Marriage

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Marriage

Marriage is a human reality founded on mutual consent and reciprocal love. Its very nature is prepared towards the interests of the partners as well as for the birth and rearing of children. The purpose of marriage is the increase of the people of God and mutual help for the partners in loyalty and love. As a sacrament, marriage reflects the covenant between Christ and His Church and is the efficacious sign of this New Covenant. It is symbolized in marriage by the reciprocal and indissoluble commitment of the spouses. Sacramental marriage is more than an example of the New Covenant. It is also a means of accomplishing it. Like the Eucharist, marriage is ordered to the building up of the Body of Christ. The place of the Eucharist in a marriage relationship is made clear when marriage and the family are considered as the basic Christian community or a "little Church."

Consent and Constitutive Elements of Consent

Since marriage is a contract, when viewed naturally, human will is deemed necessary in order to determine whether or not a marriage should take place. The will of man is so important in the creation of the contract of marriage that the mutual consent o the parties involved cannot be supplied through any other means. But in order to be valid, the will and act of which it is constituted must be subject to certain conditions and possess certain qualities. There are various circumstances that could go against the validity of the consent. For example, a person without the use or reason or impaired to make decisions (intoxicated, drugged, insane persons) cannot participate in the formation of a matrimonial contract. Mistaken knowledge and misunderstandings can also cause the contract to be invalid since th...

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...th unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial[1] ? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?

What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people."[2]

2 Corinthians 6:14-16

The very intimacy of the union established between those joined in wedlock requires an accordance above all in their religious sentiments. Holding this doctrine, it was but natural and logical for the Church to do all in her power to hinder her children from contracting marriage with those outside her pale, who did not recognize the sacramental character of the union on which they were entering.

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