e. Proof of the Fifth Main Conclusion

64. About the fifth conclusion [n.11], which applies to the terms; I mean that matrimony is one thing, the contract of matrimony is another, and the sacrament of matrimony another.

65. For matrimony is the mutual obligation or the bond that was spoken about in the first main conclusion [n.7]. And the contract is the mutual act of wills, which was spoken about in the second main conclusion [n.8]. The sacrament is the efficacious sign of grace, accompanying the act, which sacrament was spoken about in the fourth main conclusion [n.10].

66. And the distinction between them is plain:

For the first is permanent in the souls of the spouses. And it is either a real relation coming from outside or, which seems truer, a relation of reason only, because there is nothing there save a new lordship and a new service through a new exchange; but such lordship or servitude posits nothing real in the lord or servant.

67. The second exists only in coming to be, and it is an interior or exterior act or undergoing of act, or rather something consisting in the interior and exterior acts of two persons. And this is related to matrimony in the first way stated [n.66] as the cause in its coming to be, the way generation is to paternity, or rather the way ‘to be baptized’ or ‘to be ordained’ is to character, as is plain above from d.8 [rather Ord. IV d.6 nn.277, 317].

68. And the third likewise consists in coming to be, and it simultaneously is and is not with the second; and so it does not remain always with the first.

69. Nor should one say that this name ‘matrimony’ is equivocal as to these three, but rather that it signifies only the first, and it is taken for the others only indirectly, signifying something else, so that for the second this is the contract of matrimony and for the third it is the sacrament of matrimony, where the construction is not intransitive but transitive.Transitive in the sense that the contract and sacrament of matrimony are not what matrimony is but what ‘pass over’ [transit] to what matrimony is, by making it (the contract) or gracing it (the sacrament). Matrimony proper is the bond [nn.65, 71] so made and graced. ⁷⁷

70. But if you altogether contend that the name ‘matrimony’ signify these three things, there will be no contention about the name, which in this case will be equivocal.

71. Now these three can be described as follows:

Matrimony is the indissoluble bond between male and female, arising from the mutual transfer of the power of their bodies to each other, made for procreating offspring to be duly educated.

72. The second as follows:

The contract of matrimony is the male’s and female’s mutual transfer of their bodies, in their perpetuity, for procreating offspring to be duly educated.

73. The third as follows:

The sacrament of matrimony is the male’s and female’s expression of certain words to each other, words signifying the handing over of the mutual power of their bodies for duly procreating offspring, by divine institution efficaciously signifying the conferring of grace on the contracting parties, for the mutual graced union of hearts.

Or if certain words are not precisely the form of this sacrament, nor the contracting parties precisely the ministers, let there be put at the beginning, in place of the ‘expression of certain words’, the ‘exhibiting of certain signs of both male and female’ or something more general, as ‘the exhibiting of signs signifying the mutual handing over of the bodies of male and female for the due procreation of offspring etc.’