Marriage, Annulments, and "What God hath joined"

There are various distinctions that the Church makes between different uses of the word ‘Marriage’.

There is a distinction between what is called a ‘Natural’ marriage of the kind enjoyed by Adam and Eve, and the majority of people in the world since, as opposed to a ‘Sacramental’ marriage as enjoyed by the pairing of two baptized Christians.

There is also a distinction between a ‘Ratified’ marriage, where the couple take vows, and a ‘Consummated’ marriage where the couple, having taken vows, participates in the mutual gift of the marital act.

These all relate to different kinds of marriage. Other distinctions, such as licit vs. illicit refer to whether the ceremony itself was performed in accordance with the laws of the Church, and finally, perhaps the most important distinction, that of valid vs. invalid, which goes to the question of ‘is what appears to be a marriage really a marriage or not?’

The distinction that most closely bears upon a ‘Declaration of Nullity’, (commonly referred to as an annulment) is that last one of valid vs. invalid.

It is easy to think that a marriage is a marriage and that’s that, but when you actually think about it, most people don’t really believe that. Think of the movies – ‘Four weddings and a funeral’ for example. I would suggest that there are very few people on the planet who actually think that those actors were actually getting married to each other. Why? It certainly appeared that they were getting married, despite Rowan Atkinson’s bumbling “Who reigns with you and the Holy Goat … err … Ghost”. They certainly exchanged vows. There can be little question that they intended to exchange vows, no doubt they rehearsed, and took several takes to get it ‘just right’. So why is their marriage not a ‘real’ marriage?, or to use our term, why is it not a valid marriage?

The answer is of course rather self evident, yet at once rather profound. They didn’t really intend to get married. No one doubts that this intent, (or lack thereof), automatically invalidates virtually all weddings performed on stage or screen, yet what of those every day weddings taking place in all sorts of places, in all sorts of forms, all over the world? What if one or both participants is just reciting the lines that they are ‘supposed to’ without willing, or intending, what those words imply.

This lack of intent can exist in a variety of forms. The infamous ‘shotgun wedding’ of (hopefully) times past, is an obvious example. In this case the intent behind saying those ‘lines’ is to avoid getting killed by an irate family member of the bride, not necessarily to enter into a lifelong relationship. Indeed, in more modern times, often the shotgun might be absent, but often the intent has been more along the lines of ‘keeping up appearances’ than actually trying to enter a marriage.

So what must the couple intend when they exchange vows? They must intend to enter a lifelong (‘till death do us part) exclusive (forsaking all others) partnership that is open to life (accept children lovingly from God). (I’m probably missing something in there but you get the idea).

Should the intent on any of these points be lacking, or deliberately excluded then the consent that is given is flawed, and just like those stage weddings, nothing really happens. To the casual observer it would certainly seem to be a valid marriage, but God is more than just a casual observer, and we trust that he knows better.

Other factors that might impact upon the validity of a marriage, are such things as whether the couple are free to marry each other. Should either party be still validly married to someone else, still living, then they are not free to marry another, and no amount of intent can compensate for that. Likewise there are those of us who lack the capacity, either due to lack of development, or mental infirmity, to either understand what a marriage is, or to be able to make such a commitment, and they too are simply not free to marry. So too, close relations are not free to marry, Father/Daughter, Mother/Son, Brother/Sister, indeed not even close canonical relations, such as Godparent/Child (at least not without a special dispensation).

And for those who are already Catholic, there is yet another requirement that impacts upon the validity of a marriage. The Catholic is bound by Canon Law. As such, if the Catholic flaunts the law of the Church, and marries ‘outside the Church’, without gaining the appropriate dispensation, then such a marriage is deemed at once to be both illicit, and invalid.

All of this gets us to the point where we can discuss the injunction, “What therefore God hath joined together, let man not put asunder.” Mark 10:9 cf. Matt 19:6 KJV

As Catholics we understand this injunction to apply most directly to valid, sacramental, consummated marriages. As mentioned earlier, we understand the sacramental marriage of two baptized Christians to be “What God has joined” whereas the natural marriage involving at least one unbaptized person, can under certain circumstances, be dispensed from.

One form of this is know as the Pauline privilege, where two unbaptized persons are validly married in a natural marriage, one subsequently seeks to become a Christian, against the wishes of their spouse, the Church can permit the dissolution of such a marriage for the benefit of the new Christian cf. 1 Corinthians 7:15

The other form, know as the Petrine privilege, as it is reserved to the Holy Father, can apply when a Christian marries an unbaptized person, and later seeks to leave that natural marriage in favor of a sacramental marriage with another Christian cf. Ezra 10:1-14

When it comes to sacramental marriages, it is possible for the Church to dissolve a valid, ratified, unconsummated, sacramental marriage.

All of this leads us to the most common kind of marriage associated with any discussion of ‘Annulments’. Those that appear to be sacramental ratified and consummated marriages between two baptized Christians. When one of these marriages ends up ‘on the rocks’, and so much so that it results in a civil divorce, (in those countries that have civil divorce, or that Christians engage in civil marriages together with Church marriages), the Church allows the separated spouses to petition for an investigation into the validity of their marriage. Note that civil divorce is not a strictly necessary pre-requisite for this process, rather it is, in some countries an administrative ‘requirement’ to ensure that the process is not entered into lightly, so that the process not be abused by those seeking to justify their desire to leave a marriage.

From this point, the process simply attempts to investigate the questions: “Were both parties free to marry at the time they apparently got married” and “Did both parties intend to enter a marriage at the time they exchanged their vows”. If the answer to both of these questions is yes, then what we have is a valid, sacramental, ratified and consummated marriage that nothing short of the death of one of the spouses can end.

If however, the answer to either of these questions is no, then, in the eyes of the Church, the parties were never actually “joined by God”. No sacrament took place. No marriage ever existed. It is probable of course, that at least one party of this putative marriage had no real knowledge that their ‘marriage’ was invalid, they acted in good faith, and there is no sin on their part. Indeed this is possibly true of both parties. Likewise, because of this presumed ‘good faith’ on the part of one or both parties, there is no question of any children of such a ‘marriage’ being illegitimate.