(b) special prohibition of the Church at times gravely forbids a particular marriage, as when the Holy See in granting a dispensation for a present marriage forbids a future marriage. If an irritant clause is added, the prohibition has the force of a diriment impediment. The Ordinary also may forbid a particular marriage for a time, as when there is suspicion of a secret impediment, or when great damage will likely ensue from a marriage. This prohibition is for a special case or time or person, and thus it differs from the impediments of the law;
(c) closed times (Lent and Advent) are the seasons when, on account of the penitential and mournful character of the liturgy then in use, the solemn blessing of marriage is not regularly permitted. This is not really an impediment, since marriage itself may be contracted at any time of the year, according to the general law.
2810. Diriment Impediments to Marriage.—The diriment or nullifying impediments to marriage are personal incapacities in a person which render him or her incapable, from divine or ecclesiastical law, of contracting marriage with anyone (absolute impediments), or of contracting marriage with a certain individual (relative impediments).
2811. The absolute diriment impediments are the following: (a) those that are due to a personal defect making one unable to promise with sufficient discretion (impediment of age) or to perform what is promised (impediment of impotency); (b) those that are due to a voluntary act which consecrates one to God with the obligation of perpetual celibacy (the impediments of Orders and vows).
2812. The relative impediments are the following: (a) that one which is due to an obligation to one’s present husband or wife (the impediment of bond); (b) that one which is due to too great a difference between two parties (impediment of disparity of cult); those that are due to too close a kinship between two parties, whether natural (impediments of consanguinity and affinity) or like to the natural (impediments of public decency, spiritual kinship, legal kinship); (d) those that are due to a relationship caused by a crime that makes it unsuitable for two parties to marry. If one party is perpetrator and the other the victim, there is the impediment of abduction; if the two parties are accomplices, there is the impediment of crime.
2813. The Impediment of Age.—(a) Nature.—This impediment exists in males who have not completed their sixteenth year, and in females who have not completed their fourteenth year. These ages are set by the general law, because all parts of the world have to be considered and sufficient discretion may be presumed at those ages everywhere. But substantial ignorance even after those years invalidates consent, and moreover, in colder countries where development is slower, marriage is generally inadvisable before the parties are 18 and 16 respectively. The marriageable ages according to the statute law in most of our States are 18 and 16 with parental consent, and 21 and 18 without it.
(b) Effect.—This impediment is of ecclesiastical law in so far as the precise determination of age is concerned, but of natural law in so far as the use of reason is demanded. Hence, the Church may dispense, and hence also the impediment as ecclesiastical does not bind the unbaptized, even when being underaged they marry Christians.
2814. The Impediment of Impotency.—(a) Nature.—Impotency is the inability to exercise the sexual act in a way suitable for procreation. The requisites for this act are _immissio membri virilis in vaginam mulieris cum seminis effusione_, and hence those are impotent who lack sexual organs (such as the emasculated or spayed), or who on account of psychical or physical abnormalities are unable to have complete intercourse (e.g., anaphrodisiacs, some hermaphrodites, those who suffer from hypospadias, vaginism, etc.). Sterility, or the mere inability to procreate from sexual intercourse (as in old persons), is not the same thing as impotency, and is not an impediment to marriage. Authorities are not agreed whether or not the operations of male vasectomy and evariotomy produce impotency or sterility. But many regard the former operation as unlawful except for a most grave cause (such as the saving of life), since it takes away a power given by nature for the benefit of society, exposes the individual to very serious temptations, and opens the way to terrible abuses.
(b) Effect.—Impotency anterior to marriage and perpetual, whether in the man or in the woman, whether known to the other party or not, voids marriage from the law of nature itself, and hence is not dispensable. But impotency that arises after marriage or that is only temporary does not invalidate, and impotency that is relative (i.e., in reference to one person only) does not nullify marriage except in reference to a determinate person. In justice to the other spouse, married persons who have an easily curable impotency should have this defect removed.
2815. The Impediments of Orders and Vows.—(a) Orders.—Those who are in Sacred Orders (priesthood, deaconship and, in the Latin Church, subdeaconship) cannot marry validly. The impediment is decreed by ecclesiastical law alone, and hence the Church has the power to dispense. One who was ordained through compulsion or in ignorance of the duty of celibacy, is permitted to marry, if he does not wish to ratify his ordination; but he then loses all right to exercise his Order (2235).