Dist. 27, Art. 2, Q. 1
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/4/d/27/q/bon-sent-IV-d27-a2-q1
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### Article II. *On the causality of marriage.*

Next inquiry is made concerning the second article, namely the causality of marriage. And concerning this two things are asked.

First it is asked whether consent is the cause of marriage. Second, whether vocal consent alone effects marriage.

### Question I. *Whether consent is the cause of marriage.*

As to the first, then, it is shown that consent is the cause of marriage:

1. Through Chrysostom, who says that «it is not intercourse that makes marriage, but the will».

2. Likewise Ambrose: «It is not the deflowering of virginity that makes marriage, but the conjugal compact».

3. Likewise it is proved *by example*: because between Mary and Joseph there was a marriage, and yet nothing intervened except consent.

4. Likewise it is proved *by reason*: because a conjugal compact is of greater liberty than one of servitude; but by consent alone a person makes himself a slave: therefore by consent alone he can become another's spouse.

**On the contrary:**
1. Nothing is the efficient cause of its own self; but marriage is nothing other than consent, since it is the sign of the union of Christ and the Church: therefore consent is not the efficient cause of marriage.

2. Likewise, «if the proposition is the cause of the proposition, then also the opposite is the cause of the opposite»: therefore if consent, as constituting marriage, is a cause, dissent is what destroys it; but marriage is not destroyed by the dissent of men: therefore neither is it constituted by consent.

3. Likewise, when the cause is multiplied, the effect is multiplied: therefore if consent is a cause, and there are two consents, it seems that there are two marriages between the man and the woman. But there are not two marriages: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, if two consents make one marriage, they must be united; but they are united only when they are toward the same thing; but in marriage they are not united into one, because the man's consent is toward the woman, the woman's consent toward the man: therefore they are diverse, and so [there is] no [marriage], etc.

### Conclusion

> The consent of both persons is the proximate cause of marriage, but together with the divine institution.

**I respond:** It must be said that, just as baptism is spoken of in two ways—in one way, insofar as it comprises the outer washing and the inner impressing of the character, in another way for the inner character alone—so marriage in one way comprises the bond and the outward sign, and in this way marriage is expressed consent, not its effect; in another way, insofar as it stands for the *inner bond*. Now such a bond has a *first* cause and a *proximate* cause; the *first* is the divine institution, the *proximate* is the human compact, which lies in the agreement of the two consents, namely of the man and of the woman. And therefore it must be said that consent is the cause of marriage, but not the whole cause, but rather together with the divine institution; and consent not of one alone, but of both persons.

**To the arguments on the contrary:**
*To 1.* And by this the first argument is answered.

*To 2 and 3.* To that which is objected, that if the opposite is not the cause of the opposite etc.; it must be said that there is a cause [that is] *efficient and conserving*, and a cause [that is] *only efficient*, not conserving; as is plain, because the sun is the cause of light in the first way, a knife the cause of a wound in the second way. Thus marriage has consent as its *efficient* cause, but *not as its conserving* cause. Consent, then, is a cause that marriage may *come to be*, not that it may *endure*. Likewise the opposite of consent, that is, dissent, is not a cause *that dissolves what has been done*, but *that impedes it, lest it be done*.

*To 4.* To that which is objected, that they are not united; it must be said that there is a being *united* both in the *object* and in the *subject*, and there is a being *united* in the *effect*. I say, then, that although the two consents are not united in the *subject* nor in the *object*, they are nevertheless united in the *effect*, which arises from that mutual consent. For when *she* wills *him* to be [her] husband, she wills to be his wife; and when *he* [wills] *her* to be [his] wife, he becomes her husband. And *if you object* that they are not united in the *effect* unless they are also united in the *object*; I say that they are united in the effect, and secondarily also in the object.

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