THE SACRAMENT OF MARRIAGE - Fr. George J. Willmann, SJ

concubinage). The impediment prohibits marriage between
the man and the blood relatives of the woman in the first
grade of the direct line (mother or daughter), and vice versa.
Obviously, the prohibition is to free the community or the
public from scandal that disturbs social mores or undermines
socio-ethical order. Public propriety can be dispensed by the
local Ordinary for a just and reasonable cause. However, before
any dispensation is granted, one must ascertain the absence of
such scandal.
12. Legal Relationship. Those who are related in the direct
line or in the second degree of the collateral line by a legal
relationship arising from adoption cannot contract marriage
together validly (can. 1094). This means that the adopted party
may not validly marry the adopting party, the latter’s direct
ascendants and descendants, the latter’s children – and the
latter’s other adopted children if any – and vice versa. This
impediment is of ecclesiastical law. The local Ordinary can
dispense from it. Before a dispensation is granted, however, one
should ascertain whether there is also a civil law impediment
based on adoption. A spiritual relationship arising from
baptism was no longer an impediment today.
IV. Frequently Asked Questions
on the Sacrament of Marriage
1. Why get married in the Church?
Many seem to take marriage in the Church as merely social
custom or “parents prefer it this way”. Marriage in the Church
is not to be regarded like this. It is, rather, the solemn entry of
the spouses into a binding commitment before God and the
Christian community. Thus, “trial marriages” or “living-in” or
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