§ 177. General Overview

The most ancient institution of divine right is marriage. It came into being as soon as God created the first human beings, male and female, and ordained that they should love and help one another. Through these two, and from them, the whole human race was to come into being and develop. For this reason God placed in both of them the strongest feeling of natural love, one for the other, and they were bound to one another so closely that from then on they became one soul, one heart, one flesh; and, according to the sexual nature of the male and the female and their natural sexual bond, these two became the first parents of the whole subsequent human race.[1] By this God instituted marriage, and that in the form of monogamy, as a bond for the whole of life between one man and one woman—a bond which, since they are one flesh, can no longer be dissolved. If polygamy, and in some places also polyandry, later developed in the world, and marriage ceased to be regarded as an indissoluble bond, so that a man could change his wife at will, or a woman her husband, this was owing to the corruption to which human nature had succumbed, and to the depravity into which man had fallen before the appearance of Christianity.

Marriage, then, in its pure form, is an institution of nature by the will of God. It is the basis of the family, that fellowship in which the noblest human feelings are nurtured. It is the basis of the state, for it is in the family that man becomes accustomed to order and to respect for authority, without which no state can exist. Through it man completes himself and there arises that harmony between reason, with which the male side is more richly endowed, and feeling, which is particularly characteristic of the female side, from which every good may come for society. Through it the members of God’s kingdom are prepared and raised, for through it the act of man’s creation is confirmed and continued, and with the new body which comes forth from marriage—a body which is mortal—a new immortal soul comes forth for that kingdom. Marriage, therefore, is by its very nature exalted and holy, and Christianity has confirmed this exaltedness and holiness of it when it called it a special divine institution, when it defined the proper relation between husband and wife, and when it proclaimed marriage a holy mystery.[2]

And since the marital bond among Christians is founded on natural and Christian love, and this same bond constitutes an act of the highest importance both for earthly and for eternal life, the science of church law is bound to present systematically everything concerning marriage and the preservation of its holiness. And after a survey of the essence of marriage and of jurisdiction in matrimonial matters, this science must show: how marriage is contracted, so that it may correspond to its purpose; what may impede the lawfulness of a marriage; what legal consequences arise for the persons concerned from marriage; what may be the cause for a marital bond to be dissolved; and, finally, whether, besides the first and normal marriage, other marriages can also exist.

I. THE ESSENCE OF MARRIAGE.