Article I: On Revalidating Matrimony Invalid On Account Of Defect Of True Consent

2082. Matrimony is invalid ON ACCOUNT OF DEFECT OF CONSENT, if one party or each party, whether fictitiously, or from error, or from force and fear, consented. - Such a matrimony, error or fear having been removed, is revalidated by consent alone duly furnished. - Now:

1. If true consent was lacking from EACH party, it must be expressly renewed by each party, as is clear of itself.

2. If it was lacking from only ONE party, it is certain that it must be renewed from this side. But whether it must also be renewed by the other party, namely so that this one must be warned concerning the nullity of the matrimony, is indeed controverted; but the more common and truer opinion denies with St. Thomas.¹ - Indeed, if no inconvenience were to be feared, which very rarely is absent, it would be better, on account of reverence for the Sacrament, that consent be renewed on both sides; but this mutual renewal is not necessary. Therefore it suffices if he who previously did not consent furnishes his consent, either by words or by signs, for example through conjugal intercourse and through cohabitation. "The reason is that it is certain that in the contract of matrimony physical simultaneity of the consents of the betrothed is not required, but moral simultaneity suffices, namely if the consent of one morally perseveres while the consent of the other is placed. But in our case..., since the true consent of the other has already preceded and virtually perseveres, through cohabitation or another sign, it is enough that the consent of the one who suffered fear or consented fictitiously accede."² Positive law suffragates.³

"Nor does the fear obstruct, lest the party who furnished free consent, if again asked about new consent, perhaps should deny it; for this interpretative dissent is not true dissent, but meanwhile the consent formerly imparted perseveres."⁴

IT IS ASKED. "Whether one who FICTITIOUSLY contracted matrimony is bound FROM JUSTICE to revalidate it by true consent?"

Resp. "The Salmanticenses and others affirm, because the other has already handed over his body through true consent; whence, that equality may be preserved, the one fictitiously consenting is bound also through true consent to hand over his body. But Sanchez, and others, more probably deny, because since the contract of matrimony cannot limp, when one consents fictitiously, there is no handing over on the part of the other, and therefore no inequality remains: for he who placed true consent remains equally free as if he had placed no consent. - Nevertheless all agree that the one consenting fictitiously is bound to revalidate the matrimony by true consent, if he cannot otherwise repair the damages inflicted on the other from that deception."⁵