Article I: On the Impediment of Age

873. State of the question. - No determinate age (age; leeftijd) is required per se for entering matrimony, supposing the use of reason and sufficient discretion for furnishing consent; nor is actual capacity for copula of itself apt for generation demanded, but it suffices if it will be had in its own time. Yet it is fitting that an age be determined, so that, namely, matrimony be entered with the faculty of generating fully developed, lest it be to the detriment of the health of the contracting parties and of the offspring, and with mature judgment and sufficient preparation for ruling a family.

Hence almost all legislations contain an ordinance concerning age.

Under the old canon law, the age of legal puberty had been determined; but there was not an absolute impediment of age, but a merely conditional one, so that malice supplied age if before that there was sufficient knowledge of matrimony together with potency for performing copula: concerning which double fact there was required a declaratory sentence of the Supreme Pontiff or of the bishop.

Now, in the new law, already independently of the condition of puberty, a determinate age is prescribed; which nevertheless is not very advanced, because the legislation of the Church is universal and must befit all regions, and must provide for the integrity of morals, which is brought into danger from too great a delay of matrimony.

874. Principle. A man before the completed sixteenth year of age, a woman before the completed fourteenth year likewise, cannot enter matrimony. - Thus can. 1067, § 1.

It is said: a) a man before the sixteenth, a woman before the fourteenth; hence by applying the rule of can. 34, § 3, 3°, the day of birth is not counted, so that a man born on the 5th day of May 1930 is considered to have completed the years only on the 6th day of May 1946, and a woman born on the same day only on the 6th day of May 1944.

b) before the completed year; namely, the years must be wholly completed, so that, even one day being lacking, the matrimony is invalid.

The impediment is of ecclesiastical law. For:

1° A lower age, even below puberty, does not diriment matrimony by the law of nature, since according to that law there suffices sufficient use of reason and sufficient knowledge of matrimony, and the power of coeundi at least future.

2° But because the conjugal state is perpetual and of the greatest moment, the Church wisely requires for it a greater maturity of body and soul, which before a certain age is not wont to arrive.

3° A different age is established for man and woman, because the generative faculty is wont to be developed and to cease earlier in females than in males; hence legal puberty also is constituted differently, so that a male from the fourteenth year, a female from the twelfth year, is considered pubescent according to can. 88, § 2.

Hence a) matrimony is valid, even if natural puberty has not yet arrived, provided the legitimate age is present, because the Church does not demand present potency, but age;

b) on the contrary it is invalid, if it is entered with natural puberty but before the required age.

875. Observations. - 1. The impediment ceases by lapse of time, as regards contracting matrimony, namely when the canonical age has been attained.

But if before the legitimate age it has been contracted without dispensation, after the age has been attained it remains invalid, and then the consent must be renewed, and indeed in the face of the Church, if the nullity is public.

The impediment can also be removed by dispensation of the Pontiff, which is granted very rarely, unless perhaps in certain regions of the missions, in a case of doubtful age; and therefore in a doubt of fact the Ordinary cannot dispense, because it is one of those things in which the Pontiff is not wont to dispense outside those regions of the missions.

The dispensation having been conceded and the matrimony celebrated, the cohabitation of the spouses is forbidden until puberty, on account of the danger of injuring chastity.

Unbelievers, if they contract among themselves, are not subject to the impediment, as being ecclesiastical. If matrimony is entered between an unbeliever and a believer, at least the believer must have the canonical age, in order that the matrimony be valid.

Can. 1067, § 2 warns: "Although matrimony contracted after canonical age is valid, nevertheless pastors of souls must take care to turn youths away from it before the age at which, according to the received morals of the region, matrimony is wont to be entered." Thus especially in our regions, in which a more advanced age is deservedly required.