Bonaventure

The numbered footnotes below correspond to markers in both the Latin body above and the English translation. The distinction's entire littera — cap. unicum, its single chapter — and its footer fall on a single printed page (698); the four notes are Quaracchi's own numbering, unaltered.

DISTINCTIO XXIX.

Cap. unicum. Quod non est consensus legitimus, ubi est coactio.

Oportet autem, consensum coniugalem liberum esse a coactione. Coactus enim consensus, qui nec consensus appellari debet, coniugium non facit, sicut testatur Urbanus Papa¹, scribens Sanctio, regi Arragonum, in haec verba: «De neptis tuae coniugio, quam te cuidam militi daturum, necessitatis instante articulo, sub fidei pollicitatione firmasti, hoc, aequitate dictante, decrevimus, ut, si illa virum illum omnino, ut dicitur, renuit et in eadem voluntatis auctoritate persistit, ut viro illi se prorsus deneget nupturam; nequaquam eam invitam ac renitentem eiusdem viri cogas coniugio copulari». Item²: «Si verum esse constiterit quod nobis legati Iordanis principis retulerunt, scilicet quod ipse coactus et dolens filiam suam nolentem, flentem et pro viribus renitentem Rainaldo desponsaverit; quoniam legum et canonum auctoritas talia sponsalia non approbat; ne ignorantibus leges et canones nimis durum videatur, ita sententiam temperamus, ut, si princeps cum assensu filiae id quod coeptum est, perficere voluerit, concedamus. Sin autem legatus noster utrasque partes audiat, et si nihil fuerit ex parte Rainaldi, quod amplius impediat; ab ipso Iordane Sacramentum, quo constent haec quae dicta sunt, accipiat. Et nos canonum ac legum scripta sequentes, deinceps non prohibemus, quin alii viro, si voluerit, praedicta eius filia, tantum in Domino, nubat». Ex his apparet, «coniugium fieri inter consentientes et spontaneos, non inter renitentes et invitos; verumtamen qui inviti et coacti coniuncti sunt, si postea ab aliquo temporis spatio sine contradictione et querimonia cohabitaverint, facultate discedendi vel reclamandi habita, consentire videntur, et consensus ille consequens supplet quod praecedens coactio tulerat³». Consentire autem probatur qui evidenter non contradicit, secundum illud: «In sponsalibus eorum consensus exigendus est, quorum in nuptiis desideratur. Intelligitur tamen semper patri filia consentire, nisi evidenter dissentiat⁴». Item: «Sponsalia, sicut nuptiae, consensu fiunt contrahentium. Et ideo, sicut in nuptiis, ita et in sponsalibus filiam familias consentire oportet»; «quae, si patris voluntati non repugnat, consentire intelligitur».

---

DISTINCTION XXIX.

Chapter, the only one. That there is no lawful consent where there is coercion.

Now, conjugal consent ought to be free from coercion. For a coerced consent, which ought not even to be called consent, does not make a marriage, as Pope Urban attests¹, writing to Sancho, king of Aragon, in these words: «Concerning the marriage of your niece, whom, at a moment of pressing necessity, you pledged under a promise of faith that you would give to a certain soldier — this, equity dictating, we have decreed: that if she altogether refuses that man, as is said, and persists in that same resolve of will, so that she utterly denies that she will marry that man, you should by no means force her, unwilling and resisting, to be joined to that same man in marriage». Likewise²: «If it should be established as true what the envoys of Prince Jordan reported to us — namely, that he himself, under compulsion and grieving, betrothed his unwilling, weeping daughter, who resisted with all her strength, to Rainald; since the authority of the laws and the canons does not approve such betrothals; lest it should seem too harsh to those ignorant of the laws and canons, we so temper our judgment that, if the prince, with the consent of his daughter, should wish to carry through what has been begun, we grant it. But if not, let our legate hear both parties, and if nothing shall be found on Rainald's side to hinder it further, let him receive from Jordan himself a pledge, by which the things that have been said may be made secure. And we, following the writings of the canons and the laws, henceforth do not forbid that his aforesaid daughter, if she wishes, marry another man, only in the Lord». From these things it appears that «marriage comes about between those who consent and are willing, not between those who resist and are unwilling; nevertheless, those who have been joined while unwilling and coerced, if afterward, for some space of time, they have lived together without contradiction or complaint, having had the opportunity of departing or of protesting, are seen to consent, and that ensuing consent supplies what the preceding coercion had taken away³». Now a person is proved to consent who does not evidently contradict, according to that saying: «In their betrothals, the consent of those is required whose consent is required in marriages. Yet a daughter is always understood to consent to her father, unless she evidently dissents⁴». Likewise: «Betrothals, like marriages, come about by the consent of the contracting parties. And therefore, just as in marriages, so also in betrothals it is fitting that a daughter of the family consent»; «and she is understood to consent, if she does not resist her father's will».

---