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Objection 1: It would seem that impotence is not an impediment to
marriage. For carnal copulation is not essential to marriage, since
marriage is more perfect when both parties observe continency by vow.
But impotence deprives marriage of nothing save carnal copulation.
Therefore it is not a diriment impediment to the marriage contract.
Objection 2: Further, just as impotence prevents carnal copulation
so does frigidity. But frigidity is not reckoned an impediment to
marriage. Therefore neither should impotence be reckoned as such.
Objection 3: Further, all old people are frigid. Yet old people
can marry. Therefore, etc.
Objection 4: Further, if the woman knows the man to be frigid when
she marries him, the marriage is valid. Therefore frigidity,
considered in itself, is not an impediment to marriage.
Objection 5: Further, calidity may prove a sufficient incentive to
carnal copulation with one who is not a virgin, but not with one who
is, because it happens to be so weak as to pass away quickly, and is
therefore insufficient for the deflowering of a virgin. Or again it
may move a man sufficiently in regard to a beautiful woman, but
insufficiently in regard to an uncomely one. Therefore it would seem
that frigidity, although it be an impediment in regard to one, is not
an impediment absolutely.
Objection 6: Further, generally speaking woman is more frigid than
man. But women are not debarred from marriage. Neither therefore
should men be debarred on account of frigidity.
On the contrary, It is stated (Extra, De Frigidis et
Malefic., cap. Quod Sedem): "Just as a boy who is incapable of
marital intercourse is unfit to marry, so also those who are impotent
are deemed most unfit for the marriage contract." Now persons
affected with frigidity are the like. Therefore, etc.
Further, no one can bind himself to the impossible. Now in marriage
man binds himself to carnal copulation; because it is for this purpose
that he gives the other party power over his body. Therefore a frigid
person, being incapable of carnal copulation, cannot marry.
I answer that, In marriage there is a contract whereby one is bound
to pay the other the marital debt: wherefore just as in other
contracts, the bond is unfitting if a person bind himself to what he
cannot give or do, so the marriage contract is unfitting, if it be
made by one who cannot pay the marital debt. This impediment is called
by the general name of impotence as regards coition, and can arise
either from an intrinsic and natural cause, or from an extrinsic and
accidental cause, for instance spell, of which we shall speak later
(Article 2). If it be due to a natural cause, this may happen in
two ways. For either it is temporary, and can be remedied by
medicine, or by the course of time, and then it does not void a
marriage: or it is perpetual and then it voids marriage, so that the
party who labors under this impediment remains for ever without hope of
marriage, while the other may "marry to whom she will . . . in the
Lord" (1 Cor. 7:39). In order to ascertain whether the
impediment be perpetual or not, the Church has appointed a fixed
time, namely three years, for putting the matter to a practical
proof: and if after three years, during which both parties have
honestly endeavored to fulfil their marital intercourse, the marriage
remain unconsummated, the Church adjudges the marriage to be
dissolved. And yet the Church is sometimes mistaken in this, because
three years are sometimes insufficient to prove impotence to be
perpetual. Wherefore if the Church find that she has been mistaken,
seeing that the subject of the impediment has completed carnal
copulation with another or with the same person, she reinstates the
former marriage and dissolves the subsequent one, although the latter
has been contracted with her permission.
Reply to Objection 1: Although the act of carnal copulation is not
essential to marriage, ability to fulfill the act is essential,
because marriage gives each of the married parties power over the
other's body in relation to marital intercourse.
Reply to Objection 2: Excessive calidity can scarcely be a
perpetual impediment. If, however, it were to prove an impediment to
marital intercourse for three years it would be adjudged to be
perpetual. Nevertheless, since frigidity is a greater and more
frequent impediment (for it not only hinders the mingling of seeds but
also weakens the members which co-operate in the union of bodies), it
is accounted an impediment rather than calidity, since all natural
defects are reduced to frigidity.
Reply to Objection 3: Although old people have not sufficient
calidity to procreate, they have sufficient to copulate. Wherefore
they are allowed to marry, in so far as marriage is intended as a
remedy, although it does not befit them as fulfilling an office of
nature.
Reply to Objection 4: In all contracts it is agreed on all hands
that anyone who is unable to satisfy an obligation is unfit to make a
contract which requires the fulfilling of that obligation. Now this
inability is of two kinds. First, because a person is unable to
fulfill the obligation "de jure," and such inability renders the
contract altogether void, whether the party with whom he contracts
knows of this or not. Secondly, because he is unable to fulfill "de
facto"; and then if the party with whom he contracts knows of this
and, notwithstanding, enters the contract, this shows that the latter
seeks some other end from the contract, and the contract stands. But
if he does not know of it the contract is void. Consequently frigidity
which causes such an impotence that a man cannot "de facto" pay the
marriage debt, as also the condition of slavery, whereby a man cannot
"de facto" give his service freely, are impediments to marriage,
when the one married party does not know that the other is unable to pay
the marriage debt. But an impediment whereby a person cannot pay the
marriage debt "de jure," for instance consanguinity, voids the
marriage contract, whether the other party knows of it or not. For
this reason the Master holds (Sent. iv, D, 34) that these two
impediments, frigidity and slavery, make it not altogether unlawful
for their subjects to marry.
Reply to Objection 5: A man cannot have a perpetual natural
impediment in regard to one person and not in regard to another. But
if he cannot fulfill the carnal act with a virgin, while he can with
one who is not a virgin, the hymeneal membrane may be broken by a
medical instrument, and thus he may have connection with her. Nor
would this be contrary to nature, for it would be done not for pleasure
but for a remedy. Dislike for a woman is not a natural cause, but an
accidental extrinsic cause: and therefore we must form the same
judgment in its regard as about spells, of which we shall speak further
on (Article 2).
Reply to Objection 6: The male is the agent in procreation, and
the female is the patient, wherefore greater calidity is required in
the male than in the female for the act of procreation. Hence the
frigidity which renders the man impotent would not disable the woman.
Yet there may be a natural impediment from another cause, namely
stricture, and then we must judge of stricture in the woman in the same
way as of frigidity in the man.
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