a, "may arise from the intellect
or the will; hence we have two classes. Arising from the intellect we
have: insanity; and total ignorance, even if in confuso of what marriage
is (this ignorance, however, is not presumed to exist after the age of
puberty has been reached); and lastly error, where the consent is not
given to what was not intended. Arising from the will, a defect of
consent may be caused through deceit or dissimulation, when one
expresses exteriorly a consent that does not really exist; or from
constraint imposed by an unjust external force, which causes the consent
not to be free." Consanguinity and affinity are diriment impediments.
Consanguinity "prohibits all marriages in the direct ascending or
descending line in infinitum, and in the collateral line to the fourth
degree or fourth generation." Affinity "establishes a bond of
relationship between each of the married parties and the blood relations
of the other, and forbids marriage between them to the fourth degree.
Such is the case when the marriage springs from conjugal relations; but
as canon law considers affinity to spring also from illicit intercourse,
there is an illicit affinity which annuls marriage to the second degree
only." Then there is "spiritual relationship"; for example, the marriage
of one who stood as sponsor in confirmation with a parent of the child
is null and void.

Under the canon law, even more resources are open for the man who is
tired of his wife; by the doctrine, namely, of "spiritual fornication."
Adultery is, of course, recognised as the cause that admits a
separation. But the canon law remarks that idolatry and all harmful
superstition--by which is meant any doctrine that does not agree with
that of the Church--is fornication; that avarice is also idolatry and
hence fornication; that in fact no vice can be separated from idolatry
and hence all vices can be classed as fornication; so that if a husband
only tried a little bit, he could without much trouble find some "vice"
in his wife that would entitle him to a separation.[391]

When all these fail, recourse can be had to a dispensation. The Church
reserves the right to give dispensations for all impediments. Canon III
of the twenty-fourth session of Trent says: "If anyone shall say, that
only those degrees of consanguinity and affinity which are set down in
_Leviticus_ [xviii, 6 ff.] can hinder matrimony from being contracted,
and dissolve it when contracted; and that