Section — Noldin, Summa of Moral Theology
Section 1. Age.
569. Nature of the Impediment. 1. The impediment of age consists in this, that a man before the completed sixteenth year of age and a woman before the completed fourteenth likewise cannot enter valid matrimony.1
a. Although the new law requires a greater age for entering valid matrimony than the old law did, it can nevertheless happen that in some northern regions even at this age full natural puberty with proximate power of generating is not had. Therefore Cn. 1067, 2 warns: although matrimony contracted after the aforesaid age is valid, pastors of souls should nevertheless take care to turn young people away from it before the age at which matrimony is customarily entered according to the received customs of the region.
b. For a twofold reason, a greater age is required for the value of matrimony than of betrothals, because matrimony requires both greater maturity of judgment and also power of generating. For betrothals are a promissory contract concerning the future and by their nature rescindable; but matrimony is a contract of handing over concerning the present and indissoluble. Therefore in betrothals a lesser degree of knowledge suffices.2
This impediment dirimently impedes matrimony by ecclesiastical law, which is already clear from this, that now for valid matrimony a more mature age is required than formerly. Moreover, by natural law no age is required for valid contracting beyond sufficient use of reason.
Because this impediment is of ecclesiastical law, the supreme pontiff per se can dispense in it, and in reality has sometimes dispensed from a most grave cause. But because dispensation is granted most rarely, this impediment is numbered among those in which dispensation is not customary.
Since the impediment of age regards a twofold defect, sufficient discretion and actual power of generating, and since the former is of natural law, it is clear that the supreme pontiff can dispense only in the latter.
1 Cn. 1067, 1.
2 Cf. Wernz, n. 314, note 30.
570. Declaration. By natural law, for validly contracting, nothing is required except perfect use of reason, so that there is full knowledge of the right and obligation which are assumed by contracting, although use of the matrimonial right is not yet possible. But because it is not fitting that matrimony be contracted before the spouses are apt for the use of matrimony, the Church wisely determined the age at which this aptitude can be presumed from things commonly happening. But the determination of age must be understood strictly, so that the matrimony is null even if only a few days were lacking for the due age, indeed if the last day had not yet been completed.
a. In our regions it scarcely happens that those below puberty contract matrimony; but in regions of infidels marriages of those below puberty are most frequent, and these among the infidels themselves, unless another impediment stands opposed, must indeed be held valid.
b. If the betrothed intend to enter matrimony before the canonical age, the parish priest must refer the matter to the bishop, to whom it pertains to declare whether there is really present in the betrothed the capability which is required, namely prudence and power of generating; but the bishop cannot dispense, not even in a case of doubt.1
1 Benedict XIV, constitution Magnae nobis.