What can rob marriage agreements of their binding force?
There is more to making a binding marriage agreement than participating in a wedding ceremony. A couple cease being single when each of them speak the words of the marriage promises to the other in the type of ceremony they are bound to observe. The promises can lack the required binding force for a number of reasons. The most obvious is when the bride or groom or both does not mean what they say. The ceremony is a pretence. This happens in what are called “marriages of convenience” such as when a marriage will fulfill requirements for citizenship in a country. Church law calls this total simulation. Simulation can also be partial such as when the bride or groom does not intend to be faithful, refuses from the start to have children or does not accept marriage as a life-long, unbreakable union. Some people are incapable of making proper marriage agreements. Among these we can list those who lack the use of reason, those who lack seriously the ability to judge what being married asks of
