I know it's grounds for an anullment, which, as you know Bob, is the judgement that a marriage never existed. But I don't know enough about canon law to be sure if it's still grounds if you knew about the impotence beforehand - i.e. if the impediment is the fact that no consummation has taken place*, or if the impediment is that the non-impotent spouse expected the marriage to include sex, and therefore was consenting to something other than what they got, which would mean that it wasn't real consent.
The hysterectomy point just drives home the fact that the trouble with the church's social teaching on this matter is not so much that it was unreasonable to start with, but that it hasn't caught up with what we now know about humanity, or for that matter with advances in medicine (since even if one had understood the theoretical necessity for hysterectomies, there's no way anyone in the 13th C would have survived it).
Curiously, you used not to be able to be ordained in the Church of England if you were a eunuch, but I believe they changed the ruling in the aftermath of WWI.
* I know there was a debate about whether it is consent or consummation that makes the marriage in the Middle Ages, because Joseph is always regarded as married to Mary, but Catholic teaching holds that she remained a virgin, but on the other hand they wanted to keep allowing impotence as grounds for anullment. I think I'm right in saying that they came down on the side of consent (but nuanced as above), but I don't have the relevant books handy.
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Date: 2012-02-19 06:06 pm (UTC)The hysterectomy point just drives home the fact that the trouble with the church's social teaching on this matter is not so much that it was unreasonable to start with, but that it hasn't caught up with what we now know about humanity, or for that matter with advances in medicine (since even if one had understood the theoretical necessity for hysterectomies, there's no way anyone in the 13th C would have survived it).
Curiously, you used not to be able to be ordained in the Church of England if you were a eunuch, but I believe they changed the ruling in the aftermath of WWI.
* I know there was a debate about whether it is consent or consummation that makes the marriage in the Middle Ages, because Joseph is always regarded as married to Mary, but Catholic teaching holds that she remained a virgin, but on the other hand they wanted to keep allowing impotence as grounds for anullment. I think I'm right in saying that they came down on the side of consent (but nuanced as above), but I don't have the relevant books handy.