CIVIL MARRIAGE.--A civil marriage must be preceded by a declaration to the Municipal Judge, stating the names, ages, professions and domiciles of the contracting parties; also the names, professions and domiciles of the parents; and proper certificates of the births and status of the contracting parties; certificates of consent or advice of parents, and dispensations when required. Marriages may be celebrated personally or by a substitute or proxy to whom a special authorization has been granted. Civil marriages must be solemnized by the contracting parties appearing before the Municipal Judge, or one of them, and the person whom the absent party may have appointed as proxy must appear before such magistrate, together with two competent witnesses. The Municipal Judge, after reading articles 56 and 57 of the Civil Code to the parties (which point out the rights and obligations of married life), must ask each party if they desire to be married to each other, and if both answer in the affirmative, the judge shall declare the parties to be husband and wife, and prepare a record of the marriage. Consuls and vice-consuls are empowered to exercise the function of municipal judges in marriages of Spaniards, celebrated in foreign countries. NULLITY OF MARRIAGE.--The following marriages are null and void: 1. Those concluded between persons related within the prohibited degrees. 2. Those concluded between persons under the age of puberty. 3. Marriages between persons, one or both of whom were of incurably unsound mind. 4. Incurably impotent persons. 5. Persons bound by canonical vows to chastity. The proceeding to have such marriages judicially declared as null may be instituted by either spouse, the Public Attorney, or by any interested person. The action lapses, and the marriage will be confirmed in cases based on abduction, error, force or fear, when the spouses have lived together six months after the error became known, or after the force or fear has ceased. DIVORCE.--A divorce in Spain only amounts to what in other countries is called a judicial separation. Accepting the decrees of the Council of Trent as law for Spain, marriage is treated as a sacramental contract which can only be dissolved by death. The Civil Code, Article 104, states the following causes for divorce: 1. Adultery on the wife's part. 2. Adultery on the part of the husband, when public scandal or disgrace of the wife is a result. 3. Violence exercised by the husband over the wife in order to force her to abandon her religious faith. 4. Cruelty actually inflicted, or grave acts of contumely. 5. The attempt or proposal of a husband to prostitute his wife. 6. The attempts of either husband or wife to corrupt the morals of the sons, or to prostitute the daughters. 7. Condemnation of either spouse to imprisonment for life. EFFECTS OF DIVORCE OR NULLIFICATION.--The civil effects of a divorce or annulment of marriage are as follows: 1. Separation of the parties.