Marriage Never Consumated

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SwizzleStick said:
Not to be contrary, but in order to commit yourself wholly to another person, you must unite in body with that person. The Church says marriage MUST include sex. A perpetually impotent man or perpetually frigid woman cannot marry in the Church.
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Don’t tell that to Dietrich & Alice von Hildebrand! Theirs was a Josephite marriage. :crossrc:
 
catharina said:
This situation is so unusual that it’s unknown to me. What this couple has done could have been accomplished by that old legal document known as The Will. Being a pretend-couple who are pretend-spouses investing in pretend-mutual-parenting is way too much PRETEND, imo.
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You’re right, catharina. The best way to ensure that inheritance goes the way he wants it to go is to establish a living trust for the beneficiaries. He can do it online at legalzoom.com very inexpensively.

If a marriage is one of convenience only, as this one seems to be, and the man dies intestate (without a will) then the inheritance can be successfully challenged in court. The probate issues will be very complicated and the entire inheritance will be used up in lawyer fees and court costs.

While at legalzoom, the young man should also make out a living will so that his estranged family will not end up making end-of-life decisions for him when that time comes.

It’s not nice to fool mother nature, or the legal system.

Paul
 
It seems to appear that the concensus is that the married couple does not love each other. They do love each other, but are not “in love” in the romantic or sexual definition.
 
SwizzleStick said:
I’m just trying to learn what the Church actually teaches because I thought I knew, but I was in error.😉 You are correct that the subject is quite personal and as regards a particular couple, it is really between the couple, their confessor and God and nobody else unless they (or just he/she) have/has chosen to share with someone else, as with the OP. Beyond that, though, it is personal and nobody has any right to question a couple about it.
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The Vatican’s website has the entire Catechism on line with a complete searchable concordance. vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM

Here is a direct link to the section that addresses marital love, from which I’ve made the excerpt below: vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_P86.HTM
Starwynd said:
People who don’t plan to consummate their marriage should never have gotten married in the first place. Marriage is not for love, it is for procreation only, and only those who are married may have sex, as long as it is for procreation only.
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Marital relations are NOT for procreation only. Conjugal love between husband and wife serves a twofold purpose: fidelity (intimate partnership) and fecundity (procreation).

Catechism of the Catholic Church
The Love of Husband and Wife
2360 Sexuality is ordered to the conjugal love of man and woman. In marriage the physical intimacy of the spouses becomes a sign and pledge of spiritual communion. Marriage bonds between baptized persons are sanctified by the sacrament.

2361 “Sexuality, by means of which man and woman give themselves to one another through the acts which are proper and exclusive to spouses, is not something simply biological, but concerns the innermost being of the human person as such. It is realized in a truly human way only if it is an integral part of the love by which a man and woman commit themselves totally to one another until death.”

2362 “The acts in marriage by which the intimate and chaste union of the spouses takes place are noble and honorable; the truly human performance of these acts fosters the self-giving they signify and enriches the spouses in joy and gratitude.”
Sexuality is a source of joy and pleasure: The Creator himself . . . established that in the [generative] function, spouses should experience pleasure and enjoyment of body and spirit. Therefore, the spouses do nothing evil in seeking this pleasure and enjoyment. They accept what the Creator has intended for them. At the same time, spouses should know how to keep themselves within the limits of just moderation.

2363 The spouses’ union achieves the twofold end of marriage: the good of the spouses themselves and the transmission of life. These two meanings or values of marriage cannot be separated without altering the couple’s spiritual life and compromising the goods of marriage and the future of the family. The conjugal love of man and woman thus stands under the twofold obligation of fidelity and fecundity.
 
Starwynd said:
People who don’t plan to consummate their marriage should never have gotten married in the first place. Marriage is not for love, it is for procreation only, and only those who are married may have sex, as long as it is for procreation only.
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Um, you might want to look at the Catechism of the Catholic Church; I don’t think the Church would agree with you entirely.
 
Nan_S said:
Sounds like her husband has some serious issues. A husband who truly loves his wife, though, will bring those issues to closure so that they no longer plague his life. He will do what is right for them as a couple and for the kids he is fathering, and not just right for himself.

I’ve met people with deep-seated resentments against the Church. Those resentments are often associated with either a failed previous marriage, or with a childhood scandal/crisis that has scarred them. One way with coping with these life tragedies is to shut them off and refuse to discuss them, even though it scars and handicaps them. Despite what he told her, this lady’s husband may have been married before. He may also be scarred by homosexuality or sexual abuse.

Others simply have a rebellious spirit and refuse to follow any authority except themselves. These typically become athiests or independent “bible christians” and re-define God according their own desires. That kind of relationship has its own special challenges.

I need to echo what jmcrae said:
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I have had the same feeling that something is seriously hinky in this relationship. We seem to have spent a lot of time talking about a Josephite marriage; I am wondering - seriously - what the reason is that this man has what appears to be no desire or interest in intercourse with his wife. Most men don’t get married to simply to take care of another man’s children. Some men who have serious issues with sexual identity will get married as a “cover” for their sexual orientation, though. If that is the reason he married her, and if she did not know it, there is the issue of deception which could go to the heart of the validity of the marriage.

It is my understanding - and I could be wrong - that a Josephite marriage is not presumed to be between a couple who does not have intercourse because one or both of them is homosexual.

It is entirely possible - I think unlikely in the very extreme, but possible - that this gentleman is a truly self-effacing heterosexual. But I smell a rat in the nest somewhere.
 
Verbum_Caro said:
Swizzle,

You’re close, but not quite right. Pre-existiing perpetual inability to consummate a marriage is an impediment to marriage, however it is only the *ability *that is required, not that one make use of the ability.

A marriage that is never consummated is still a valid sacramental marriage (ratum). It is, however, subject to dissolution until consummated (ratum et consummatum).

VC
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My understanding is both parties have to agree which sound suspect in this case.

Can. 1098 A person contracts invalidly who enters into a marriage deceived by malice, perpetrated to obtain consent, concerning some quality of the other partner which by its very nature can gravely disturb the partnership of conjugal life.
dianaballein said:
It seems to appear that the concensus is that the married couple does not love each other. They do love each other, but are not “in love” in the romantic or sexual definition.
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I cannot follow the issues here at all. Yes they are civilly married. The church allows delayed consummation. It also allows annulment for failure to consummate or a finding he intentual mislead her about intent to consummate. Is it a sin (you asked)? If his intent was to mislead then it would comprise a sin, however if both parties knew and agreed to marry allowing celibacy for the other partner then they can live with in a sacramental marriage.
 
jmcrae said:
Ideally, they should both agree, and sometimes it takes a while to get oneself into “the mood,” but for the good of the marriage and for the good of his soul, she should not put him off for too long.
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Nor a husband put off his wife for too long, either, should she be the one in need of such comfort.

In 13 years, there have been times where it’s been me giving in, others her giving in, other still mutually agreeing not to, and other points, both desiring.
 
I think that when I was attending religious ed classes back when I was in junior high or something, the priest said something like that once a couple consummates the marriage they are required to have intercourse at least every ___ (not sure what he said) or it is grounds for annulment. (I want to say that he mentioned some time frame - like once every six months or something like that - but he could have just been arbitrarily throwing out some time span).

I think his point was that even though the first act might consummate the marriage and make the marriage valid, it is this act that essentially renews those vows and it must be done regularly to still keep the marriage valid.
 
Questionsabound said:
I think that when I was attending religious ed classes back when I was in junior high or something, the priest said something like that once a couple consummates the marriage they are required to have intercourse at least every ___ (not sure what he said) or it is grounds for annulment. (I want to say that he mentioned some time frame - like once every six months or something like that - but he could have just been arbitrarily throwing out some time span).

I think his point was that even though the first act might consummate the marriage and make the marriage valid, it is this act that essentially renews those vows and it must be done regularly to still keep the marriage valid.
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Such a point is not technically correct, however if one party shows earily in the marriage an unwillingness to fulfill duties it would be considered a signal the party never intended a real marriage
 
Such a point is not technically correct, however if one party shows earily in the marriage an unwillingness to fulfill duties it would be considered a signal the party never intended a real marriage

Sure, I understand that much, but I don’t think that was the teaching he was trying to get across.
I think he was trying to stress that its not so much the first act of intercourse that makes the marriage valid, its the ongoing/frequent acts that do as well.
In other words - why is the first (consummation) act any more or less signifcant than any thereafter between the spouses?

And in your quote, are you saying that if a spouse is unwilling to “fulfill duties” after their consummation that it is grounds for an annulment or that the marriage isn’t valid any longer?
 
Questionsabound said:
And in your quote, are you saying that if a spouse is unwilling to “fulfill duties” after their consummation that it is grounds for an annulment or that the marriage isn’t valid any longer?
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A Declaration of Nullity is only given for conditions existing at the time of the wedding.

But an unwillingness to share sex with one’s spouse might indicate that, at the time of the wedding, there was a lack of intent to do what the Church means by “get married,” and this would be grounds for a Declaration of Nullity.
 
SwizzleStick said:
Not to be contrary, but in order to commit yourself wholly to another person, you must unite in body with that person. The Church says marriage MUST include sex. A perpetually impotent man or perpetually frigid woman cannot marry in the Church.
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I am wondering if the Church has a procedure that allows for people applying for dispensations from the canonical regulations.
 
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