Valid Marriage

[Inquiringperson]

What makes a valid marriage?

 

[Corki]

1. both parties have to be free to marry
2. there must not be a prohibition in place (ie too young, too closely related, permanently impotent)
3. if one or both are Catholic, they must marry according to the laws of the Church. If neither are Catholic, they must marry in accordance with their own religions requirments.

Did I forget anything?

 

[Thankfulness]

This may help
grmt.wordpress.com/code-of-canon-law/

 

[CDB1718]

This may help
grmt.wordpress.com/code-of-canon-law/

To add to that, the Eastern code of Canon Law says if one of the spouses is Eastern and bound to its code, the marriage has to be in a church and presided over by a priest. Roman Catholics can get dispensations for these, but Eastern Catholics can’t.

Canon 781, CCEO
If the Church must judge the validity of a marriage between baptized non-Catholics:

(1) there is to be concern for the law by which the parties were bound at the time of the celebration of marriage in the light of can. 780, 2;

(2) with regard to the form of the celebration, the Church recognizes any form prescribed or admitted by the law to which the parties were subject at the time of the celebration of the marriage, provided that the consent be expressed in a public form and, when at least one of the parties is a baptized member of an Eastern non-Catholic Church, the marriage be celebrated with a sacred rite.

 

[joanofarc2008]

The thing to remember is that validity is there at time of the marriage or it is not. There is not something that somebody does after the marriage to render it invalid. Is there a hypothetical situation here?