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Consummation 173
a non-consummated marriage can be dissolved by one partner’s
entry into a religious order. The answer is yes. His explanation involves
symbolism and is akin to his comments about the marriage of
Mary and Joseph. An unconsummated marriage is still a spiritual
union only. It can be dissolved when one party dies to the world by
entering the religious life. This is in accordance with the meaning
or symbolism of such a marriage: it stands only for the breakable
union between God and the soul, not for the indissoluble union of
human nature to the person of the Son of God. He cites canon law:
cases decided by the pope and setting precedents.
Ricardus cites two decisions by Pope Alexander III that are central
to the argument of this chapter. It was the decision of Alexander
III (1159–81) that an unconsummated marriage could be dissolved,
really dissolved after really existing, dissolved as by a divorce
in the modern sense, so that remarriage was allowed, if one
partner entered a religious order. The letters are worth quoting.
Neither seems to be precisely datable, so we shall follow the order
in which they were inserted into the Decretals of Gregory IX. The
first is addressed to the bishop of Salerno. These are the the critical
words:
It is true that after legitimate consent in the present tense, it is permitted to
one partner, even against the will of the other, to choose a monastery (just
as certain saints were called away from weddings), so long as they have
not had carnal intercourse; and it is permitted to the other who remains
to marry again, if he or she does not want to keep continence after being
admonished to do so. For since they have not been made one flesh, one
may well cross over to God, and the other remain in the world.
The second is addressed to the bishop of Brescia. The wife had
been excommunicated for refusing to return to her husband and
X. 3. 32. 2 and 7. Though neither these cases nor Ricardus de Mediavilla’s ideas
actually contradict Inga Persson’s comment that ‘Nur das kanonische Ehemodell
spricht einer Ehe auch ohne copula umfassende G •ultigkeit, Perfektion und volle
Sakramentalit•at zu’ (I. Persson, Ehe und Zeichen: Studien zu Eheschlie¢ung und
Ehepraxis anhand der fr•uhmittelhochdeutschen religi•osen Lehrdichtungen ‘Vom Rechte’,
‘Hochzeit’ und ‘Schopf von dem l^one’ (G•oppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik, 617;
G•oppingen, 1995), 127), for although an unconsummated marriage was indeed
valid and sacramental and in a sense perfect, her formula underplays the crucial
significance of consummation in canon law and theology.
X. 3. 32. 2, in E. Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici (2 vols.; Leipzig, 1879–81;
repr. Graz, 1955), ii. 579; cf. Regesta pontificum Romanorum ab condita Ecclesia ad
annum post Christum natum MCXCVIII, edP.Ja·‹e, W. Wattenbach, et al., 2nd
edn. (2 vols., Leipzig, 1885–8), ii, no. 14091 (9141), p. 394.