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Objection 1: It would seem that consent is not the efficient cause
of matrimony. For the sacraments depend not on the human will but on
the Divine institution, as shown above (Sent. iv, D, 2; TP,
Question 64, Article 2). But consent belongs to the human
will. Therefore it is no more the cause of matrimony than of the other
sacraments.
Objection 2: Further, nothing is its own cause. But seemingly
matrimony is nothing else than the consent, since it is the consent
which signifies the union of Christ with the Church.
Objection 3: Further, of one thing there should be one cause. Now
there is one marriage between two persons, as stated above (Question
44, Article 1); whereas the consents of the two parties are
distinct, for they are given by different persons and to different
things, since on the one hand there is consent to take a husband, and
on the other hand consent to take a wife. Therefore mutual consent is
not the cause of matrimony.
On the contrary, Chrysostom [Hom. xxxii in Opus Imperfectum]
says: "It is not coition but consent that makes a marriage."
Further, one person does not receive power over that which is at the
free disposal of another, without the latter's consent. Now by
marriage each of the married parties receives power over the other's
body (1 Cor. 7:4), whereas hitherto each had free power over
his own body. Therefore consent makes a marriage.
I answer that, In every sacrament there is a spiritual operation by
means of a material operation which signifies it; thus in Baptism the
inward spiritual cleansing is effected by a bodily cleansing.
Wherefore, since in matrimony there is a kind of spiritual joining
together, in so far as matrimony is a sacrament, and a certain
material joining together, in so far as it is directed to an office of
nature and of civil life, it follows that the spiritual joining is the
effect of the Divine power by means of the material joining.
Therefore seeing that the joinings of material contracts are effected
by mutual consent, it follows that the joining together of marriage is
effected in the same way.
Reply to Objection 1: The first cause of the sacraments is the
Divine power which works in them the welfare of the soul; but the
second or instrumental causes are material operations deriving their
efficacy from the Divine institution, and thus consent is the cause in
matrimony.
Reply to Objection 2: Matrimony is not the consent itself, but the
union of persons directed to one purpose, as stated above (Question
44, Article 1), and this union is the effect of the consent.
Moreover, the consent, properly speaking, signifies not the union of
Christ with the Church, but His will whereby His union with the
Church was brought about.
Reply to Objection 3: Just as marriage is one on the part of the
object to which the union is directed, whereas it is more than one on
the part of the persons united, so too the consent is one on the part
of the thing consented to, namely the aforesaid union, whereas it is
more than one on the part of the persons consenting. Nor is the direct
object of consent a husband but union with a husband on the part of the
wife, even as it is union with a wife on the part of the husband.
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