CSDC 217

The characteristic traits of marriage are: totality, by which the spouses give themselves to each other mutually in every aspect of their person, physical and spiritual; unity which makes them “one flesh” (Gen 2:24); indissolubility and fidelity which the definitive mutual giving of self requires; the fruitfulness to which this naturally opens itself⁴⁷⁹ Cf. John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, 13: AAS 74AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 74 (1982) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1982), 93-96.. God's wise plan for marriage — a plan accessible to human reason notwithstanding the difficulties arising from “hardness of heart” (cf. Mt 19:8; Mk 10:5) — cannot be evaluated exclusively in light of the de facto behaviour and concrete situations that are at divergence with it. A radical denial of God's original plan is found in polygamy, “because it is contrary to the equal personal dignity of men and women who in matrimony give themselves with a love that is total and therefore unique and exclusive”⁴⁸⁰ John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, 19: AAS 74AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 74 (1982) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1982), 102..