Morals of the Church
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Section — Wouters, Manual of Moral Theology

§ III. Adultery with Spouse-Murder

789.

Canon 1075, 2° states: "They cannot validly contract who, likewise while the same legitimate marriage endures, have consummated adultery between themselves and one of them has perpetrated spouse-murder." Therefore there are required:

I. Adultery. But this must not only be, as was set forth in n. 787, true, consummated, formal on both sides, and formally injurious to the same spouse; it must also be such with respect to precisely that spouse who is killed. In other words, here it does not suffice that the matrimonial state of one or the other be known to each, but moreover it is required that the matrimonial state of that one whose spouse is killed be known to each. For, with the end of the law considered,1 it seems to be required that adultery, and indeed the adultery of each party, influence the killing of the spouse. But this does not have place if one or the other party is ignorant of the matrimonial state of the spouse killed. There is added that the ancient law speaks of adultery injurious with respect to the spouse killed (St. Alphonsus, Homo Apostolicus, tract 18, n. 63, where he requires "that each adulterer be conscious of the prior marriage," that is, of the marriage which was dissolved by the killing of one spouse).

II. Spouse-murder; concerning which it must be observed:

  1. Plotting of death perpetrated by one or the other accomplice in adultery suffices, whether physically or morally.

  2. Death must truly have followed, and from that plotting.

  3. The plotting must have proceeded from the intention of marrying the accomplice in adultery. "Hence it is inferred that if a man kills his wife so that he may enjoy the adulteress more freely, or for another cause, even if that woman consented to the homicide but without intention of marriage, the impediment is not contracted" (St. Alphonsus VI, 1036). For the rest, here it is certainly not necessary that that intention be present in both adulterers, since the plotting of both is not required. But it is disputed whether the stated intention must be manifested to the accomplice in adultery. Now this seems to be denied, because in this case the law does not require mutual conspiracy. Nevertheless the intention seems to have to be externalized, as they say, because the Church cannot, or at least is not accustomed to, make laws concerning merely internal acts (St. Alphonsus VI, 1034).

III. Joining between adultery and spouse-murder. 1. Adultery and spouse-murder must be committed while the same legitimate marriage stands.

  1. It is disputed whether adultery must have preceded not only the death of the spouse, but also the physical plotting of death, for example the administering of poison or the infliction of a wound. Now this is affirmed with sufficient probability, because, with the end of the law considered, the impediment seems to have been established lest the adultery of each should influence the killing of the innocent spouse (p. 634). Once this is posited, it is necessary that the adultery precede the physical plotting of death itself (St. Alphonsus VI, 1036, 2°). I said, however, "physical plotting," because the impediment arises even if the adultery follows the moral plotting, provided that it precedes the physical.

1 The end of the law is lest adultery give occasion for preparing the death of the innocent spouse.

CrimeAdultery and Murder