Dist. 27, Art. 3, Q. 2
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-a3-q2
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### Question II. *Whether a ratified marriage is indissoluble.*

Secondly it is asked concerning the indissolubility of that marriage which consists only in the union of souls. And that such a marriage is indissoluble is shown:

1. Because it is determined in law that if someone consents by words of the present tense to one woman, and afterwards consents to another and knows her carnally, he is to be recalled to the first: therefore the first bond was indissoluble, since it is not dissolved by a consummated marriage.

2. Likewise, this same thing is shown by the aforesaid definition of marriage. *If you should say* that it does not apply to it, *the objection is raised* through Hugh, who defines marriage thus: « Marriage is the lawful consent of a man and a woman, keeping an undivided common life ».

3. Likewise, [as to] what the Lord said in Matthew, chapter nineteen: *What God has joined together let no man separate*, this is understood either with respect to the union of *souls* or [that] of *bodies*. That [it is understood] of *souls* seems [right], because that union is holier: therefore if He understands it of that [union], it seems that with respect to it [the marriage] is inseparable.

4. Likewise, marriage signifies, as to the union of souls, the union of God and the Church; but the Church, once betrothed to Christ, is never separated nor will be separated: therefore neither [is] that marriage [separable].

5. Likewise, when a man consents to a woman, he transfers the power of his own body into the power of the woman, because then he is bound to her: therefore if *he does not have power over his own body*, he can neither enter religion nor join himself to another.

**On the contrary:**
1. Jerome says that the Lord called John away from his wedding: therefore He loosed him from a wife; but He would not have loosed [him], if he had been bound by an indissoluble bond: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, the sacred canons, before carnal intercourse, give free power to the one [party] of entering religion, and to the other of marrying after the other's entry, as is clear from many things which are had in the text; but she could not marry unless the bond were dissolved: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, the soul is never in this life so joined to God that it cannot be separated from Him: therefore neither is the betrothed joined inseparably to the betrothed before carnal union.

In connection with this it is asked whether, immediately after entry into religion, such a bond is dissolved. And that it is so seems [right]: because otherwise the woman would suffer harm, since she would be bound, and the man would not be bound; which is not fitting, since they are judged on equal terms. — But if it is dissolved immediately; yet it is possible for him to leave religion: therefore he can marry, granted that the wife has married another, which is against the canons. — On account of this it is asked: when is it dissolved, and why is it dissolved by the bond of the vow, and not by the bond of the greater marriage?

### Conclusion
> A merely ratified marriage is indissoluble in its own way, since it can be dissolved only by the solemn vow of chastity.

**I respond:** It must be said that indissolubility follows upon marriage not only [when] *consummated* but also [when] *ratified*; and on this account a [merely] ratified marriage too is [indissoluble], because it has a certain indissolubility, though less than a consummated marriage has; yet it has one befitting it, just as the other does. For just as the bond of a *consummated* marriage is indissoluble while the two parties remain alive in bodily life, and is not dissolved except by *bodily death*; so neither can a marriage in which there is a union of minds and souls be dissolved, unless a person dies *spiritually* to this world or to the work of the flesh; and this happens by entering religion and by uttering the solemn vow of chastity. For such a marriage is dissolved from the point at which he *dies spiritually*; and this is proved by that decretal of Innocent, On the Conversion of the Married, *Ex parte tua*. —

It must therefore be granted that that marriage is indissoluble in its own way, since it is a Sacrament, and is not separated by man, but by God, to whom the solemn vow of continence is promised.

**1–4.** And from this the objections are answered, except the last.

**5.** To that which is objected concerning the transfer of power, it must be said that the power of the body is not transferred *absolutely* in a ratified marriage, but *under a condition* on both sides, namely *while the state and the life remain*. Hence I say that if the wife were to ask the debt of herself immediately, he would not be bound to render it; nor would the Church compel him to render it at once, but at least grants a delay of up to two months, beyond which time he is bound either to render the debt to the wife, or to betake himself to another [way of] life. Then, therefore, the bond is dissolved, when the person has been irreversibly transferred to another life, and therefore is said to be dead.

And from this is clear that which is asked last, namely when the bond is dissolved: that is, when he is so bound that he cannot return to the world; and if the wife insists, he must choose one of two things for himself within two months according to the canons. And through this the whole [matter] is clear.

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