§ 104.6. =The Sacrament of Marriage= (§ 89, 4).--When marriage came generally to be regarded as a sacrament in the proper sense, the laws of marriage were reconstructed and the administration of them committed to the church. It had long been insisted upon by the church with ever-increasing decidedness, that the priestly benediction must precede the marriage ceremonial, and that bridal communion must accompany the civil action. Hence marriage had to be performed in the immediate vicinity of a church, _ante ostium ecclesiæ_. As another than the father often gave away the bride, this position of sponsor was claimed by the church for the priest. Marriage thus lost its civil character, and the priest came to be regarded as performing it in his official capacity not in name of the family, but in name of the church. Christian marriage in the early times required only mutual consent of parties (§ 39, 1), but the Council of Trent demanded a solemn agreement between bride and bridegroom before the officiating priest and two or three witnesses. In order to determine more exactly hindrances to marriage (§ 61, 2) it was made a law at the second Lateran Council in A.D. 1139, and confirmed at the fourth in A.D. 1215, that the parties proposing to marry should be proclaimed in church. To each part of the sacrament the _character indelibilis_ is ascribed, and so divorce was absolutely forbidden, even in the case of adultery (in spite of Matt. v. 32 and xix. 9), though _separatio a mensa et toro_ was allowed. Innocent III. in A.D. 1215 reduced the prohibited degrees from the seventh to the fourth in the line of blood relationship (§ 61, 2).