A. About Such Impediments from the Nature of the Contract

11. If in the first way, then either from the conditions necessary for the contract, or from the conditions necessary on the side of the contracting parties. On the part of the contract, because its nature is that it is a giving of power over body for power over body of the contracting parties, and in perpetuity. Therefore what impedes such voluntary giving impedes the nature of this contract.

12. Now of such sort is, on the part of the will, involuntariness from fear that can befall a constant man, which fear comes from sufficient certitude of an impending evil that one should, according to right reason, more avoid than not contracting with this woman. Such is the evil of death, of major mutilation, of perpetual imprisonment, of servitude, of defilement, and the like. And this impediment is spoken of in d.29 [nn.27-31].

13. And involuntariness from defect of preceding knowledge (since indeed knowledge of the thing willed is required for the voluntary, Ethics 3.3.1111a22-24) is either from total lack of intellectual knowledge, or with some sort of knowledge but defective knowledge, because erroneous.

If in the first way, such madness impedes the voluntary while it lasts, and so impedes this contract. If however he who is mad undergoes lucid intervals, he can, during the time of a lucid interval, contract [matrimony] and, if he has contracted it, he can in the same way ask [for the debt], and the debt is to be rendered to him - but not at a time of madness, because he does not then know how to ask by virtue of his right, but he is then like a brute; then too it would for the other be a danger to their person to render the debt.

14. Now if there be some knowledge, but erroneous because with some deception, a triple deception impedes simply, because each one is about what is necessarily required for a contract. First is error of person; second error of worse condition (as of servitude); third error of mutual giving (as that she gives believing he can give back or can exchange with her, and he does not give back, though he speak words in deceit of spirit to extort from her what he lusts). And this triple error was spoken of in d.30 [nn.9-12].

15. Now the penalty for this last error, which namely is deceit in the contract, is that he truly fulfill what he is fallaciously simulating, because he is bound to render to this woman that for the rendering of which she made exchange with him. And therefore in the forum of conscience it is to be enjoined on him that he truly contract with her.

16. But if he has already contracted with her truly and cannot, consequently, fulfill it with her, he is to be penitent about the impossibility but to procure, as much as he can, a restitution of the equivalent, namely so that by him be rendered to the woman power over the body of another man equivalent to his own body as far as concerns this contract, or at least make satisfaction in other things according to the judgment of a good man.

17. But in the contentious forum, if the exterior contract be proved deceitfully made by him, he should be compelled to keep it as a true contract. But if he have contracted with another in the meantime, the Church will command him still to keep to the first; but in the forum of conscience the opposite will be said, because the second is his true wife, not the first.

18. And therefore he must uphold the sentence of the Church by keeping the truth of the divine Law, and let him impute to himself that so great a penalty remains over him because of this so great fraud that he has committed - because, too, this contract is obligatory for other goods, as keeping faith and indissolubility and taking up and educating offspring, if it happen (which three things are called the goods of matrimony [d.31. n.18]).

19. And generally, in every contract, he who contracts under a condition opposite to the contract does nothing; therefore against the idea of this contract is an opposite condition repugnant to any good of matrimony. And so there are three impediments arising from a triple condition opposed to the contract - against the three goods of matrimony; and these were spoken about above d.31 [ibid].

20. Now on the side of the contracting parties is required that they be able to give the power over their bodies. But he who is simply impotent for union cannot give this power, because he does not have it. Impotent also by divine Law [is he who], because he is obligated by another bond of matrimony, cannot give power over his body because his body is not now his but his spouse’s.

21. Thus, therefore, impotence simply and matrimonial tie to another impede matrimony on the side of the contracting parties. And the impotence is spoken of in d.34 [nn.16-28], how one kind is natural and one by occasion, and neither, if not perpetual, impedes simply.

22. Now natural impotence in the man is through frigidity or lack of the necessary part; or in a woman by constriction simply, which ‘simply’ I state in contrast to constriction relative to someone. By occasion is through sorcery, and this either in respect of anyone or in respect of some determinate person. And to this impotence is reduced also the impediment of childhood, because although there not be perpetual impotence there, yet there is for that age no potency there, and so none can be given; and this impediment of childhood is spoken of in d.36 [nn.45-49].

23. So, therefore, we have on the part of the contract three impediments in kind: namely by fear, by defect of knowledge, and by emplacement of repugnant condition. And on the side of the contracting parties there are two in kind: impotence simply and impotence according to justice, because tied to another.

24. And specifically the first impediment [sc. by fear] can be multiple thus, how many the evils are that are justly feared. The second impediment is triple, according to a triple error, and a fourth according to defect of use of reason. The third impediment contains under it three things repugnant to the three goods of matrimony. The fourth impediment contains a double natural impediment, namely frigidity and mutilation of the man, and a single impediment of the woman, namely restriction simply (for frigidity in a woman does not simply impede, as neither does sterility); and one general to both sexes, namely childhood, and this general one contains under it impotence by occasion in both sexes, provided however it is permanent. The final impediment stays undivided; and the reason for this impediment is plain from d.33 [n.20], where it is said that in the Gospel

Law bigamy is not licit, nor is it licit to dismiss a wife; therefore in no way while she lives, whether dismissed in fact or not dismissed, is it licit to contract with another.