The Duties of Engaged Persons

The Duties Imposed by Engagement to Marry.—(a) Before Engagement.—Courtship is lawful for those who intend to marry, for without it the mutual knowledge which is requisite for a prudent choice is impossible. But courtship should be employed, not as a period of pleasure and extravagance, but as an opportunity for learning the suitability of the parties, one for the other, and their desirability in virtue, religion, sanity, intelligence, health, wealth, position, love of children, sobriety, steadiness, etc. Visits are lawful during courtship, but not the same familiarity as is permissible after engagement. The time of wooing should not be protracted, and as a rule after a year the parties should either become engaged or decide they are not well matched.

(b) At the Time of the Engagement.—The parties are gravely bound to make known to each other all personal defects which cannot be concealed without serious injustice, such as the lack of virginity or other quality which one party makes a conditio sine qua non, or the presence of a diriment impediment or of a very harmful or displeasing characteristic (such as venereal disease, sterility, disgrace, race, the fact that one is a widow, etc.). There is no duty of justice to manifest defects whose concealment will not be detrimental (such as poverty, lowly origin), but there may be a duty of charity to reveal them, as when their concealment now will lead to an unhappy marriage. As to fornication, the man is not obliged to confess it, unless perhaps when he has an illegitimate child; nor the woman, unless she is actually pregnant, or cannot keep the matter hidden afterwards and can make it known without serious harm to herself (see Self-defamation, 1577; cfr. 1978, 2132). But those who have been guilty of these mistakes should undergo a test on the question of physical health.

(c) During the Engagement.—Fidelity requires that an engaged person be true to the other party, avoid paying court to a third person (see 2526), and give the signs of affection that are usual between engaged persons. The relationship between the engaged parties does not give them the right to what is intrinsically evil (e.g., voluntary pollution, proximate danger of consent to sin, continuance in a familiarity which is a proximate occasion of sin), or to what is lawful only to married persons (e.g., intercourse and the liberties pertinent to it). But it does give them the right to manifest their affection by acts indifferent in themselves (e.g., visits which are not private, too frequent, or too prolonged; the decent kisses usual between betrothed lovers on meeting and parting), even though unintentionally pollution may follow (2538). Persons who intend to marry soon should acquaint themselves before marriage and from reliable sources with the fundamental physiological facts of sex, so as to avoid the mistakes which often wreck conjugal happiness, beginning with the honeymoon itself; they should have some money or the prospect of being able to support themselves, and the woman should know how to take care of a home.

(d) At the End of the Engagement.—A formal promise to marry (Canon 1017) imposes the duty of marriage within a reasonable time (i.e., at the appointed date, or, if no date was fixed, at the time when one of the parties reasonably requests it), unless the engagement be broken (e.g., by mutual consent, by a circumstance that makes marriage impossible, such as marriage to a third party or choice of the clerical state; or unnecessary, such as the fulfillment of a resolutory condition, supervening impediment, Papal dispensation given for a just cause); or unless one of the parties has a right not to keep the engagement on account of a notable change in the circumstances, or a breach of faith, or opposition of parents that will make the marriage inadvisable, etc. The obligation to marry is one of justice, and is grave when the contract was bilateral; it is one of fidelity or justice, and grave or light according to the intention of the promisor, when the contract was unilateral (see 1888). There is no action to enforce an engagement, for forced marriages are unwise (Canon 1017, n. 3); and in practice confessors and pastors should not insist on fulfillment of the promise. But damages can be sued for, and the confessor should deny absolution to one who refuses to make just restitution in a case of breach of promise (see 1803). An informal promise to marry (i.e., one invalid naturally or positively) produces no obligation to marry in either forum (see 454); but it does produce a duty of restitution in breach of promise, if there was force, fraud, or deceit.

Conditions for the Signs of Affection between Engaged Persons.—(a) Objectively, these signs must be suited to the condition of merely engaged, not of married persons. Brief and modest kisses are proper for lovers, but greater intimacy, such as long and lone conversations in secluded spots, are wrong.

The chaster the relations between the betrothed, the less occasion for future regrets and recriminations. “Petting” purchases a cheap physical thrill or excitement at the cost of present moral danger for two persons, of the degradation of love to its lowest expression, and of loss of self-respect, with the probable risk of a future ill-fated marital career ending speedily in disillusionment and divorce. It is essentially selfish and unwise.

(b) Subjectively, the signs of affection must not be a proximate occasion of sin; nor may they be accompanied by consent to sin, or be used for the sake of venereal pleasure. Joy at the thought of future marriage intercourse and sensual pleasure in present kisses (2514) are in themselves not sinful, but in practice they are as a rule gravely dangerous. Motiones carnales, quales sunt erectiones, signa sunt delectationis venereae quando conjuguntur eum pollutione vel proxime praeviis ad eam; sunt signa delectationis mere sensualis, quando amorem sensibilem sequuntur ex motu sanguinis, quin in resolutionem seminis ex se tendant (2497 b).