diriment impediment

A reason for annulment is called a diriment impediment to the marriage.

If one of the parties were prohibited from marrying by a diriment impediment, the marriage is invalid.

Yet the diriment impediment "lack of form" dates back to no earlier than the Council of Trent.

Diriment impediments include:

Clandestinity is a diriment impediment in the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church.

Public Honesty (Decency) is a diriment impediment to marriage, a prohibition that prevents a marriage bond from being formed.

Those concerning the first of these two sacraments only concern liceity, but "a diriment impediment renders a person incapable of validly contracting a marriage" (canon 1073).

Again, if an invalid marriage has been contracted, and the diriment impediment can be removed, a convalidation or sanatio in radice can be performed to make the marriage valid.

The vicar-general has by virtue of his appointment all the ordinary powers of the bishop over prohibent impediments, but requires a special mandate to give him common-law faculties for diriment impediments.

The New Catholic Encyclopedia states: "The Second Lateran Council (1139) seems to have enacted the first written law making sacred orders a diriment impediment to marriage for the universal Church."

He was inclined to the opinion, generally held in France in his day, that the State had the power to create diriment impediments to marriage among Catholics; but he abandoned it as soon as it was disapproved at Rome.

Note that, as clarified by articles 2 and 4 of Dignitas Connubii, the Catholic Church now recognizes the diriment impediments of other (i.e., non-Catholic) Churches and ecclesial communities when their members are parties to a marriage.

De veto et voti redemptione (iii, 15) in 6 , Boniface VIII declared authoritatively that the vow of chastity, consecrated by the reception of major orders, or by religious profession in an approved institute, created a diriment impediment to marriage.

Thus they enjoy the exemption of regulars; and their simple vows, as solemn vows with other religious, are a diriment impediment to matrimony, that is, a marriage contract attempted by a Jesuit with simple vows, even though he not be a priest, would be null and void.

Disparity of worship or disparity of cult (Disparitas Cultus) is a diriment impediment in Roman Catholic canon law: a reason why a marriage can not be validly contracted without a dispensation, stemming from one person being certainly baptized, and the other certainly not baptized.