Except in promoting their agenda they leave out a big part of the puzzle. Engaging in sexual intercourse after betrothal (that is a promise or oath of marriage) was seen as completing the marriage (the act of the oath itself did not make the marriage). Thus if a betrothed couple consented to have intercourse, the Church considered them to be married (and we all know what that means in the eyes of the Church). See the Summa, Question 46:
“Secondly, in reference to the judgment of the Church; and since in the external tribunal judgment is given in accordance with external evidence, and since nothing is more expressly significant of consent than carnal intercourse, it follows that in the judgment of the Church carnal intercourse following on betrothal is declared to make a marriage, unless there appear clear signs of deceit or fraud”
Therefore Bob, if you want to promote premarital sex as a tradition of the Church, make sure you tell them that they first have to make an oath of marriage, and that once they have had sex, they are married in the eyes of God, and what God has joined together, no man may tear asunder.
As I read the article, I think this is actually what they are saying. If they are talking about engaged couples who are ready to make an indissoluble vow and are not yet married only because of the time and preparation necessary for the ceremony (or because of some other practical or economic factor), then I think their proposal is legitimate. However, to avoid scandal and confusion, the Church should make it clear that these couples are married in the eyes of the Church and that the “big wedding” is simply a celebration of something that has already happened.
Let me give a personal example. My wife and I got engaged in August of 2002. My wife wanted to get married at the chapel of the seminary she had attended (the place where her parents had been married, and her grandparents as well though not in the same building), but this wedding took nearly a year to arrange. We did not get married until August of 2003. For about a week before the wedding we “cohabited” in the sense that we lived in the same house (but slept in different rooms)–I also stayed in the same house when visiting her earlier that year. I can honestly say that we weren’t particularly tempted toward unchastity–the stress of getting ready for the wedding was too great!
However, had we been working under the medieval understanding of the wedding ceremony as a blessing of something that has already happened, I could have moved in months earlier and life would have been a lot simpler.
The problem with most of these “betrothal” proposals is that they explicitly allow for betrothal as a period of “probation” in which the couple work toward a deeper commitment. Perhaps that is what these authors are talking about as well. If so, then they are indeed heretical. But if they’re just talking about couples who have made the final decision and are only waiting for the public ceremony to be arranged, then they may have a point. Still, I think that it would be better to call the first, more informal ceremony “marriage” and the second one something like “a public blessing of the marriage of X and Y.” Calling it betrothal would confuse people (since people don’t understand what betrothal means) and there would be headlines saying “Catholic Church says premarital sex OK” or something like that.
Theologically, as I understand it, vow of commitment + sex=marriage, and the public ceremony is icing on the cake. On the other hand, I know that the medieval practice could be and often was abused, and certainly this definition of “betrothal” would be as well. But isn’t the current practice also abused? Don’t people think that the ceremony is what makes a marriage, so that if divorced people have a big ceremony that makes their cohabitation moral? Isn’t that a pretty big abuse as well?
Edwin
