Article VIII. Public Propriety

Before the issue of the new Code the impediment of public propriety arose by ecclesiastical law from valid and certain betrothal, and from ratified, not consummated, marriage.

The Code has made a great change in this impediment. According to Canon 1078, the impediment of public propriety arises from invalid marriage, whether consummated or not, and from public and notorious concubinage; and it annuls marriage in the first and second degree of the direct line between the man and the relations by blood of the woman and wice versa. Merely civil marriage by itself will not produce this impediment since it produces no canonical effects. But the impediment of public propriety will arise from the public and notorious concubinage which will be associated with merely civil marriage.