Article Three. On Diriment Impediments.

568. Declaration. a. In order that matrimony can be entered validly and licitly, three things are required: capable persons, sufficient consent, and due form. Therefore three things impede the validity or liceity of matrimony: incapacity of persons, defect of consent, and defect of form. In the old law all these were called impediments of matrimony and were customarily treated together under the title of impediments. The new Code calls only incapacities of persons strictly and properly impediments of matrimony and treats them under this title; concerning defect of consent and defect of form it speaks elsewhere.

b. Impediments immediately keep one away from entering the contract, and mediately and consequently also from receiving the sacrament.

c. In the new law there are numbered only thirteen diriment impediments: 1. age, 2. impotence, 3. bond, 4. disparity of cult, 5. sacred order, 6. religious profession, 7. abduction, 8. crime, 9. consanguinity, 10. affinity, 11. public honesty, 12. spiritual relationship, 13. legal relationship.