Chapter IV: Concerning the Impediments of Matrimony in General and Concerning Merely Prohibiting Impediments in Particular

The principal place in a pastoral treatise on matrimony is claimed for itself by impediments, which, whether from the precept of natural or divine law or from an ecclesiastical statute, stand in the way of the valid or licit celebration of matrimony. But lest the present chapter become too long, in this one we shall treat only of impediments considered in general and of prohibiting impediments. In the following chapter, however, we shall subject each of the diriment impediments to the examination of the studious reader.