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
Under the canon law, even more resources are open for the man who is
tired of his wife; by the doctrine, namely, of "spiritual fornication."
Adultery is, of course, recognised as the cause that admits a
separation. But the canon law remarks that idolatry and all harmful
superstition--by which is meant any doctrine that does not agree with
that of the Church--is fornication; that avarice is also idolatry and
hence fornication; that in fact no vice can be separated from idolatry
and hence all vices can be classed as fornication; so that if a husband
only tried a little bit, he could without much trouble find some "vice"
in his wife that would entitle him to a separation.[391]
When all these fail, recourse can be had to a dispensation. The Church
reserves the right to give dispensations for all impediments. Canon III
of the twenty-fourth session of Trent says: "If anyone shall say, that
only those degrees of consanguinity and affinity which are set down in
_Leviticus_ [xviii, 6 ff.] can hinder matrimony from being contracted,
and dissolve it when contracted; and that the Church can not dispense in
some of those degrees, or ordain that others may hinder and dissolve it;
let him be anathema."
[Sidenote: Inheritance]
The minute and far-fetched subtleties which the Roman Church has
employed in the interpretation of these relationships make escape from
the marital tie feasible for the man who is eager to disencumber himself
of his life's partner. The man of limited means will have a hard time of
it. The great and wealthy have been able at all periods, by working one
or more of these doctrines, to reduce the theory of the Roman Church to
nullity in practice. Napoleon had his marriage to Josephine annulled on
the ground that he had never intended to enter into a religious marriage
with her, although the day before the ceremony he had had the union
secretly blessed by Cardinal Fesch. On the basis of this avowed lack of
intent, his marriage with Josephine was declared null and void, and he
was free to marry Louisa. A plea along the same lines is being worked by
the Count de Castellane now. Louis XII, having fallen in love with Anne
of Brittany, suddenly discovered that his wife was his fourth cousin,
that she was deformed, and that her father had been his godfather; and
for this the Pope gave him a dispensation and his legitimate wife was
sent away. The Pope did not thunder against Louis XIV for committing
adultery with women like Louise de la Vallière and Madame de Montespan.
It is certainly true that in the case of Philip Augustus of France and
Henry VIII of England the Pope did protect injured wives; but both these
monarchs were questioning the Vatican's autocracy. The matrimonial
relations of John of England, Philip's contemporary, were more corrupt
than those of the French king; but, while the Pope chastised John for
his defiance of his political autonomy, he did not excommunicate him on
any ground of morality.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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