Okay, There’s Something Indissoluble About Natural Marriage

Last updated on: May 19, 2015 at 10:56 pm by Marc

Okay, There’s Something Indissoluble About Natural Marriage 2015-05-19T22:56:03-04:00 Marc

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Dear readers,

What started with some degree of confidence has ended as a puzzle.

The question is this: Whether indissolubility belongs to marriage by nature or by sacrament?

On the one hand, Canon Law is clear:

“The essential properties of marriage are unity and indissolubility, which obtain a special firmness or stability in Christian Marriage by reason of it being a sacrament” (1013). That is to say, both natural and sacramental marriage are essentially indissoluble, though Christian Marriage differs in degree.

Now I would hardly argue against this, or else I would have to argue that no natural marriage could be a union entered into with the promise of “till death,” which would be silly.

On the other hand, both Aquinas and Augustine seem to root indissolubility in the sacrament, not in nature: “In the sacrament it is provided that the marriage bond should not be broken, and that a husband and wife, if separated, should not be joined to another even for the sake of offspring” and “inseparability, which is denoted by “sacrament,” regards the very sacrament considered in itself…” (q. 49, a. 3) We don’t want the Fathers and the Canon fighting #catholicproblems.

It seems that there may be a third way, between nature and sacrament. Leo III argues that natural marriage, insofar as it has God for its author, and foreshadows the Incarnation, is sacred. So indissolubility could belong to natural marriage, because, in a certain sense, there is no purely natural marriage. Marriage is always already a divine institution. Whether this would be enough to justify the Father’s rooting of indissolubility in the sacrament, I don’t know.

There are many problems with saying that indissolubility is a purely natural quality of marriage, “natural” being taken to mean those parts of marriage that can be derived without recourse to religion or divine revelation, and I’ll note one here:

“What God has joined, let no man tear asunder.” If God joins man and woman in every marriage, and it is His act of joining that requires us not to “tear asunder,” i.e not to dissolve, then it seems like the indissolubility of marriage, far from being derived from marriage in the way conjugal fidelity or offspring may be derived from marriage as its natural ends, accrues to marriage by virtue of being instituted by God. Thus it does not yet seem obvious to me that we can have marriage as a secular, civil and “natural” institution and still arrive at indissolubility as an essential quality of marriage. It would end up sounding something like “What reason ascertains as the best situation for raising and educating children, let no man tear asunder.”

Now if we understand “nature” in the thicker sense, as including the Divine plan for marriage, then of course marriage is indissoluble by it nature. But this isn’t what anyone, except for Catholics, means by natural marriage, by which is meant the union of man and woman outside of any religious context.

Are we not still stuck saying that non-religious marriages (assuming all other requirements are met) are just marriages that don’t know they’re religious?

Your comments (and especially your citations) are much appreciated.

Marriage Equality

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