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Consummation 193
tionalit•at: the weighing up of causes and e·ects, pros and cons, in a
space left free, but yet usually (as here) defined and constrained by
values. Pignatelli gives us an imaginary illustration at the beginning
of the same ‘consultation’.
A young couple who have barely reached sexual maturity get
married. The husband’s parents were not informed and are enraged
on finding out. Great hostility between them and the wife’s
parents ensues, and the couple themselves become hostile towards
each other. There is more. The man is unable to consummate the
marriage, though they live together for five months and he tries
hard to do it. Moreover, it turns out that he is subject to insane
rages. This mental instability and the hatred that he has now conceived
for his wife lead her to fear that he might kill her, and so she
leaves him. There seems no hope of resolving the situation. The
anger on all sides only increases. Can the marriage be dissolved?
Note that the obvious solution, annulment on grounds of impotence,
seems ruled out by the fear for the woman’s physical safety.
The medieval Church was quite happy with the idea of a legal
separation, but it would condemn her to lifelong celibacy, for the
couple had not cohabited long enough for his impotence to be
proved in canon law.
Pignatelli concludes that dissolution of the marriage by papal
‘Zweckrational handelt, wer sein Handeln nach Zweck, Mitteln und Nebenfolgen
orientiert und dabei sowohl die Mittel gegen die Zwecke, wie die Zwecke
gegen die Nebenfolgen, wie endlich auch die verschiedenen m•oglichen Zwecke
gegeneinander rational abw•agt . . . Absolute Zweckrationalit•at des Handelns ist
aber . . . nur ein im wesentlichen konstruktiver Grenzfall’ (M. Weber, Wirtschaft
und Gesellchaft: Grundri¢ der verstehenden Soziologie, ed. J. Winckelmann, 5th rev.
edn. (3 vols.; T •ubingen, 1976), i. 13).
‘Quidam juvenes optimates, vix pubertatem excedentes matrimonium per verba
de praesenti contraxerunt, insciis viri parentibus, quorum indignatio tanta fuit, ut
inter illos, et parentes uxoris, ac deinde inter ipsos conjuges odium immane, et
crudele exortum fuerit, ac propterea magnus timor accesserit scandalorum, et infelicis
exitus matrimonii absque spe remedii. Item vir spatio quinque mensium
quibus cum conjuge post celebratum matrimonium cohabitavit, detectus fuit nedum
impotens, eo quia matrimonium, quamvis studiose operam copulae dederit,
consummare non potuit, verum etiam furiosus, et talia furoris habere intervalla, ut
probabiliter dubitaretur, quod hujusmodi furore aliquando correptus, juncto odio
penitus insito, eandem uxorem esset occisurus, quam ob causam se separarunt.
Furor autem viri, et odium diuturnum tam inter ipsos conjuges, quam inter eorum
parentes, et consanguineos nequit vel precibus mitigari, vel tempore, communique
utilitate deponi, vel vetustate sedari: quinimmo in dies magis magisque discordia
ira acerbior, intimo odio, et corde obstinato concepta exardescit. Quapropter consensu
omnium exposcitur ejusdem matrimonii dissolutio’ (Pignatelli, Consultationes
canonicae, consultation 148, p. 184).