A Short History of Women's Rights: From the Days of Augustus to the Present Time. with Special Reference to England and the United States. Second Edition Revised, With Additions.Hecker, Eugene A. (Eugene Arthur)
History
A Short History of Women's Rights: From the Days of Augustus to the Present Time. with Special Reference to England and the United States. Second Edition Revised, With Additions.
Hecker, Eugene A. (Eugene Arthur)
Women's rights -- History
By the doctrine of "diriment impediments" the Pope or a duly constituted
representative can declare that a marriage has been null and void from
the very beginning because of some impediment defined in the canon law.
Canon IV of the twenty-fourth session of the Council of Trent
anathematises anyone who shall say that the Church cannot constitute
impediments dissolving marriage, or that she has erred in constituting
them. The impediments which can annul marriage are described in the
official Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. vii, pages 697-698. Among them are
impuberty and impotency. Then there is "disparity of worship," which
renders void the marriage of a Christian--that is, a Roman Catholic,
with an infidel,--that is, one who is unbaptised. Marriage of a Roman
Catholic with a baptised non-Catholic constitutes a "relative"
impediment and needs a special dispensation and provisoes, such as a
guarantee to bring up the children in the Roman faith to give it
validity. Another impediment is based on the presumption of want of
consent, "the nullity being caused by a defect of consent." "This
defect," says the Catholic Encyclopedia, "may arise from the intellect
or the will; hence we have two classes. Arising from the intellect we
have: insanity; and total ignorance, even if in confuso of what marriage
is (this ignorance, however, is not presumed to exist after the age of
puberty has been reached); and lastly error, where the consent is not
given to what was not intended. Arising from the will, a defect of
consent may be caused through deceit or dissimulation, when one
expresses exteriorly a consent that does not really exist; or from
constraint imposed by an unjust external force, which causes the consent
not to be free." Consanguinity and affinity are diriment impediments.
Consanguinity "prohibits all marriages in the direct ascending or
descending line in infinitum, and in the collateral line to the fourth
degree or fourth generation." Affinity "establishes a bond of
relationship between each of the married parties and the blood relations
of the other, and forbids marriage between them to the fourth degree.
Such is the case when the marriage springs from conjugal relations; but
as canon law considers affinity to spring also from illicit intercourse,
there is an illicit affinity which annuls marriage to the second degree
only." Then there is "spiritual relationship"; for example, the marriage
of one who stood as sponsor in confirmation with a parent of the child
is null and void.
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