Whether it is fitting that impediments should be assigned to marriage?

❌ Objection 1 : It would seem unfitting for impediments to be assigned to marriage. For marriage is a sacrament condivided with the others. But no impediments are assigned to the others. Neither therefore should they be assigned to marriage.

❌ Objection 2 : Further, the less perfect a thing is the fewer its obstacles. Now matrimony is the least perfect of the sacraments. Therefore it should have either no impediments or very few.

❌ Objection 3 : Further, wherever there is disease, it is necessary to have a remedy for the disease. Now concupiscence, a remedy for which is permitted in matrimony (1 Cor. 7:6), is in all. Therefore there should not be any impediment making it altogether unlawful for a particular person to marry.

❌ Objection 4 : Further, unlawful means against the law. Now these impediments that are assigned to matrimony are not against the natural law, because they are not found to be the same in each state of the human race, since more degrees of kindred come under prohibition at one time than at another. Nor, seemingly, can human law set impediments against marriage, since marriage, like the other sacraments, is not of human but of Divine institution. Therefore impediments should not be assigned to marriage, making it unlawful for a person to marry.

❌ Objection 5 : Further, lawful and unlawful differ as that which is against the law from that which is not, and between these there is no middle term, since they are opposed according to affirmation and negation. Therefore there cannot be impediments to marriage, placing a person in a middle position between those who are lawful and those who are unlawful subjects of marriage.

❌ Objection 6 : Further, union of man and woman is unlawful save in marriage. Now every unlawful union should be dissolved. Therefore if anything prevent a marriage being contracted, it will "de facto" dissolve it after it has been contracted; and thus impediments should not be assigned to marriage, which hinder it from being contracted, and dissolve it after it has been contracted.

❌ Objection 7 : Further, no impediment can remove from a thing that which is part of its definition. Now indissolubility is part of the definition of marriage. Therefore there cannot be any impediments which annul a marriage already contracted.

❌ Objection 8 : On the other hand, it would seem that there should be an infinite number of impediments to marriage. For marriage is a good. Now good may be lacking in an infinite number of ways, as Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iii). Therefore there is an infinite number of impediments to marriage.

❌ Objection 9 : Further, the impediments to marriage arise from the conditions of individuals. But such like conditions are infinite in number. Therefore the impediments to marriage are also infinite.