Christian Marriage: Nature, Sacrament, and Family Life

Posted on Mar 15, 2025 in Law & Jurisprudence

Nature of Christian Marriage

Christian marriage is understood in multiple dimensions:

1. Contract: A special contract of union between a man and a woman, entered into in accordance with the law for the establishment of conjugal and family life.
2. Covenant: Entered into by persons based on a special friendship, dynamic alliance, and an open-minded commitment. It involves a relationship that lasts because it is based on a promise of a communion of life, shared ideals, and love.

Ends of Marriage:

• Good of the spouses
• Good of the children

Essential Properties:

• Unity or exclusiveness
• Indissolubility or permanence
• Openness to fertility

Sacrament

Marriage as a sacrament involves:

1. Sign and symbol: Mutual gift and acceptance of each other.
2. Saving presence of Christ.
3. Saving grace.

Engagement

Engagement is a formal promise of marriage, which does *not* confer any right of physical intimacy. It is a period of preparation for marriage and life together, which should be spiritual as well as material. Spiritual preparation should be prioritized and done together.

Things to settle during the engagement period:

1. Children (number, spacing, means of family planning); increases marital satisfaction.
2. Economic life (available material resources, jobs and current earnings, will the wife work, and for how long?).
3. Housing facilities.
4. Existing responsibilities.

Things to reveal during engagement:

1. Presence of communicable diseases.
2. Existing drug addiction or habitual drunkenness.
3. Hereditary defects.

• Serious mental breakdown.
• Prison term record.
• Outstanding record which would be a heavy burden on the married couple.
• Existing children before marriage.
• Actually pregnant by another man at the time of marriage.
• Previous marriage.

Kinds of Marriage

Essential Properties

1. Unity
2. Indissolubility – Firmly so because it is a sacrament.

According to Canon Law

1. Valid
   1. Ratified
   2. Ratified and Consummated
2. Invalid
   1. In bad faith
   2. In good faith or putative marriage

Essential Requirements for Marriage Validity

According to Canon Law

1. Valid marital consent
2. Freedom to marry
3. Canonical form

According to Family Code

Valid

Essential Requisites:

1. Legal capacity of parties who must be male and female.
2. Consent freely given in the presence of the solemnizing officer.

Article 53

1. Legal capacity of the contracting parties (at least 18 years old).
2. Their consent freely given.
3. Authority of the person performing the marriage.
4. A marriage license.

Formal Requisites:

1. Authority of the solemnizing officer.
2. A valid marriage license.
3. A marriage ceremony which takes place with the appearance of the contracting parties before the solemnizing officer and their personal declaration that they take each other as husband and wife in the presence of not less than two witnesses of legal age.

Classification of Individual Diriment Impediments

1. Physical Defect (Nature)
   1. Age
   2. Impotence: absolute and relative; antecedent and perpetual
2. Moral Bond
   1. Existing Marriage
   2. Disparity of Cult/Worship
   3. Sacred Orders
   4. Perpetual Vow of Chastity
3. Crime
   1. Abduction
   2. Murder or Parricide for Marriage
4. Relationship
   1. Consanguinity
   2. Affinity
   3. Public Decency
   4. Legal Relationship

The Christian Family: Original Cell of Social Life

Vocation of the Christian Family:

• Domestic Church
• Sanctuary of Life and Faith
• Privileged Community of Life and Love
• School of Prayer and Virtues
• True Center of Evangelization

Tasks and Mission of the Family:

• Upholds human dignity
• At the service of life
• Provides basic catechesis and procures them a good Catholic education
• Participates actively in the life and evangelizing mission of the church

This includes:

• Prophetical
• Priestly
• Kingly

Planning the Family the Natural Way

• Just Reasons:
  • Limited resources of the family.
  • Need to provide for the other children.
  • Physical and Psychological factors.
• Objectives:
  1. Proper spacing of childbirths to care for them fully.
  2. To postpone pregnancy to allow the mother to regain optimum health.
  3. To limit the total number of children according to a manageable level.
  4. To avoid unnecessary risks to baby and mother when the mother is getting older.

Filipino Family Values to Revive

• Filial piety
• Obedience
• Parental authority
• Reverence for the elderly

Family Spirituality and Healing of the Family Tree

1. Prioritize the growth of the family as the household of the Lord (Jos. 24:15).
2. Strive daily to live in renewed faith, hope, and charity.
3. Read, reflect, and share the word of God.
4. Do most things together, with father and mother working as one to educate their children integrally.
5. Encourage respect for oneself and for others.
6. Be frugal, simple, practical, and willing to make sacrifices for the common good.
7. Volunteer services and share family advocacies.
8. Be a bulwark of forgiveness and reconciliation.
9. Accept the Divine calling as an invitation to greater holiness for each child.

Charter of Family Rights

1. Freedom to establish a family, have children, and bring them up in keeping with the family’s own moral and religious convictions.
2. Protection of the stability of the marriage bond and the institution of the family.
3. Freedom to profess one’s faith, hand it on, and raise children in it.
4. Free enterprise, to obtain work, housing, and the right to emigrate.
5. Right to medical care, assistance for the aged, and family benefits.
6. Protection of security and health, especially from dangers like alcoholism, drugs, pornography, and abuse.
7. Freedom to form associations with other families.
8. The right to wholesome recreation of a kind that fosters family values.

Crisis in the Family

1. Single parenthood: unwed, OFW spouse, widowhood/widowerhood, separated.
2. Dysfunctional family.
3. Religionless family.
4. Change of religious affiliation.
5. Prolonged illness/disability.
6. Death in the family.
7. Homelessness/joblessness.
8. Homosexuality.
9. Teenage Motherhood.
10. Shifting family structures.
11. “Partner” Mentality.

Source of Marital Conflict

1. Lack of sufficient preparation.
   • Immaturity and insufficient knowledge of each other.
   • Wrong motivation and priorities.
2. Prolonged separation.
3. Failure to sustain an open, healthy communication.
4. Third parties – other romantic interests, interference of family members, friends, attachments.

Legal Relief in Problematic Marriages

Legal Separation

Concept: Separation of board and lodging through Church or civil court proceedings, but the marital bond remains intact, so the parties cannot remarry within the lifetime of the spouse.

Grounds in Canon Law:

1. Adultery.
2. Grave bodily or spiritual harm to the spouse or children.
3. Desertion.

Grounds in Family Code:

1. Repeated physical or grossly abusive conduct against spouse/children.
2. Physical violence/oral pressure to compel spouse to change religion/political affiliation.
3. Attempt to corrupt/induce spouse or children to engage in prostitution.
4. Final sentence of imprisonment of six years plus, even if pardoned.
5. Drug addiction/habitual alcoholism.
6. Lesbianism/homosexuality contracting bigamous marriage here or abroad.
7. Sexual infidelity or perversion.
8. Attempt to kill the petitioner.
9. Abandonment of spouse without justifiable cause for more than one year.

Effects:

• Partition and separation of conjugal property.
• Cessation of obligation of mutual support.
• Declaration of presumptive legitimacy.
• Custody of minors and visitation rights.
• Share in profit of conjugal partnership forfeited.
• Custody of minor children awarded to innocent spouse.
• No inheritance from offended spouse.
• Visitation rights allowed.

Declaration of Nullity

Concept – according to the Canon Law and Family Code.

Grounds for Nullity

Canon Law Only

1. Disparity of cult.
2. Sacred Orders.
3. Public perpetual vows of chastity.
4. Public propriety.
5. Lack of due discretion.
6. Ignorance.
7. Conditional marriage.
8. Invalid proxy mandate.

There are fourteen grounds for the invalidity of marriage common to both Canon Law and Family Code, of natural or ecclesiastical origins.

Annulment

(In Family Code only for voidable marriage and voids in Canon Law)

Grounds

1. Lack of consent of parents or guardians.
2. Either party of unsound mind.
   1. Schizophrenic disorder.
   2. Paranoid disorders.
3. Fraud – about concealment:
   1. Previous conviction of crime of moral turpitude.
   2. Pregnancy by another man at the time of marriage.
   3. Sexually-transmitted disease.

The effect of civil annulment is the same as those of the Declaration of Nullity.