Annulments

[CatholicCid]

[i]What results, as you will see, is that the Church's view becomes more important than the validity and validity loses it's meanings. If, in your Catholic life, all that matter is how the Church views your position, then true validity is meaningless. [/i]
[color="#FF0000"]What the Church is desiring to do through such tribunals is to determine the validity of marriage. That is why such processes [b]must[/b] be approached with complete honesty. You seem to be hitting right around the nail, so close! The Church, through tribunals, desires that her opinion be the exact same of the true objectivity reality. In these cases, you do rely on how the Church views your opinion, but you trust that the Church views it correctly. If the Church decrees that a marriage is valid, you are able to trust that the correct, objective reality of that marriage is valid. As CatherineM said, we trust in the Holy Spirit to guide the Church in this matter. But, yes, we are a Church staffed by sinful man, and man can fall into error. But, as previously noted, the Church strives beyond belief to avoid error.[/color]

[i]I do concede, however, that as an investigative body, the Church's tribunals are no divorce court, but they do render objective validity secondary to the Church's view on the validity. That has all the practical effect of making the only concern for Catholics to be the Church's view on the matter and not actual validity. What is implied in that is that validity does not matter but rather what the Church declares.. which returns you to the original proposition that it has de facto powers of divorce if validity is made secondary to it's rulings.[/i]
[color="#FF0000"]Again, we hope and pray that the Church's view on the matter is the same as the actual validity. The desire is that the validity is not secondary to the ruling, but one and the same. That said, I do not mean that the tribunal can dissolve a valid marriage, but that it truly strives to determine the actual validity of the marriage and will offer a ruling to the best of its knowledge.[/color]

[i]The Church is not protected from error in this process like it is in it's teachings, which is where the problem comes in. I understand, for the individual, culpability is removed, but that says very little about the powers of the tribunal when it is wrong.[/i]
[color="#FF0000"]The Church is protected from error in matters of faith and morals. I do not know how this would apply here. Annulments involve the Sacrament of Marriage, which is an issue of faith. How the Church might be guided in this particular area, I am not sure. This falls beyond my current understanding.
As to the powers of a tribunal in error, I revert back to the position that the tribunal cannot dissolve a valid marriage by errantly claiming it an invalid marriage. To quote from the Catechism, "The marriage bond has been established by God himself in such a way that a marriage concluded and consummated between baptized persons can never be dissolved... The Church does not have the power to contravene this disposition of divine wisdom" (CCC 1640).[/color]

[i]The last option would be to say that the tribunal is invalidated by reality, despite best efforts, and that a validly married person could not enter into another marriage regardless of the Church's view on the validity of the marriage and if he did so he would be committing adultery, as would his spouse, even if they are not culpable.[/i]
[color="#FF0000"] As I said earlier, a validly married person cannot enter into another marriage. If he attempts to do so, it would be an invalid attempt. If there is an error due to a tribunal, and a man believes himself free to marry in the Church when he is not, he can attempt to do so, but it will still not be a valid marriage. The man has an impediment to the new 'marriage', which is his previous, valid marriage. He would be living in an adulterous relationship. That being said, due to his invincible ignorance toward the situation, the man would not be culpable to the sin being committed. That does not mean that the new 'marriage' becomes valid or acceptable, but that he is not able to be held accountable for the sin since he does not know he is committing it.

I also agree with CatherineM on this situation. I think rejecting the idea of a tribunal altogether is a bit extreme. First of all, because the Church does allow and have such tribunals. Secondly, because of the caution the Church goes to in such matters. Thirdly, because I trust in God's mercy as well in this matter.[/color]


Again, this is all my own foolish opinion, so please take it with a grain of salt. If I've made any error, I would appreciate correction.

I'm happy that I was able to help a little Michael, and hope I did so correctly. As to the Church's ability in marriage, I would recommend the section of the Catechism I quoted if you would like some better insight than I can offer.

Edited October 19, 2010 by CatholicCid

[MithLuin]

One could always not get an annulment, nor date/marry a person who has gotten an annulment if one is concerned about the process. Take a 'better safe than sorry' approach if you are worried about.

Canon law is very pastoral...it is meant to bring everyone into the Church and into right relationship with God. It is not written to encourage people to remain outside the fold.

[MichaelFilo]

I have no interest in throwing out the tribunal altogether.

However, the assurance you have of the Church being infallible in faith and morals is limited only to her teaching authority. The tribunals are not part of her teaching arm.

The entire premise, for you, is that the Church will always try to get the truth. I do not doubt that and it is the only institution which rivals and exceeds our founding father's due diligence in setting up a system to find truth, of checks and balances. However, mistakes can happen. At 59,000 annulments a year it is hard to imagine not even one a year is errant, even without people telling a lie. It is a judgement call about maturity, as Catherine has pointed out, that maybe checked by a few people but ultimately our definition of proper maturity is hardly in line with the canonical dictate. So, we do have a real dilemma of when the Church gets it wrong.


It isn't a personal worry, it's an intellectual gap. How do you defend marriage when anyone can say there are so many divorces a year in the Catholic Church and you call them funny names. I would be intellectually dishonest to believe that all of them are done within the definition of an annulment. If they are all truly annulments then the church should hide her face in shame and Catholic marriages would seemingly suffer from a painful case of invalidity.

Edited October 19, 2010 by MichaelFilo

[Deacon Joe]

I don't believe it's the Tribunal's power but God's that actually grants a Declaration of Nullity. God is totally just and so honest mistakes, as far as I know, would not be held against one just as sins committed unknowingly or unwittingly are not held against a person. I'm not sure what you're after here. One of the major differences between a Declaration of Nullity and a divorce is that in the Declaration an impediment must be found at the time the marriage was contracted whereas a divorce is normally granted by the state at any time for any reason that may come up for the entire duration of the marriage. A Declaration of Nullity says there was never a valid marriage and a divorce says there was a valid marriage but we, the state are dissolving it, which is impossible. The Tribunal never makes a marriage invalid, the circumstances around the marriage make it invalid. The Tribunal just verifies it w/ the information they have. I'm sure mistakes are made but that doesn't change the function of the Tribunal.

[quote name='MichaelFilo' timestamp='1287461943' post='2180611']
Understandable,but it doesn't have to be a case of lying. What about honest error? Does the tribunal have actual power to make a marriage invalid, as opposed to simply declare it. If it does, it is a divorce court with stylized rules.

Don't assume the lying scenario, assume a genuine mistake.
[/quote]

[MichaelFilo]

Well, we understand that culpability is not important, because God will forgive you for something you believed to be true.

Well, mistakes do change the function. For instance, if the tribunal is purely investigative then it can be wrong on the facts or the conclusion, and if so then it could say something is invalid which is valid. The problem is multiplied when you understand the sheer volume of Catholics out there with annulments today vs any time in Church history. Can the tribunals really be at a point today where so many more people, nearly 100 times as many, without making errors. If they are being lax about the standards of maturity then they are declaring things invalid which are valid. If that is the case then many people who believe their marriage was never valid, well, was. If it is not an issue because they do not know better then we are faced with a problem, that the validity of the marriages is not really the issue but rather the declaration of the tribunal.

Furthermore, if today the pope saw that this cannot go on, he could ask for the tribunals to relook into previous declarations. Could they then say there was a mistake, that they were too lax, and the marriages were indeed valid?

I mean, here is the real issue. Today, to get married in the Church, you must undergo some level of classes or meetings or preparation with a priest. How many priests are just failing so horribly that this canon "For matrimonial consent to be valid it is necessary that the contracting parties at least not be ignorant that marriage is a permanent consortium between a man and a woman which is ordered toward the procreation of offspring by means of some sexual cooperation." is not being met. The very next line says "2. Such ignorance is not presumed after puberty" should indicate how lax the actual implementation is. how can 59,000 Catholic couples a year not know these things? You don't even have to be Catholic to know them. So we have a dilemma, because it boggles the mind how in actuality so many more marriages are invalidly done today then in the past.

My concern, then lies, in the fact that validity doesn't matter as long as the tribunal says it is so. If that is the case then how can I stand as a Catholic and say divorce is wrong when God has brought two parties together when the Church in the states has decided that quite a large percentage of those getting married aren't capable of even that base knowledge? It seems like a cop-out because it is one. I mean, 97% of all annulments being granted should be an indicator of either the poor efforts of the tribunals or the absolute mental incapacity of Catholic couples and priests.

[CatherineM]

It is the incapacity of couples, the inadequacy of most diocesan marriage prep courses, and the desire of priests to not offend people.

We did our marriage prep 5 years ago. It was done quickly over a weekend. It was run by lay people who were trained in Kumbya theology. There was no NFP training, no marriage chastity discussion at all. There was no clergy involvement at all, except for a small talk by a brother who is the Medieval history professor at the seminary. The preparation our priest gave us involved filling out a form, sending us to a Catholic psychologist to make sure we were both competent to marry in the church, and nothing else.

I think there were just as many invalid marriages 100 years ago with people being forced into marriage, not knowing what marriage involved, etc. The difference was that culturally, people simply didn't divorce then.

Right now, I think valid marriages are the exception. Most people are just clueless. When you find a truly sacramental marriage, it is that one that everyone in church looks at and just marvels at.

[MichaelFilo]

There is a problem with the idea that a truly sacramental marriage is successful. In fact, sacraments require consent for effectiveness. It seems the requirements for validity are simply knowledge of what marriage is, namely that it is between a man and a woman for life and it involves sex. Did you get that many people who did not know that?

The other issue is why isn't all of Europe like the US. We still account for some way too large portion of the annulments. One would expect France, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Germany, etc to have the same problems. They have comparable divorce rates in those countries.

[MithLuin]

Well, perhaps the people in those countries don't bother applying for annulments when they get divorced? To know that, you'd need to look at the number of people who [i]apply[/i] for an annulment, and then compare it to the number granted....and then compare percentages to the US.

It's quite possible the US would still come out with a higher percentage, but I don't know the numbers.

You have stated that you don't want to get rid of the tribunal, so you do recognize that there are cases where a sacramental marriage does not exist and it would be the role of the tribunal to declare that truth. So is your only complaint that too many people get annulments?

[MichaelFilo]

While looking online, the US has moved up to 80% of all annulments in the world by 1995.

My question is what happens when the tribunal gets it wrong. We obviously have the laxest standards in the world. If they are purely an investigative body, but Catherine who worked for one says they are a body with a legitimate ability to render marriages invalid, then they are telling people out and out lies. They are declaring valid marriages invalid by the thousands each year. The net effect, of course, is that no one is responsible for their conclusion and so no one is punished. Then, we have a dilemma, because we have a body that has the ability to render you inculpable for a marriage that is valid. What they are granting, de facto, is divorces.This is the problem. No one here would rightly argue that the Holy Spirit's protections over the teaching arm could extend to this realm because we are a huge anomaly in regards to the rest of the world. So, we are left with the fact that we are so lax an annulment, for all practical purposes, is a divorce.

Why? Well, we have very strict and low ball standards for what ability to get married is. In fact, all of it is assumed knowledge by puberty. When you have a tribunal declaring that 59,000 couples a year do not know what is known generally at puberty then you have a body that is nullifying, in ever practical sense, valid marriages, or at least telling laypeople to treat it that way. That is what a divorce does. It treats a valid marriage as invalid.

You may argue that it renders a valid marriage as dissolved, but not quite. A valid Catholic marriage is rendered dissolved in a non-Catholic court by the court.For the Catholic, who knows no such thing can be done, all they are doing is rendering his valid marriage invalid, even though it is not the case.

If we truly had 59,000 couples getting invalidly married then there are serious implications on our intelligence and ability to grasp basic concepts, or the state of the Church that she cannot teach that marriage is for life, between a man and a woman, and is procreative.

[CatherineM]

Perhaps you should pursue a law degree and a JCD so that you can become a Defender of the Bond, and turn down every single application.

[Maggyie]

I think I read that the United States' annullment process is considered a model for the rest of the world by certain Roman authorities, as they move much quicker here and the bureaucracy is less intimidating - although it is still quite a bureaucratic (to say nothing of emotional) ordeal to go through the process in America. The fact that we have the most annullments can be put down to numerous factors, including:

1. We have a very large number of Catholics
2. Remarriage is something that is done quite frequently in our culture, so more are likely to pursue
3. Our annulments system is more responsive, so more are likely to pursue
4. Lousy catechesis (the annulment system needs less reform than our marriage prep programs perhaps)
5. Prevalence in our culture of situations that tend to nullify marriages - take pornography for example. Can you imagine how many men have an addiction to pornography during the time they get married? Rich material for annullment right there. Even if both bride and groom knew about and recognized the problem, I have heard it argued (convincingly) that someone who has an *ongoing* porn issue has damaged their sexuality so badly that they can't contract a valid marriage until they get clean for good.

Could it be that in the United States we've got it down better than they do in other places? It's not neccesarily that everybody else does it right and we do it wrong. For instance I know that in America addiction absolutely plays a role in invalidating a marriage, but maybe in other places they don't consider whether there were pre-existing addictions etc. Which I think they should be considered.

ETA: And I don't think that what one needs to know to get married is generally understood by puberty. In fact one of the easiest cases of anullment I know of is to show the tribunal that you were both teenagers when you "married."

Edited October 20, 2010 by Maggie

[MissScripture]

[quote name='MichaelFilo' timestamp='1287578928' post='2180987']
If we truly had 59,000 couples getting invalidly married then there are serious implications on our intelligence and ability to grasp basic concepts, or the state of the Church that she cannot teach that marriage is for life, between a man and a woman, and is procreative.
[/quote]
To know something and to understand it are two very different things. I can know facts, but to understand their implications is not always going to go along with that. And just because the church is teaching, it doesn't mean that people are learning. I've had plenty of things taught to me, in my life, that I have never actually learned. And with the mindset of many going into marriage prep, it's not surprising that they don't learn what the Church actually teaches on marriage.

[Archaeology cat]

[quote name='CatherineM' timestamp='1287438168' post='2180507']
An annulment simply recognizes that a true sacramental marriage did not take place. Most of the ones I saw were granted because the parties weren't mature enough to know what they were really getting into. It had nothing to do with their ages. [b]There are probably loads of people who could qualify for annulments, but they never divorce.[/b] At some point in their relationship, they figured it out, grew up, got better catechized, etc., and made their marriages into strong ones. The tribunal only looks at the moment of the marriage, not what comes later. If it is a good marriage at the start, but falls apart later, no annulment.
[/quote]
I'm confused by the bolded - does that mean they don't have a valid marriage? I mean, say they were immature about what marriage meant and was, but stay together and follow Church teaching as they go along and learn more - what does that mean for them?.

[quote name='CatherineM' timestamp='1287528454' post='2180807']
It is the incapacity of couples, the inadequacy of most diocesan marriage prep courses, and the desire of priests to not offend people.

We did our marriage prep 5 years ago. It was done quickly over a weekend. It was run by lay people who were trained in Kumbya theology. There was no NFP training, no marriage chastity discussion at all. There was no clergy involvement at all, except for a small talk by a brother who is the Medieval history professor at the seminary. The preparation our priest gave us involved filling out a form, sending us to a Catholic psychologist to make sure we were both competent to marry in the church, and nothing else.

I think there were just as many invalid marriages 100 years ago with people being forced into marriage, not knowing what marriage involved, etc. The difference was that culturally, people simply didn't divorce then.

Right now, I think valid marriages are the exception. Most people are just clueless. When you find a truly sacramental marriage, it is that one that everyone in church looks at and just marvels at.
[/quote]
You're unfortunately right about the state of marriage prep in some places.

[CatherineM]

[quote name='Archaeology cat' timestamp='1287597146' post='2181057']
I'm confused by the bolded - does that mean they don't have a valid marriage? I mean, say they were immature about what marriage meant and was, but stay together and follow Church teaching as they go along and learn more - what does that mean for them?.
[/quote]
People stay married all the time who don't really love each other. I had an aunt and uncle who only stayed married by him having a job out of town and just coming home on weekends. I've known people who stayed together because of finances, but lived in different parts of the house. There are also people who didn't know what a sacramental marriage meant, went into it planning to use birth control, and only married in church because their parents insisted. Later, they can mature, go back to church, reconciliation, etc. I have known priests to remarry couples like that. That's certainly what I'd do.

You have to remember that marriage is a sacrament that the couple confer on each other. Just as I think we renew our sacrament to each other living a good married life together, I think people can bring a sacrament into a marriage where one wasn't before. The priest is just a witness. I saw a lot of broken people in the tribunal. The saddest ones were where one party believed they had a good marriage, and the other was living a lie. I never saw a couple there that I thought had a good marriage and should have stayed together. Even on the cases that were turned down because they couldn't prove their case, I didn't feel that there was a "marriage" there.

We plan to renew our vows every five years. Mainly just to irritate his family though. His mom is still telling him in every phone call and letter that they will be there for him when I leave him. She's always telling him that I'm going to divorce him and take everything including his underwear. That's just scary.

[Deacon Joe]

You will probably never get an answer that will satisfy you or anyone else. How could you? I do agree that marriage prep is lax in some places, maybe many places, I don't have any way of knowing that myself. I doubt anyone will ever go back and look at all the previous Declarations of Nullity. They may tighten things up, hopefully, but doubtful they would re-look at previous cases. I do marriage prep and I've been told that I'm very tough. I have had several couples put a hold on their marriages after my prep classes. I know that most failed marriages are due to poor preparation. It is an issue that needs to be addressed both the prep and the amount of Declarations of Nullity that are being heard. Just a thought, probably, due to poor prep, many more marriages are invalid.

[quote name='MichaelFilo' timestamp='1287524135' post='2180791']
Well, we understand that culpability is not important, because God will forgive you for something you believed to be true.

Well, mistakes do change the function. For instance, if the tribunal is purely investigative then it can be wrong on the facts or the conclusion, and if so then it could say something is invalid which is valid. The problem is multiplied when you understand the sheer volume of Catholics out there with annulments today vs any time in Church history. Can the tribunals really be at a point today where so many more people, nearly 100 times as many, without making errors. If they are being lax about the standards of maturity then they are declaring things invalid which are valid. If that is the case then many people who believe their marriage was never valid, well, was. If it is not an issue because they do not know better then we are faced with a problem, that the validity of the marriages is not really the issue but rather the declaration of the tribunal.

Furthermore, if today the pope saw that this cannot go on, he could ask for the tribunals to relook into previous declarations. Could they then say there was a mistake, that they were too lax, and the marriages were indeed valid?

I mean, here is the real issue. Today, to get married in the Church, you must undergo some level of classes or meetings or preparation with a priest. How many priests are just failing so horribly that this canon "For matrimonial consent to be valid it is necessary that the contracting parties at least not be ignorant that marriage is a permanent consortium between a man and a woman which is ordered toward the procreation of offspring by means of some sexual cooperation." is not being met. The very next line says "2. Such ignorance is not presumed after puberty" should indicate how lax the actual implementation is. how can 59,000 Catholic couples a year not know these things? You don't even have to be Catholic to know them. So we have a dilemma, because it boggles the mind how in actuality so many more marriages are invalidly done today then in the past.

My concern, then lies, in the fact that validity doesn't matter as long as the tribunal says it is so. If that is the case then how can I stand as a Catholic and say divorce is wrong when God has brought two parties together when the Church in the states has decided that quite a large percentage of those getting married aren't capable of even that base knowledge? It seems like a cop-out because it is one. I mean, 97% of all annulments being granted should be an indicator of either the poor efforts of the tribunals or the absolute mental incapacity of Catholic couples and priests.
[/quote]

[MichaelFilo]

But that is the point. You don't get to retry marriage until you get the right fit. Love is not a precondition for marriage to be valid.

In terms of numbers, the US has 5% of all the Catholics in the world and 80% of all the annulments. I don't know how anyone can imagine that is a good thing.

"Real marriage" is not always successful. No more than "true repentance." A valid marriage is no promise of success. A valid confession is no promise of success. A valid baptism is no promise of success. It is a weak criterion that the couple should seem to be working out. If real marriage meant successful then we have a divorce courts to try and find one.

The other thing is 97% of all applied for annulments are approved. Now, it stands to reason that in a culture that has many broken families and marriages many more people will want to apply for annulments because they want out too. Do we really even care about validity anymore?

[quote]I never saw a couple there that I thought had a good marriage and should have stayed together. Even on the cases that were turned down because they couldn't prove their case, [b]I didn't feel that there was a "marriage" there.[/b] [/quote]

Not to be mean Catherine, because your input has been so vital to me, but it seems that laxity is exactly the problem. You were in those tribunals and you have admitted that you correlate valid marriages with successful ones, that is to say, you could tell they were unhappy and that indicates to you that it was invalid. You've also admitted the vague requirement of "maturity" whereas the church has listed the three premises for maturity and they are all presumed after puberty. I believe you did everything in line with the best training you've received but that is exactly the problem. If the training dictates that successful marriages are valid and unsuccessful marriages are invalid then we have divorce tribunals, nothing more.

People who truly believe there is nothing wrong with this confuse me to no end. I am willing to bet the Greek Orthodox grant less divorces per capita in the US than we do annulments.

[CatherineM]

I never said unsuccessful marriages aren't valid, and successful ones are. Successful marriages don't end up in the Tribunal, since one of the requirements to apply for an annulment is having a civil divorce. When I talk about immaturity, I'm not really talking about people that are young. I've met 15 year olds who are more mature than some of the 40-somethings I met in the Tribunal. You would be shocked at the number of people I met, who went into marriage, thumbing their nose at all the requirements to be married in the Church. They have already been living together, been using birth control, and have no intention to change either. I had a case where a couple was required to live separately for 3 months (priests often require some length of time for co-habitating), and lied to the priest about it because they thought his requirements were silly. Many truly believed that marriage shouldn't be for life, but just until something else comes along. The problem isn't in the tribunal, it is in the North American culture.

I think another reason we have so many more than Europe, is that in Europe, people just stop going to church when they become divorced. In the US, we are spoiled. We are used to getting our way. We are used to not having to accept consequences for our actions. We as a society are less grown up. I'm not surprised at the number of annulments. I'm frankly amazed that any marriages last. Working in divorce courts or annulment tribunals will make you like that.

[MichaelFilo]

That is a bit of the problem, isn't it. No person can thumb their nose at the requirements for marriage, they know they must be married for life, have sex, and marry a person of the opposite sex. I didn't realize being on birth control invalidated that. Co-habitation maybe bad, but that is no reason that the marriage is invalid. Even a requirement to live separately doesn't constitute an additional canonical duty. I understand these are all bad things, but the canons seem to have a very low bar understanding of the requirements for marriage to be valid.

Today we have more training in the faith than people did 300 years ago when literacy was low and life was agrarian. Somehow, I feel, if those people understood, we would too.

I don't know about the European thing. They tend to marry a lot less anyway. Church attendance is low to begin with (3% of Catholics in France attend Mass weekly compared to the US's 33%) but I doubt there is a norm to divorce and stop going.

The tribunals are part of north American culture, as I've pointed out, that the sheer number of annulments to Catholics is phenomenal.

[MissScripture]

[quote name='CatherineM' timestamp='1287601975' post='2181069']
People stay married all the time who don't really love each other. I had an aunt and uncle who only stayed married by him having a job out of town and just coming home on weekends. I've known people who stayed together because of finances, but lived in different parts of the house. There are also people who didn't know what a sacramental marriage meant, went into it planning to use birth control, and only married in church because their parents insisted. Later, they can mature, go back to church, reconciliation, etc. I have known priests to remarry couples like that. That's certainly what I'd do.

You have to remember that marriage is a sacrament that the couple confer on each other. Just as I think we renew our sacrament to each other living a good married life together, I think people can bring a sacrament into a marriage where one wasn't before. The priest is just a witness. I saw a lot of broken people in the tribunal. The saddest ones were where one party believed they had a good marriage, and the other was living a lie. I never saw a couple there that I thought had a good marriage and should have stayed together. Even on the cases that were turned down because they couldn't prove their case, I didn't feel that there was a "marriage" there.

We plan to renew our vows every five years. Mainly just to irritate his family though. [b] His mom is still telling him in every phone call and letter that they will be there for him when I leave him. She's always telling him that I'm going to divorce him and take everything including his underwear. That's just scary.[/b]
[/quote]
Not that this applies to your husband, but stuff like that is why a lot of people don't view marriage as till death. I mean, when you are hearing from the world, including your family, that ending it is inevitable, then it's really difficult to believe otherwise.


[quote name='MichaelFilo' timestamp='1287612744' post='2181125']
That is a bit of the problem, isn't it. No person can thumb their nose at the requirements for marriage, they know they must be married for life, have sex, and marry a person of the opposite sex. I didn't realize being on birth control invalidated that. Co-habitation maybe bad, but that is no reason that the marriage is invalid. Even a requirement to live separately doesn't constitute an additional canonical duty. I understand these are all bad things, but the canons seem to have a very low bar understanding of the requirements for marriage to be valid.

Today we have more training in the faith than people did 300 years ago when literacy was low and life was agrarian. Somehow, I feel, if those people understood, we would too.

I don't know about the European thing. They tend to marry a lot less anyway. Church attendance is low to begin with (3% of Catholics in France attend Mass weekly compared to the US's 33%) but I doubt there is a norm to divorce and stop going.

The tribunals are part of north American culture, as I've pointed out, that the sheer number of annulments to Catholics is phenomenal.
[/quote]
Co-habitation can invalidate it, because generally with co-habitation comes sex, and when people start having sex before marriage, their ability to FREELY commit is diminished, and if you're not committing of your own free will, no marriage is really occurring. The reason sex is FOR marriage is because it ties you to that person, and as much as the culture would like to deny it, you bond through sex. So, when you're not following the "rules" for it, you bond incorrectly and lose some of your free will.

I don't quite understand what you mean when you say "No person can thumb their nose at the requirements for marriage." Do you mean that everyone should easily understand them?

[MichaelFilo]

So easily that the Church believes you can do it once you hit puberty.

I don't understand how premarital sex can diminish anything about your understanding that you are committing to a lifelong marriage to a person of the opposite sex which will involve sex. I can understand that it will cloud your judgment, but a completly clear judgment is the sort of criterion that would make marriage nearly meaningless because culture can cloud your judgment and everyone is subject to that.