Dist. 28
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/28/q/bon-sent-IV-d28-littera
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### DISTINCTION XXVIII.

### Chapter I. *Whether consent regarding the future, even confirmed by an oath, makes a marriage.*

Here it must be asked whether consent regarding the future, with an oath also added, effects a marriage, as «if someone should promise, or even swear to another, that he will take her [as wife] by an *appointed time,* and she should promise or swear that she will marry him; has such a pledge made them spouses? If, the intention being changed, one or both pass over to another union; will the pact of the second covenant be torn up on account of the earlier pledge supported by an oath? — Consider, because it is one thing to *promise,* and quite another to *do.* He who promises does not yet do. He therefore who has promised that he will take some woman as wife has not yet taken her as wife; and she who has pledged that she will marry has not yet married. How then can those be called *spouses* who do not yet contract, but promise by swearing that they will contract in the future? Likewise, if by force of an oath pertaining to the future they are straightway made *spouses;* why do they swear that they will do in the future what they effect in the present? Likewise, if from the fact that they swear they are straightway made *spouses;* then they effect that very thing which they swear they will do. Therefore I say that there was then no marriage, but that a future one *is promised.* But if he afterward took a wife, and she married a husband; there was a marriage on both sides and it cannot be dissolved. The preceding lie, therefore, or perjury is to be corrected by penance, but the marriage that follows is not to be dissolved. It is not so, however, when the oath of marriage is confirmed by the attestation of *consent regarding the present,* because after such a consent, if anyone joins himself to another, even if he begets offspring, it must be made void, and he himself be recalled to the former union».

But there seems to run counter to the aforesaid opinion that which the laws hand down: «If anyone, having touched the divine Scriptures, swears to a woman that he will have her as his lawful wife, or even if in an oratory he gives such a pledge; let her be his lawful wife, although no dowry, no other writing has been interposed». — But here it is shown what ought to be done or to be, not what is then done. For it is not by that oath that she then becomes a wife, but it must come about, because it has been sworn. — This too can be understood of that oath, where they consent with regard to the *present* and receive one another in turn. — It seems, moreover, to run counter to that opinion by which it is said that consent alone makes marriage, that Pope Evaristus says: «A marriage is not lawfully made otherwise than when the wife is sought from those who are seen to have dominion over the woman and by whom she is guarded, and is betrothed by her parents and endowed according to the laws, and is blessed by the priest as is the custom, and is guarded by the groomsmen and solemnly received». Likewise: «Know that unions are lawful in this way, but otherwise presumed; they are not marriages, but adulteries or fornications, unless proper will has given its support, and lawful vows have come to their aid». — But this is not to be understood as though, without the things enumerated, there could not be a lawful marriage, but rather that without them it does not have the propriety and honorableness that is due.

### Chapter II. *On the things that pertain to the substance and to the propriety of the Sacrament.*

For in the celebration of this Sacrament, as in others, certain things pertain to the *substance* of the Sacrament, as the consent regarding the present, which alone suffices to contract marriage; but certain things pertain to the *propriety* and *solemnity* of the Sacrament, as the handing-over by the parents, the blessing of priests, and the like; without which marriage is lawfully made as regards its force, though not as regards the honorableness of the Sacrament. Without these, then, they come together not as lawful spouses, but as adulterers or fornicators, like those who marry clandestinely; and indeed they would be fornicators, were it not that the will, expressed in words regarding the present, comes to their aid, which makes lawful marriage between them. For even a hidden consent regarding the present, expressed in words, makes marriage; although there is no honorable contract in it, yet the consent that was secret did not ratify the marriage. For if one abandons the other, he is not compelled by the judgment of the Church to return and dwell together as with a spouse, because the contract, which was made in secret, cannot be proven by witnesses. But if those who consented to one another in secret should freely profess that same consent openly, then indeed their own will gives its support, and lawful vows come to the aid of ratifying the marriage that had before been secretly contracted. The will, therefore, expressed in words in secret gives support to this, that marriage come about; but expressed openly it gives support that it be ratified and strengthened, and that it be free for the Church to judge of this, if it should be expedient.

### Chapter III. *Whether that consent which makes marriage is of carnal union, or of cohabitation, or of something else.*

Here it is asked, «since consent regarding the present makes marriage, of what thing is that consent — of *carnal union*, or of *cohabitation*, or of *both*. If the consent of cohabitation makes marriage, then a brother with his sister, a father with his daughter, could contract marriage; if the consent of carnal union, then between Mary and Joseph there was no marriage. For Mary had resolved to remain in virginity, unless God should command otherwise, according to what she seems to have said to the Angel: *How shall this be, since I do not know a man?* that is, I have resolved that I shall not know one. For it was not because she did not then know a man that it was necessary to ask how she could have a son; but because she had resolved that she would never know one». For Bede says, «that she had determined to remain in virginity». «If, therefore, contrary to her resolve, she afterward consented to carnal union, she would seem to have become guilty in mind of the violation of her vow, even if not in deed».

### Chapter IV. *Why the woman was formed from the side of the man.*

Let us say, then, that the consent of *cohabitation*, or of *carnal union*, does not make marriage, but the consent of *conjugal society*, expressed in words according to the present time, as when the man says: I take you as mine, not as mistress, not as handmaid, but as spouse. For because she is given neither as handmaid nor as mistress, therefore she was formed from the beginning neither from the top nor from the bottom, but from the side of the man, for the sake of conjugal society. For if she had been made from the top, as from the head, she would seem to have been created for dominion; but if from the bottom, as from the feet, she would seem to have been made subject to servitude; but because she is taken neither as mistress nor as handmaid, she was made from the middle, that is, from the side, because she is taken up into conjugal society. When, therefore, they come together in this way, that the man says: I take you as my spouse, and the woman says: I take you as my husband; by these words, or by others signifying the same thing, is expressed the consent not of carnal union, nor of bodily cohabitation, but of conjugal society; from which it is fitting that they dwell together, unless perhaps, for the sake of religion, by equal vow they be bodily separated, either for a time, or even to the end.

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