Perhaps this belongs in the moral theology forum???
For the purposes of this discussion I want to focus on putative marriages where consent is lacking. Let’s suppose the parties have no impediments to marriage other than those involving consent and that lack of form does not apply.
We see many questions here from people seeking information on obtaining a ruling of nullity for a prior marriage. In many cases the person posting here sees himself/herself as the “victim”. In other words, we usually see someone who seems to be married to a narcissist or someone whose spouse has multiple infidelities from the very beginning. We don’t usually see someone who admits to never intending to be faithful or who admits to secretly being sterilized prior to the wedding.
Now obviously when a ruling of nullity is granted, it pertains to obstacles that existed at the time of the exchange of vows. For one party to truly be the ‘victim’ of the other, it would seem that one party to the marriage must have been perpetrating a ruse on the other. This could mean one party never intended to be faithful, never intended to have children, hid a serious personality disorder, of kept any other number of secrets that either prevented the “perpetrator” from giving valid consent or prevented the ‘victim’ from having the knowledge which would have led to a refusal to give consent.
(I realize that the consent of the “victim” is ultimately as lacking as the consent of the person perpetrating the ruse. So words like “victim”, “perpetrator”, and “fault” are referring to the pre-existing conditions. I apologize if my word choice is confusing.)
Now I presume that most marriages which are ruled null are not black and white when it comes to consent. There are no doubt many marriages where proper consent was so lacking from both parties to the putative marriage that either alone would have made the marriage null and void.
But in the cases where it truly seems that the problem was the “fault” of one party, are there are statistics kept that would suggest which party to the putative marriage is more likely to petition for a ruling of nullity? My gut feeling tells me that it is usually the “victims” or those where neither party gave full consent.
For the purposes of this discussion I want to focus on putative marriages where consent is lacking. Let’s suppose the parties have no impediments to marriage other than those involving consent and that lack of form does not apply.
We see many questions here from people seeking information on obtaining a ruling of nullity for a prior marriage. In many cases the person posting here sees himself/herself as the “victim”. In other words, we usually see someone who seems to be married to a narcissist or someone whose spouse has multiple infidelities from the very beginning. We don’t usually see someone who admits to never intending to be faithful or who admits to secretly being sterilized prior to the wedding.
Now obviously when a ruling of nullity is granted, it pertains to obstacles that existed at the time of the exchange of vows. For one party to truly be the ‘victim’ of the other, it would seem that one party to the marriage must have been perpetrating a ruse on the other. This could mean one party never intended to be faithful, never intended to have children, hid a serious personality disorder, of kept any other number of secrets that either prevented the “perpetrator” from giving valid consent or prevented the ‘victim’ from having the knowledge which would have led to a refusal to give consent.
(I realize that the consent of the “victim” is ultimately as lacking as the consent of the person perpetrating the ruse. So words like “victim”, “perpetrator”, and “fault” are referring to the pre-existing conditions. I apologize if my word choice is confusing.)
Now I presume that most marriages which are ruled null are not black and white when it comes to consent. There are no doubt many marriages where proper consent was so lacking from both parties to the putative marriage that either alone would have made the marriage null and void.
But in the cases where it truly seems that the problem was the “fault” of one party, are there are statistics kept that would suggest which party to the putative marriage is more likely to petition for a ruling of nullity? My gut feeling tells me that it is usually the “victims” or those where neither party gave full consent.