The Conception of Christian Marriage

Abstract

The Code of Canon Law of 1917 did not give any definition of matrimony, but on the basic of norms which it included one can define the essential elements of marriage, both „in fieri” and in „in facto esse”. There dominated the contractual approach to marriage.

The documents of Second Vatican Council, and especially „Gaudium et spes”, brought forth a new, more personalistic, image of marriage. The biological vision has been discarded there, and the spiritual and sanctifying aspects emphasized. The Council's Conception of marriage better corresponds to the biblical and anthropological vision of man. Marriage has been defined as „communion of life and love”. The documents turn one's to attention to the good of the spouses, and the hierarchization of the ends of marriage has been discarded. The Council has laid a great stress on the institutional character of marriage.

The Code of Canon Law of 1983 crowns councilor renovation and that also within the scope of the science on marriage. There is a great maturity of thought and precision in the Canon's norms. The personalistic vision of marriage has been sanctioned there as well as equal significance of all essential ends of marriage. The Marriage is a covenant, Community fulfilling ends determined by natural law. It is in the definition of marriage that or has managed to make a well-rimmed synthesis of essential elements in the strict sense and in the broader sense, which elements are the ends of marriage. The Code's norms express both the contractural and institutional Character of marriage. Contraction of a marriage is not only a giving the right over the body but a mutual selfgiving and rights to onself. The Code brings to use the conception marriage-contract, sanctions the conception marriage-covenant, and confirms the indissolubleness marriage and sacrament.

The conception of marriage in the science of the Church in 20th-century has then undergone a steady or rather unsteady development. This development tended towards a more approval of human values, personalistic values, towards a better understanding of man in his corporal and spiritual dimension.