Marriage in the Catholic Church

Schools Relations with: Marriage in the Catholic Church, also known as holy matrimony, is the "covenant by which a man and woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring", and which "has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament between the baptized".

Marriage is not a purely human institution despite the many variations it may have undergone through the centuries in different cultures, social structures, and spiritual attitudes.

The well-being of the individual person and of both human and Christian society is closely bound up with the healthy state of conjugal and family life".

In his preaching Jesus unequivocally taught the original meaning of the union of man and woman as the Creator willed it from the beginning: permission given by Moses to divorce one's wife was a concession to the hardness of hearts.

By coming to restore the original order of creation disturbed by sin, he himself gives the strength and grace to live marriage in the new dimension of the Reign of God".

[9] At the same time, some in the emerging Christian communities began to prize the celibate state higher than marriage, taking the model of Jesus as a guide.

The apostle Paul in his letters also suggested a preference for celibacy, but recognized that not all Christians necessarily had the ability to live such a life: "Now as a concession, not a command, I say this.

[10] This teaching suggested that marriage be used only as a last resort by those Christians who found it too difficult to exercise a level of self-control and remain abstinent, not having the gift of celibacy.

[13] As the Church developed as an institution and came into contact with the Greek world, it reinforced the idea found in writers such as Plato and Aristotle that the celibate unmarried state was preferable and more holy than the married one.

Justin Martyr, writing in the middle of the 2nd century, boasted of the "many men and women of sixty and seventy years of age who from their childhood have been the disciples of Christ, and have kept themselves uncorrupted".

Philip Schaff admits that it cannot be denied that the later doctrine of the 16th century Council of Trent – "that it is more blessed to remain virgin or celibate than to be joined in marriage" – was the view that dominated the whole of the early Christian church.

I am not expounding the law as to husbands and wives, but discussing the general question of sexual intercourse – how in comparison with chastity and virginity, the life of angels, 'It is good for a man not to touch a woman'".

[35] In his youth, Augustine had also been a follower of Manichaeism, but after his conversion to Christianity he rejected the Manichaean condemnation of marriage and reproduction for imprisoning spiritual light within material darkness.

I only wish that this was everyone's concern so long as it was uttered in charity, 'from a pure heart, a good conscience, and faith unfeigned'; then the city of God would be filled much more speedily, and the end of the world would be hastened".

[41] Although not a church father, but belonging to the same period, in Adomnan of Iona's biography of St Columba, the saint at one point is mentioned as meeting a woman who refuses to sleep with her husband and perform her marriage duties.

[47] In 1208, Pope Innocent III required members of another religious movement, that of the Waldensians, to recognize that marriage is a sacrament as a condition for being received back into the Catholic Church.

[48] The Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 had already stated in response to the teaching of the Cathars: "For not only virgins and the continent but also married persons find favour with God by right faith and good actions and deserve to attain to eternal blessedness".

The first available written detailed account of a Christian wedding in the West dates only from the 9th century and appears to be identical to the old nuptial service of Ancient Rome.

[55] Thus, with few local exceptions, until in some cases long after the Council of Trent, marriages in Europe were by mutual consent, declaration of intention to marry and upon the subsequent physical union of the parties.

[60] Even after the Council of Trent made the presence of the parish priest or his delegate and of at least two more witnesses a condition for validity, the previous situation continued in many countries where its decree was not promulgated.

In the 12th century, Pope Alexander III decreed that what made a marriage was the free mutual consent by the spouses themselves, not a decision by their parents or guardians.

[66][67] Desiderius Erasmus influenced the debate in the first part of the 16th century by publishing 1518 an essay in praise of marriage (Encomium matrimonii), which argued that the single state was "a barren way of life hardly becoming to a man".

The theologian Josse Clichtove working at the University of Paris interpreted this as an attack on chastity, but Erasmus had found favor with Protestant reformers who acknowledged the argument as a useful tool to undermine compulsory clerical celibacy and monasticism.

Tametsi made it a requirement even for validity, in any area where the decree was officially published, that the marriage take place in the presence of the parish priest and at least two witnesses.

[...] it was but natural and logical for the Church to do all in her power to hinder her children from contracting marriage with those outside her pale, who did not recognize the sacramental character of the union on which they were entering".

A similar declaration was made concerning mixed marriages in Ireland by Pope Pius, in 1785, and gradually the "Benedictine dispensation" was extended to various localities.

Pius VI allowed mixed marriages in Austria to take place in the presence of a priest, provided no religious solemnity was employed, and with the omission of public banns, as evidence of the unwillingness of the Church to sanction such unions.

[111] It is defined by Canon 1057.1 as an act of the will by which a man and a woman through an irrevocable personal covenant mutually give and accept each other for the purpose of establishing marriage.

The priest has merely the role to "assist" the spouses in order to ensure that the marriage is contracted in accord with canon law, and is supposed to attend whenever it is possible.

[132][133] The teaching of the Catholic Church is that marriage may only be between one man and one woman with each partner's free and willing consent for the good of each other and for the transmission of human life.