ETÀ. –
I. CANON LAW
In general, it is a natural cause that influences both juridical capacity and capacity to act (v. CAPACITÀ): while the former, namely, the aptitude to be the subject of rights, is acquired by every human being at birth and may be explicitly limited by law with regard to individual acts, the latter, namely, the aptitude to perform juridical acts and to exercise one’s own rights, is ordinarily acquired by the subject upon attaining the age of majority, except in the case of those rights for whose exercise the law establishes a different age.The CIC establishes the attainment of majority at twenty-one years of age and presumes that the use of reason is acquired upon completion of the seventh year, and that the male reaches puberty at fourteen and the female at twelve. One who has not yet completed seven years of age is called an infant, child, or young child (can. 88).
During minority, the subject is ordinarily incapable of personally exercising rights, but certain powers and obligations already exist before the completion of the age of majority.
An infant is not bound to observe merely ecclesiastical laws (that is, those which are not of divine law: can. 12). Ordinarily, neither Confirmation nor the Eucharist may be administered to an infant (cann. 788 and 854); upon acquiring the use of reason, which may occur even before the age of seven, the obligation begins of confessing (if conscious of mortal sin) and of receiving Communion at least once a year, as well as the capacity to receive Extreme Unction (can. 940 § 1) and to make vows (can. 1307 § 2). Confirmation may, however, be administered to infants in danger of death, or if another grave cause exists (can. 788); and the Eucharist may, indeed must, be administered to them in danger of death, provided they are capable of distinguishing the Body of Christ from ordinary food and of adoring it reverently (can. 854 § 2). Upon completion of the seventh year, the obligation begins of observing ecclesiastical laws in general and abstinence in particular (can. 1254 § 1). With puberty, one acquires the capacity to participate in elections (can. 167 § 1 n. 2), to choose one’s church for one’s own funeral and one’s cemetery for burial (can. 1224 n. 1), and, upon completion of the fourteenth year, to appear personally in court in spiritual cases or cases connected with spiritual matters (can. 1648 § 3).
The CIC also requires the completion of the fourteenth year of age for admission to the novitiate, the sixteenth for temporary religious profession, and the twenty-first for the subdiaconate and for perpetual profession, whether solemn or simple.
Attaining a maximum age does not entail the loss of rights, but only exemption from certain obligations; for example, upon the beginning of the sixtieth year, the obligation to observe the fast ceases (cann. 1254 § 2).
In criminal law, age is a circumstance taken into account when applying the penalty to the offender; those who have not reached puberty are not subject to latae sententiae penalties, and ordinarily not even to censures or to the more serious ferendae sententiae vindictive penalties; in place of such penalties, educational punishments are applied to them (can. 2218 § 1 and 2230).
Capacity to act is acquired upon attaining the age of majority; in exercising his rights, a minor is subject to the authority of his parents and guardian, except with regard to those rights for which the law explicitly exempts him from parental authority (can. 89).
II. MATRIMONIAL IMPEDIMENT
Age is of particularimportance for marriage.
Among the Jews, it was customary that boys could not
contract the bond before completing their thirteenth year and girls
before their twelfth, provided that both were capable of procreation. In
Athens, boys had to be eighteen and girls fifteen years of age.
The Romans held that natural puberty developed together with mental
maturity and therefore admitted the celebration of marriage upon the
attainment of puberty. There was disagreement between the two schools
of jurists, the Proculeians and the Sabinians, concerning proof of the
existence of puberty in males: the latter considered bodily inspection
necessary, whereas the Proculeians maintained that juridical or legal
puberty was attained upon completion of the fourteenth year in the man
and the twelfth in the woman; this thesis was subsequently accepted by
Giustiniano.
It was the custom among the Germanic peoples to contract marriage at a
mature age, but it cannot be inferred from the ancient laws whether a
specific age was prescribed. Visigothic law prohibited marriage if the
man was younger than the woman. King Liutprand prohibited marriage
to prepubescent persons of either sex. Among the Anglo-Saxons, the same
rules governed age for entering the religious state.
In the first centuries, the Church adhered to the traditional norms,
establishing the capacity to contract marriage with the attainment of
puberty. But serious difficulties arose as the practice spread of
betrothing children at an early age by sponsalia both de futuro and de
praesenti. Alessandro III placed restraints upon this licence by
distinguishing the legitimate age for betrothal from that for marriage,
adopting for the latter the Roman limit of the attainment of puberty and
for betrothal the completion of the seventh year, and establishing the
principle that the sponsalia de praesenti of prepubescent persons were,
by legal presumption, to be regarded as sponsalia de futuro. As the
religion spread in the East, the Church, confronted with the differing
customs of those peoples, prudently applied her law without promulgating
new norms.
This impediment is of ecclesiastical law: it is, in fact, independent of
the attainment of puberty. Independently of the capacity to give
consent, natural law establishes no specific age for contracting
marriage, also because actual capacity to procreate is not required for
the validity of the bond. Thus, while a marriage celebrated before the
canonical age is invalid even if the capacity to procreate is already
present, after that age has been completed a marriage contracted by one
who at the time of the celebration was not yet capable of procreation
because of a delay in normal development, but not because of a physical
anomaly, is valid (v. IMPOTENZA).
In the ancient law, until the CIC, the attainment of legal puberty was
required, fixed at different ages for the man and the woman because of
the different times at which potentia generandi arises in each: in the
woman it is in fact earlier, but it also disappears before it does in the
man, who, later in its onset, preserves it until a more advanced age.
The onset and continuance of this capacity, however, depend not on age
alone, but also on other factors, among which are especially climate,
temperature, and the activity of individuals.
Before the CIC in the Latin Church, and before the motu proprio Crebrae allatae of 22 February 1949 in the Eastern Church, the impediment
(diriment, except in the law of the Maronites) existed until the
completion of the fourteenth or twelfth year respectively for the man and
the woman. It was, however, conditional upon the actual absence either
of discretion or of generative capacity (nisi multitia suppletet aetatem),
so that the impediment did not exist if the person, although not yet
having reached the established age, nevertheless possessed sufficient
discretion of judgment and capacity to procreate.
Under the law currently in force, the validity of marriage requires the
completion of sixteen years of age for the man and fourteen for the
woman (can. 1067 § 1 of the CIC and can. 57 § 1 of the cited motu proprio, in AAS, 41 [1949], p. 101).
This is required not only to ensure greater psychological maturity and
physiological puberty, but also for many other moral, social, and
hygienic reasons. The variation between the thirteenth and eighteenth
years for the man and between the twelfth and fifteenth for the woman
in the attainment of potentia generandi, the consolidation of the
physical constitution for healthy reproduction, mental maturity for a
full understanding of the obligations arising from marriage, and the
capacity for work to provide an honest livelihood for the family have
convinced the legislator not only to establish the legal limit at an age
more advanced than that at which puberty is legally presumed to have
been attained, but also to add a grave admonition: pastors of souls,
that is, must seek to dissuade from marriage young people who have not
yet reached the age at which, according to local customs, marriage is
usually contracted (can. 1067 § 2 of the CIC and can. 57 § 2 of the
cited motu proprio).
For the marriages of infidels, the principle applies that a marriage
contracted by both spouses, if they are infidel and prepubescent, is
valid, provided that they possess mature reason and that no impediments
of natural or divine law exist (Resp. S. C. S. Ufficio 5 ag. 1839) or of
civil law (which binds infidels).
If one of the two contracting parties is baptized and the other is not,
the impediment exists only if the baptized person has not reached the
age established by the Church, or if the unbaptized person lacks the
discretion of judgment necessary for marriage.
The impediment ceases upon attainment of the age required by law. A
marriage contracted before that age is null, and its nullity is not
remedied by attaining the required age.
The impediment may also be dispensed, provided that the contracting
parties possess sufficient reasoning to enable them to understand that
marriage is a permanent society between man and woman for the
procreation of children (can. 1082 § 1). Without this maturity of
reasoning, the impediment is no longer of ecclesiastical law but of
natural law and, as such, cannot be dispensed.
But even when such psychological development is present, the Church
does not wish to grant the dispensation to one who is not at least
pubescent. Once the dispensation has been granted, the spouses are
forbidden conjugal relations until they are capable of intercourse,
because of the danger of incontinence consequent upon such relations.
The S. Ufficio held that, in mission territory, in the case of children
who were married while still prepubescent and who were converted to
Christianity with their family, if the marriage is valid, the
missionaries must work to persuade them to separate not only their
beds but also their dwelling until the attainment of puberty (Resp. 2
May 1866).
The dispensation is rarely granted: a public cause is required, such as
the concord of a kingdom, a city, or two families divided by profound
hatred. In danger of death it may also be granted for a private cause.
III. ITALIAN LAW
The Italian Civil Code establishes the attainment of full legal age upon completion of the twenty-first year, and thereby capacity to perform all acts for which a different age has not been established (art. 2). For example, it is upon completion of the eighteenth year that a minor «may undertake employment, conclude the relevant contracts, and exercise the rights and actions deriving therefrom, subject to the special laws establishing a lower age» (art. 3).For marriage, the Code of 1865 established completion of the eighteenth year for men and the fifteenth for women; the code currently in force, preceded in this respect by art. 1 of the law of 27 May 1929 no. 847, brought itself into conformity with canon law, establishing completion of the sixteenth year for men and the fourteenth for women, and allowing dispensation, for serious reasons, to contract marriage after completion of the fourteenth year of age for men and the twelfth for women (art. 84).
References: T. Sanchez, De matrimaniae, Venecia 1614, l. I, d. 16, e l. VII; A. Reiffentuel, Int. canonicum, minorum, Macerata 1746, l. II, p. 46; F. X. Wernz, Int. decretalium, IV, Prato 1912, p. 105; R. De Ruggiero, Istituzioni di diritto civile, Napoli 1912, p. 210; G. Cheboli, Int. matrimaniae invio C. J. C., Trento 1921, p. 84; Wernz-Vidal, V (1925), p. 274; I. Delmaillo, Agr. III DDC, I, coll. 215-28, e bibliografia ivi citata; A. Vernecchi, Creusen, Epitome iuris canonici, Roma 1927; P. Gupero, De matrimaniae, Città del Vaticano 1932, p. 385; F. M. Cippello, De matrimaniae, Roma 1936, pp. 35 e 428; H. De Messaucher, Trostante de actibus humanis, 3e ed., Malines 1939, pp. 50-51; F. Marsi, Delle persone fisiche, in Commentario del 1er libro del Codice civile, diretto da M. D'Amelio, Firenze 1940, pp. 91 e 279. Giulio Pacelli