Diriment Impediments

Diriment Impediments to Marriage.—The diriment or nullifying impediments to marriage are personal incapacities in a person which render him or her incapable, from divine or ecclesiastical law, of contracting marriage with anyone (absolute impediments), or of contracting marriage with a certain individual (relative impediments).

The absolute diriment impediments are the following: (a) those that are due to a personal defect making one unable to promise with sufficient discretion (impediment of age) or to perform what is promised (impediment of impotency); (b) those that are due to a voluntary act which consecrates one to God with the obligation of perpetual celibacy (the impediments of Orders and vows).

The relative impediments are the following: (a) that one which is due to an obligation to one’s present husband or wife (the impediment of bond); (b) that one which is due to too great a difference between two parties (impediment of disparity of cult); those that are due to too close a kinship between two parties, whether natural (impediments of consanguinity and affinity) or like to the natural (impediments of public decency, spiritual kinship, legal kinship); (d) those that are due to a relationship caused by a crime that makes it unsuitable for two parties to marry. If one party is perpetrator and the other the victim, there is the impediment of abduction; if the two parties are accomplices, there is the impediment of crime.

The Impediment of Age.—(a) Nature.—This impediment exists in males who have not completed their sixteenth year, and in females who have not completed their fourteenth year. These ages are set by the general law, because all parts of the world have to be considered and sufficient discretion may be presumed at those ages everywhere. But substantial ignorance even after those years invalidates consent, and moreover, in colder countries where development is slower, marriage is generally inadvisable before the parties are 18 and 16 respectively. The marriageable ages according to the statute law in most of our States are 18 and 16 with parental consent, and 21 and 18 without it.

(b) Effect.—This impediment is of ecclesiastical law in so far as the precise determination of age is concerned, but of natural law in so far as the use of reason is demanded. Hence, the Church may dispense, and hence also the impediment as ecclesiastical does not bind the unbaptized, even when being underaged they marry Christians.

The Impediment of Impotency.—(a) Nature.—Impotency is the inability to exercise the sexual act in a way suitable for procreation. The requisites for this act are immissio membri virilis in vaginam mulieris cum seminis effusione, and hence those are impotent who lack sexual organs (such as the emasculated or spayed), or who on account of psychical or physical abnormalities are unable to have complete intercourse (e.g., anaphrodisiacs, some hermaphrodites, those who suffer from hypospadias, vaginism, etc.). Sterility, or the mere inability to procreate from sexual intercourse (as in old persons), is not the same thing as impotency, and is not an impediment to marriage. Authorities are not agreed whether or not the operations of male vasectomy and evariotomy produce impotency or sterility. But many regard the former operation as unlawful except for a most grave cause (such as the saving of life), since it takes away a power given by nature for the benefit of society, exposes the individual to very serious temptations, and opens the way to terrible abuses.

(b) Effect.—Impotency anterior to marriage and perpetual, whether in the man or in the woman, whether known to the other party or not, voids marriage from the law of nature itself, and hence is not dispensable. But impotency that arises after marriage or that is only temporary does not invalidate, and impotency that is relative (i.e., in reference to one person only) does not nullify marriage except in reference to a determinate person. In justice to the other spouse, married persons who have an easily curable impotency should have this defect removed.

The Impediments of Orders and Vows.—(a) Orders.—Those who are in Sacred Orders (priesthood, deaconship and, in the Latin Church, subdeaconship) cannot marry validly. The impediment is decreed by ecclesiastical law alone, and hence the Church has the power to dispense. One who was ordained through compulsion or in ignorance of the duty of celibacy, is permitted to marry, if he does not wish to ratify his ordination; but he then loses all right to exercise his Order (2235).

(b) Vows.—Professed religious with solemn vows or simple vows that annul marriage cannot marry validly. It is more probable that this impediment, in so far as solemn vows are concerned, is of divine right; but the Pope, as the Vicar of Christ, is able to dispense (see 2194, 2234, 2235, 1787 e).

The Impediment of Bond.—(a) A person who is already validly married cannot marry again until the bond of the existing marriage is removed by the death of the other spouse or by dissolution. An exception is the case of the Pauline Privilege; but even then the bond of the first marriage remains till the second is contracted (see 2787 e).

(b) This impediment is of natural and divine law, and it binds all men, the unbaptized as well as the baptized. No dispensation can be granted from the impediment as long as it continues; and moreover those who would contract a second marriage must offer proof that the bond of the first marriage was non-existent, or that it has ceased. Nullity of a previous marriage must be established by canonical process (Canons 1986 sqq.); dissolution of an unconsummated marriage through vow or Papal dispensation is proved sufficiently by an authentic document; cessation of bond through death of consort must be demonstrated with moral certainty, if it is not manifest (see 2803). The procedure to be observed in cases of the Pauline Privilege is explained by commentaries on Canons 1120 sqq. of the Code.

The Impediment of Disparity of Cult.—(a) A marriage of a Catholic (i.e., of a person baptized in or converted to the Catholic Church) with an unbaptized person is null and void. This impediment bars the marriage of a professed ex-Catholic with an infidel, but not the marriage of a non-Catholic with an infidel; and by infidel is understood here not only a non-Christian (such as a Jew), but also a Christian unbaptized or invalidly baptized. A person accidentally baptized by a Catholic is not considered a Catholic if born of heretical or schismatical parents and reared by them in their sect.

(b) This impediment as prohibitive is of divine ordinance, for the same reasons as in the case of mixed marriages (see 2806 c): “Bear not the yoke with unbelievers” (II Cor., vi. 14). But neither natural nor divine law nullifies such a marriage with unbelievers; for the substantial ends of marriage (i.e., procreation and education of children) can be had even in such unions, and very holy personages have contracted marriage even with pagans (e.g., Jacob with the daughters of Laban, Joseph with the daughter of Putiphar, Moses with the daughter of Jethro, Esther with Assuerus, St. Cecilia with Valerian, St. Monica with Patricius, St. Clotilda with Clovis, etc.). The Church, however, has made disparity of cult a diriment impediment on account of the special danger, and it grants no dispensation unless the precautions decreed for mixed marriages be observed (see 824, 2807).

The Impediments of Kinship.—(a) Consanguinity.—Marriage is null when contracted between blood relatives, that is, persons descended from one another or from one common ancestor within certain limits. In the direct line consanguinity invalidates marriage between all ascendants and descendants, legitimate or natural, that is, between a man and all his female ancestry (mother, grandmother, etc.) and posterity (daughter, etc.), and between a woman and all her male ancestors and posterity. In the collateral line it invalidates to the third degree inclusively, that is, between a man and a woman whose parents are related as first cousins or even more closely. The degree of consanguinity between this man and woman is first, second or third, according as one, two or three generations separate them (i.e., both or the one farthest removed) from the nearest ancestor of both (see Canons 96 and 1076). Consanguinity is multiplied when two parties are descended from several common stocks. This impediment is of the natural law as regards the first, and probably all the other degrees of the direct line; for reverence due to parents forbids one to marry them. Marriage between brother and sister is not opposed to the absolute or primary law of nature, but to the relative or secondary law (see 303); for natural inclination teaches that it is unbecoming for members of the same family to intermarry, and further the children of their unions are very apt to be weakly or defective. In other degrees consanguinity is an impediment of church law only, and may be dispensed for a good reason, but a more serious reason is necessary for nearer relationship.

(b) Affinity.—Marriage is null when contracted between relatives-in-law, or those who are kin by valid, even though unconsummated, marriage. But the impediment exists only between the husband and his wife’s blood relatives, and vice versa. In the direct line it includes all degrees; in the collateral line it extends to the second degree inclusive. Hence, a widower is impeded from marrying all the lineal relatives of his deceased wife (her mother, grandmother, daughter, granddaughter, etc.), and the following of her collateral relatives: her sisters, her aunts, her nieces, her first cousins. Affinity is multiplied by multiplication of the consanguinity on which it is based (e.g., when a woman is doubly related to one’s deceased wife), and by successive marriages (e.g., when a woman is the sister of a man’s two deceased wives). The impediment of affinity is justified by moral reasons—by the mutual reverence that should exist between those who are closely related by marriage, by the dangers to which their relationship would be exposed if they were able to marry, and by the good of society, which is promoted when marriage is not confined within to narrow a circle. But the impediment is entirely ecclesiastical, for the Church can dispense in all degrees, and the relationship is only an imperfect copy of consanguinity.

(c) Public Decency.—This impediment, also known as quasi-affinity, arises from an invalid, even though unconsummated, marriage, and from public or notorious concubinage; and it annuls marriage in the first and second degrees of the direct line between the man and the blood relatives of the woman, and vice versa. The reason for the impediment is the unbecomingness of marriage with the near relatives (i.e., the mother, daughter, grandmother, granddaughter of the woman, and the father, son, grandfather, grandson of the man) of a person with whom one has lived in putative marriage or concubinage. The impediment is less strict than that of affinity, and is of ecclesiastical law only.

(d) Spiritual Relationship.—This impediment nullifies marriage between a baptized person and the person who baptized him or her or who stood for him or her in Baptism. The minister and the sponsor contract a relationship of spiritual parenthood to the baptized person, since Baptism is a supernatural birth and the godparents are charged with the religious welfare of the godchild. Reasons of respect and of intimate relationship make marriage between such persons unbecoming, and hence the Church from early times has ruled against it.

(e) Legal Relationship.—Persons who in civil law are unable to marry one another on account of the relationship arising from legal adoption are also barred from marriage in Canon Law. The relations between an adopted person and the members of the family into which he is adopted are so close that human lawmakers have often felt it necessary to declare adoption an impediment to marriage.

Matrimonial Impediments Produced through Misdeeds.—(a) Abduction.—There can be no valid marriage between a man who holds a woman under restraint in order to compel her to marry him, if she has been abducted by him or is violently detained by him in her residence or elsewhere. If the woman who has been carried away or who is held against her will marries unwillingly, the marriage is invalid according to natural law; if she marries willingly, the marriage is invalid from church law. Hence the impediment of abduction is of positive law only and does not oblige infidels (see Canon 1064).

(b) Crime.—There can be no valid marriage between the following: those who during a legitimate marriage have consummated adultery together and have mutually promised future marriage or have attempted marriage, even though only civilly (Canon 1075); those who during the same lawful marriage have consummated adultery together, and of whom one has committed conjugicide; those who have cooperated physically or morally, even though they are not adulterers, to murder the spouse of one of them. The purpose of this impediment is to safeguard the fidelity and rights of married persons, and to punish those who resort to adultery or murder in the hope of a new marriage. The impediment is ecclesiastical and does not affect infidels.