the impediment of disparity of cult is opposed.

Clerics constituted in sacred orders invalidly attempt marriage.

Likewise religious who have professed solemn vows invalidly attempt marriage, or those who have professed simple vows to which, by special prescription of the Apostolic See, the force of invalidating nuptials has been added.

§ 1. Between a male abductor and a woman abducted with marriage in view, as long as she remains in the power of the abductor, no marriage can stand.

§ 2. But if the abducted woman, separated from the abductor and established in a safe and free place, has consented to have him as husband, the impediment ceases.

§ 3. As regards the nullity of marriage, violent retention of a woman is held equal to abduction, namely when a man, with marriage in view, violently detains a woman in the place where she dwells or to which she has freely come.

They cannot validly contract marriage:

1° Those who, while the same legitimate marriage endures, have consummated adultery between themselves and mutually given faith to each other concerning entering marriage, or have attempted marriage itself, even by a merely civil act.

2° Those who, likewise while the same legitimate marriage endures, have consummated adultery between themselves and one of them has perpetrated spouse-murder.

3° Those who by mutual physical or moral action, even without adultery, have brought death upon a spouse.

§ 1. In the direct line of consanguinity marriage is invalid between all ascendants and descendants, both legitimate and natural.

§ 2. In the collateral line it is invalid up to the third degree inclusive, yet in such a way that the impediment of marriage is multiplied only as often as the common stock is multiplied.

§ 3. Marriage is never to be permitted if any doubt underlies whether the parties are consanguineous in some degree of the direct line or in the first degree of the collateral line.

§ 1. Affinity in the direct line invalidates marriage in any degree; in the collateral line up to the second degree inclusive.

§ 2. The impediment of affinity is multiplied:

1° As often as the impediment of consanguinity from which it proceeds is multiplied.

2° By marriage repeated successively with a blood-relative of the deceased spouse.

The impediment of public propriety arises from an invalid marriage, whether consummated or not, and from public or notorious concubinage; and it invalidates nuptials in the first and second degree of the direct line between the man and the blood-relatives of the woman, and vice versa.

Only that spiritual relationship of which in can. 768 invalidates marriage.

Those who by civil law are held incapable of entering nuptials between themselves on account of legal relationship arising from adoption cannot, by force of canon law, validly contract marriage between themselves.