Getting married
What is it that makes a marriage a marriage?
The parties to a marriage covenant are a baptized man and woman, free to contract marriage, who freely express their consent; "to be free" means: - not being under constraint; - not impeded by any natural or ecclesiastical law.
The Church holds the exchange of consent between the spouses to be the indispensable element that "makes the marriage." CIC, can. 1057 # 1. If consent is lacking there is no marriage.
The consent consists in a "human act by which the partners mutually give themselves to each other": "I take you to be my wife" - "I take you to be my husband." GS 48 # 1; OCM 45; cf. CIC, can. 1057 # 2. This consent that binds the spouses to each other finds its fulfillment in the two "becoming one flesh." Gen 2:24; cf. Mt 10:8; Eph 5:31.
The consent must be an act of the will of each of the contracting parties, free of coercion or grave external fear. Cf. CIC, can. 1103. No human power can substitute for this consent. Cf. CIC, can. 1057 # 1. If this freedom is lacking the marriage is invalid.
For this reason (or for other reasons that render the marriage null and void) the Church, after an examination of the situation by the competent ecclesiastical tribunal, can declare the nullity of a marriage, i.e., that the marriage never existed. Cf. CIC, cann. 1095-1107. In this case the contracting parties are free to marry, provided the natural obligations of a previous union are discharged. Cf. CIC, can. 1071.
The priest (or deacon) who assists at the celebration of a marriage receives the consent of the spouses in the name of the Church and gives the blessing of the Church. the presence of the Church's minister (and also of the witnesses) visibly expresses the fact that marriage is an ecclesial reality.
This is the reason why the Church normally requires that the faithful contract marriage according to the ecclesiastical form. Several reasons converge to explain this requirement: Cf. Council of Trent: DS — Denzinger–Schönmetzer (Enchiridion Symbolorum); CIC, can. 1108. - Sacramental marriage is a liturgical act. It is therefore appropriate that it should be celebrated in the public liturgy of the Church; - Marriage introduces one into an ecclesial order, and creates rights and duties in the Church between the spouses and towards their children; - Since marriage is a state of life in the Church, certainty about it is necessary (hence the obligation to have witnesses); - the public character of the consent protects the "I do" once given and helps the spouses remain faithful to it.
So that the "I do" of the spouses may be a free and responsible act and so that the marriage covenant may have solid and lasting human and Christian foundations, preparation for marriage is of prime importance. The example and teaching given by parents and families remain the special form of this preparation. The role of pastors and of the Christian community as the "family of God" is indispensable for the transmission of the human and Christian values of marriage and family, Cf. CIC, can. 1063. and much more so in our era when many young people experience broken homes which no longer sufficiently assure this initiation:
It is imperative to give suitable and timely instruction to young people, above all in the heart of their own families, about the dignity of married love, its role and its exercise, so that, having learned the value of chastity, they will be able at a suitable age to engage in honorable courtship and enter upon a marriage of their own. GS 49 # 3.
"Conjugal love involves a totality, in which all the elements of the person enter - appeal of the body and instinct, power of feeling and affectivity, aspiration of the spirit and of will. It aims at a deeply personal unity, a unity that, beyond union in one flesh, leads to forming one heart and soul; it demands indissolubility and faithfulness in definitive mutual giving; and it is open to fertility. In a word it is a question of the normal characteristics of all natural conjugal love, but with a new significance which not only purifies and strengthens them, but raises them to the extent of making them the expression of specifically Christian values." FC 13.
The love of the spouses requires, of its very nature, the unity and indissolubility of the spouses' community of persons, which embraces their entire life: "so they are no longer two, but one flesh." Mt 19:6; cf. Gen 2:24. They "are called to grow continually in their communion through day-to-day fidelity to their marriage promise of total mutual self-giving." FC 19. This human communion is confirmed, purified, and completed by communion in Jesus Christ, given through the sacrament of Matrimony. It is deepened by lives of the common faith and by the Eucharist received together.
§1. The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring, has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized.
§2. For this reason, a valid matrimonial contract cannot exist between the baptized without it being by that fact a sacrament.
The essential properties of marriage are unity and indissolubility, which in Christian marriage obtain a special firmness by reason of the sacrament.
§1. The consent of the parties, legitimately manifested between persons quali-fied by law, makes marriage; no human power is able to supply this consent.
§2. Matrimonial consent is an act of the will by which a man and a woman mutually give and accept each other through an irrevocable covenant in order to establish marriage.
§1. Only those marriages are valid which are contracted before the local ordinary, pastor, or a priest or deacon delegated by either of them, who assist, and before two witnesses according to the rules expressed in the following canons and without prejudice to the exceptions mentioned in cann. 144, 1112, §1, 1116, and 1127, §§1-2.
§2. The person who assists at a marriage is understood to be only that person who is present, asks for the manifestation of the consent of the contracting parties, and receives it in the name of the Church.
The form prescribed above must be observed if at least one of the parties contracting the marriage was baptized in the Catholic Church or received into it, without prejudice to the provisions of can. 1127 § 2.
§1. To convalidate a marriage which is invalid because of a diriment impediment, it is required that the impediment ceases or is dispensed and that at least the party conscious of the impediment renews consent.
§2. Ecclesiastical law requires this renewal for the validity of the convalidation even if each party gave consent at the beginning and did not revoke it afterwards.
The renewal of consent must be a new act of the will concerning a marriage which the renewing party knows or thinks was null from the beginning.
§1. If the impediment is public, both parties must renew the consent in canonical form, without prejudice to the prescript of can. 1127, §2.
§2. If the impediment cannot be proven, it is sufficient that the party conscious of the impediment renews the consent privately and in secret, provided that the other perseveres in the consent offered; if the impediment is known to both parties, both are to renew the consent.
§1. A marriage which is invalid because of a defect of consent is convalidated if the party who did not consent now consents, provided that the consent given by the other party perseveres.
§2. If the defect of consent cannot be proven, it is sufficient that the party who did not consent gives consent privately and in secret.
§3. If the defect of consent can be proven, the consent must be given in canonical form.
A marriage which is null because of defect of form must be contracted anew in canonical form in order to become valid, without prejudice to the prescript of can. 1127, §2.
The family has its foundation in the free choice of the spouses to unite themselves in marriage, in respect for the meaning and values of this institution that does not depend on man but on God himself: “For the good of the spouses and their offspring as well as of society, this sacred bond no longer depends on human decision alone. For God himself is the author of marriage and has endowed it with various benefits and purposes” Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 48: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 58 (1966) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1966), 1067-1068.. Therefore, the institution of marriage — “intimate partnership of life and love ... established by the Creator and endowed by him with its own proper laws” Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 48: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 58 (1966) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1966), 1067. — is not the result of human conventions or of legislative prescriptions but acquires its stability from divine disposition Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1603.. It is an institution born, even in the eyes of society, “from the human act by which the partners mutually surrender themselves to each other” Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 48: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 58 (1966) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1966), 1067., and is founded on the very nature of that conjugal love which, as a total and exclusive gift of person to person, entails a definitive commitment expressed by mutual, irrevocable and public consent Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1639.. This commitment means that the relationships among family members are marked also by a sense of justice and, therefore, by respect for mutual rights and duties.
No power can abolish the natural right to marriage or modify its traits and purpose. Marriage in fact is endowed with its own proper, innate and permanent characteristics. Notwithstanding the numerous changes that have taken place in the course of the centuries in the various cultures and in different social structures and spiritual attitudes, in every culture there exists a certain sense of the dignity of the marriage union, although this is not evident everywhere with the same clarity Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1603.. This dignity must be respected in its specific characteristics and must be safeguarded against any attempt to undermine it. Society cannot freely legislate with regard to the marriage bond by which the two spouses promise each other fidelity, assistance and acceptance of children, but it is authorized to regulate its civil effects.
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 itself Cf. John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, 13: AAS — 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” John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, 19: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 74 (1982) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1982), 102..
In its “objective” truth, marriage is ordered to the procreation and education of children Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 48, 50: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 58 (1966) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1966), 1067-1069, 1070-1072.. The marriage union, in fact, gives fullness of life to that sincere gift of self, the fruit of which is children, who in turn are a gift for the parents, for the whole family and all of society Cf. John Paul II, Letter to Families Gratissimam Sane, 11: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 86 (1994) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1994), 883-886.. Nonetheless, marriage was not instituted for the sole reason of procreation Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 50: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 58 (1966) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1966), 1070-1072.. Its indissoluble character and its value of communion remain even when children, although greatly desired, do not arrive to complete conjugal life. In this case, the spouses “can give expression to their generosity by adopting abandoned children or performing demanding services for others” Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2379..
By Christ's institution, the baptized live the inherent human reality of marriage in the supernatural form of a sacrament, a sign and instrument of grace. The theme of the marriage covenant, as the meaningful expression of the communion of love between God and men and as the symbolic key to understanding the different stages of the great covenant between God and his people, is found throughout salvation history Cf. John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, 12: AAS 74 (1982), 93: “For this reason the central word of Revelation, ‘God loves his people', is likewise proclaimed through the living and concrete word whereby a man and a woman express their conjugal love. Their bond of love becomes the image and the symbol of the covenant which unites God and his people (cf. Hos 2:21; Jer 3:6-13; Is 54). And the same sin which can harm the conjugal covenant becomes an image of the infidelity of the people to their God: idolatry is prostitution (cf. Ezek 16:25), infidelity is adultery, disobedience to the law is abandonment of the spousal love of the Lord. But the infidelity of Israel does not destroy the eternal fidelity of the Lord, and therefore the ever faithful love of God is put forward as the model of the faithful love which should exist between spouses (cf. Hos 3)”.. At the centre of the revelation of the divine plan of love is the gift that God makes to humanity in his Son, Jesus Christ, “the Bridegroom who loves and gives himself as the Saviour of humanity, uniting it to himself as his body. He reveals the original truth of marriage, the truth of the ‘beginning' (cf. Gen 2:24; Mt 19:5), and, freeing man from his hardness of heart, he makes man capable of realizing this truth in its entirety” John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, 13: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 74 (1982) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1982), 93-94.. It is in the spousal love of Christ for the Church, which shows its fullness in the offering made on the cross that the sacramentality of marriage originates. The grace of this sacrament conforms the love of the spouses to the love of Christ for the Church. Marriage, as a sacrament, is a covenant in love between a man and a woman Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 48: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 58 (1966) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1966), 1067-1069..
The sacrament of marriage takes up the human reality of conjugal love in all its implications and “gives to Christian couples and parents a power and a commitment to live their vocation as lay people and therefore to ‘seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them according to the plan of God”' John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, 47: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 74 (1982) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1982), 139; the quotation in the text is taken from Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium, 31: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 57 (1965) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1965), 37.. Intimately united to the Church by virtue of the sacrament that makes it a “domestic Church” or a “little Church”, the Christian family is called therefore “to be a sign of unity for the world and in this way to exercise its prophetic role by bearing witness to the Kingdom and peace of Christ, towards which the whole world is journeying” John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, 48: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 74 (1982) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1982), 140; cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1656-1657, 2204.. Conjugal charity, which flows from the very charity of Christ, offered through the sacrament, makes Christian spouses witnesses to a new social consciousness inspired by the Gospel and the Paschal Mystery. The natural dimension of their love is constantly purified, strengthened and elevated by sacramental grace. In this manner, besides offering each other mutual help on the path to holiness, Christian spouses become a sign and an instrument of Christ's love in the world. By their very lives they are called to bear witness to and proclaim the religious meaning of marriage, which modern society has ever greater difficulty recognizing, especially as it accepts relativistic perspectives of the natural foundation itself of the institution of marriage.