Article V. Affinity

Affinity is the relationship which one contracts with the relatives by blood of a person with whom he has contracted a ratified marriage only or a ratified and consummated marriage (Can. 97, sec. 1).

It has its origin in positive ecclesiastical law with regard to the collateral line and more probably also in the direct line. Affinity annuls marriage in the direct line in every degree, in the collateral line to the second degree inclusively (Can. 1077). The degrees in affinity with the husband are the same as the degrees of consanguinity with the wife and vice versa.

As this impediment is of ecclesiastical origin, the Church can dispense from it, but she does not dispense in affinity in the first degree in the direct line.

The impediment of affinity is multiplied as often as the impediment of consanguinity from which it proceeds is multiplied, and by marriage with a relative of a dead spouse (Can. 107", SEC, 2).

Affinity, however, does not generate affinity, so that two brothers may marry two sisters, and a father and son may marry a mother and daughter.

English law only acknowledges affinity arising between those who are married, and it extends only to the same degrees, computed in the same way, as does consanguinity. e