Fertility and marriage

[Tracy_Spenst]

I’m wondering if a woman is unable to have children (no uterus), can she marry? I’ve understood that a man unable to perform the marriage act is not permitted to marry (marriage cannot be consummated, marriage right of the wife, procreation) Since two of those issues isn’t a problem for a woman, would the fact that she is unable to procreate make a difference?

Just curious due to a discussion about the minimal requirement for a valid marriage being procreation.

Thanks

 

[OraLabora]

It makes no difference if the woman is sterile (or for that matter the man); as long as she can complete the marital act naturally, and doesn’t hide her sterility from her fiancé. After all elderly couples marry…

 

[TheDoctor]

Just curious due to a discussion about the minimal requirement for a valid marriage being procreation.

This is not Catholic teaching. The list of impediments is in the Code Of Canon Law:
SPECIFIC DIRIMENT IMPEDIMENTS
Can. 1084 §1. Antecedent and perpetual impotence to have intercourse, whether on the part of the man or the woman, whether absolute or relative, nullifies marriage by its very nature.
§2. If the impediment of impotence is doubtful, whether by a doubt about the law or a doubt about a fact, a marriage must not be impeded nor, while the doubt remains, declared null.
§3. Sterility neither prohibits nor nullifies marriage, without prejudice to the prescript of can. 1098.

 

[Tracy_Spenst]

Thanks for the responses. That’s what I was thinking, but wanted to be clear on the point.

Doctor, I realize this isn’t in the current Code, but it was in the 1917. This was part of a chapter in my daughter’s religion text and we were discussing it. The quote from her book is, “marriage was defined as the free consent to the exchange of a “perpetual and exclusive right over each other’s body for the purpose of procreative acts.”” It’s a minimal definition, to be sure, but it brought about much discussion about annulments, etc. It also made me wonder about an acquaintance who is in the situation I described. Now that I type that I realize it says “procreative acts,” which would indicate nothing about fertility itself.

Thank you again!
Tracy

 

[Vico]

I’m wondering if a woman is unable to have children (no uterus), can she marry? I’ve understood that a man unable to perform the marriage act is not permitted to marry (marriage cannot be consummated, marriage right of the wife, procreation) Since two of those issues isn’t a problem for a woman, would the fact that she is unable to procreate make a difference?

Just curious due to a discussion about the minimal requirement for a valid marriage being procreation.

Thanks

It is possible as long as the followiing canon law is not violated:
**Canon 1098 **A person contracts invalidly who enters marriage inveigled by deceit, perpetrated in order to secure consent, concerning some quality of the other party, which of its very nature can seriously disrupt the partnership of conjugal life.

 

[GEddie]

Marriage must be physically consummated. Male impotency prevents that.

Female (or male) infertility does not.

ICXC NIKA.

 

[lmelahn]

Marriage must be physically consummated. Male impotency prevents that.

Female (or male) infertility does not.

ICXC NIKA.

Just wanted to add that marriage needs to be consummatable, but it need not be actually consummated in order to be a marriage. That is the basis for so-called Josephite marriages.

 

[thistle]

Just wanted to add that marriage needs to be consummatable, but it need not be actually consummated in order to be a marriage. That is the basis for so-called Josephite marriages.

If a couple prior to the marriage fully intend never to have children then any marriage entered into is invalid.

If a couple prior to marriage fully intends to have children then the marriage would be valid. If for whatever reason after they are married they decide not to have children then that is a different discussion if it involves non-consummation.

By the way I have never seen any Church document that uses the expression Josephite marriage.

 

[Vico]

Just wanted to add that marriage needs to be consummatable, but it need not be actually consummated in order to be a marriage. That is the basis for so-called Josephite marriages.

And we know that in such a marriage, in addition to no undispensed impediments, the couples give the proper consent of:

• freely chosen
• lifelong
• exclusive
• granting conjugal rights to the spouse (which might never be requested)

 

[lmelahn]

And we know that in such a marriage, in addition to no undispensed impediments, the couples give the proper consent of:

• freely chosen
• lifelong
• exclusive
• granting conjugal rights to the spouse (which might never be requested)

That’s right. The last part is essentially what I meant by “consummatable.” I am not saying that Josephite marriages are a good idea in general, just that they are in theory possible. Otherwise, for example, marriage of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph would have been an invalid marriage (which it obviously wasn’t)—hence the name “Josephite” sometimes given to such marriages.

Canon Law does not use the term “Josephite,” but it does take into account marriages that are ratum et non consummatum (see Canons 1697-1706)—in this case, concerning their dissolution, but that implies that such marriages are possible.

When canonists speak of the “exclusion of procreation,” that presupposes the use of the marital act and the intention of rendering it infecund.