Section 4. Defect of Sacrament.

486. From Defect of Sacrament bigamists are irregular, namely those who have contracted two or more valid marriages successively.¹

a. Matrimony from its institution, according to the Apostle, signifies the union of Christ with the Church, and this one and indivisible union.² The man represents Christ, the woman represents the Church. But this signification is had fully and perfectly only in marriage entered with a virgin. For just as Christ is joined to one Church only, so the man who contracts marriage with a virgin is joined to one wife only.

But bigamy is not suitable for perfectly representing the union of Christ with the Church, because the bigamist has joined himself to two wives. On account of this defect, which inheres in bigamy by its nature, the bigamist is declared irregular by the Church. And because the defect lies in this, that he cannot perfectly exhibit the signification which is in the sacrament of matrimony from its institution, it is called irregularity from defect of sacrament, or rather from defect of signifying the sacrament.

b. Bigamy constitutes irregularity even if someone before baptism married two wives successively, or one before baptism and the other after baptism. For the defect on account of which irregularity was established inheres even in an infidel bigamist and cannot be washed away by baptism. Before baptism, however, the bigamist is only radically irregular, not formally; but when baptism has been received, he becomes formally irregular.

1. In the ancient law other species of bigamy also induced irregularity; in the new law only true bigamy, by which someone contracted two or more marriages successively, does so.

2. The marriages entered successively must be valid. It is not required that they have been entered among Catholics; they can be mixed; nor is it required that they have been consummated, provided they have been validly contracted.

¹ Cn. 984, 4.

² Eph. 5, 32.