Case 22. A Treacherous Friend

Titius, an unmarried man, was joined in the greatest familiarity with Caius and his wife Caia and, despising divine and human laws, had rather frequently committed adultery with Caia. Caius, seized by a grave illness, solicitous before death about his unworthy wife, summoned Titius to him and said that it would be most pleasing to him if Titius married the wife he was leaving. Titius promised that he would do this; afterwards, so that Caius might die peacefully, Titius and Caia, standing together at his bedside, promised him that they would enter marriage after his death. After the death of Caius followed, they renewed this promise and asked Paul, the parish priest, to proclaim the banns. When Paul discovered the aforesaid things in the examination of the betrothed, however, he was uncertain whether or not they were capable of marriage. Hence it is asked:

1. What is the impediment of crime, and by what law is it established?

2. Does ignorance excuse from incurring the impediment?

3. What conditions are required for the impediment from adultery and promise of marriage to be present?

4. What is to be said of the case?

1. What is the impediment of crime, and by what law is it established?

Crime is a diriment impediment of marriage established by ecclesiastical law by which those who are already married and commit adultery, homicide of spouse, or both together, with a third person, are made incapable of marrying that person even after the death of the spouse.¹

1 Manual of Moral Theology, vol. ii, 313.

2. Does ignorance excuse from incurring this impediment?

It probably excuses in the forum of conscience those who marry in ignorance of the impediment; ignorance can not be effectively pleaded in the external forum in favor of the validity of a marriage vitiated by this impediment.²

2 Ibid., 317.

3. What conditions are necessary for the impediment from adultery and promise of marriage?

The adultery must be real, formal, and complete. The promise must be real, accepted by the promisee, absolute, made with knowledge of the present marriage, and undertaking to contract marriage after the death of the other spouse. Both the adultery and the promise must have place during the continuance of the same marriage.³

3 Ibid., 314.

4. The case. There was no impediment of crime between the parties, so that Paul might marry them if there were no other obstacle. The promise of marriage had not the requisite conditions for producing the impediment. Titius promised Caius on his death-bed that he would marry Caia, and then both Titius and Caia promised him that they would marry each other after his death. When Caius was dead, Titius and Caia promised marriage to each other, but it could not then produce the impediment of crime.