PUBLIC HONESTY. — It affinity (v.), which, unlike the latter, does not arise from a valid marriage, but either from an invalid marriage (consummated or not) or from a public or notorious concubinage; in either case, the bond exists between the man and the woman’s relatives, and between the woman and the man’s relatives (CIC, can. 1078).
Before the CIC, the notion of p. o. was different. Since affinity existed always and only when there had been intercourse between the man and the woman, whether matrimonial or not (v. AFFINITÀ), p. o. (also called quasi-affinity) was the name given to the bond that arose between the man’s relatives and the woman, and between the woman’s relatives and the man, when the man and the woman had entered into an engagement, or when they had contracted, but not consummated, a marriage.
P. o. constituted a diriment impediment to marriage, perhaps from approximately the tenth century; before Gratian, in fact, there is no certain evidence of the existence of this impediment in the legislation of the Church. The extent of the impediment up to the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) is likewise not entirely clear: it seems, however, that from that Council onward it was reduced to the first four degrees, while the Council of Trent subsequently reduced to the first degree alone the impediment of p. o. arising from an engagement.
In Eastern canon law, the notion of p. o. arising from an engagement or from an unconsummated marriage remained in force until 1 May 1949, when the motu proprio Crebrae allatae of 22 February 1949 entered into force. The impediment existed in the first and second degrees in the case of p. o. arising from an engagement, and up to the sixth, seventh, or eighth degree in the other case (for the computation of degrees in Eastern canon law before 1949, V. CONSANGUINEITÀ).
At present, both in Latin canon law (CIC can. 1078) and in Eastern canon law (motu proprio Crebrae allatae, cited above, can. 69; AAS, 41 [1949] p. 104), p. o. constitutes an impediment only in the first and second degrees of the direct line, that is, between the man and the woman’s relatives in the first or second degree, and between the woman and the man’s relatives in the first or second degree.
To understand the scope of the impediment properly, it is necessary to bear in mind: a) that an invalid marriage means one which, although null, nevertheless has the appearance of a true marriage; that is, it is necessary that matrimonial consent have been manifested (even if only simulatively) in the prescribed form or at least in an apparently regular form. Thus, if the contracting parties are persons obliged to observe the ecclesiastical form, their civil marriage cannot, as such, produce the impediment of p. o. (but, if the two have cohabited, the impediment may arise from concubinage); b) that public concubinage means that whose existence has already been divulged or can reasonably be expected easily to become known; notorious concubinage means that which is established by a judgment or by a judicial confession, or which is publicly known and has been conducted in circumstances such that it could not be concealed or excused (cf. can. 2197).
Since the impediment of p. o. is not of natural law but of ecclesiastical law, a dispensation may be granted from it (v. DISPENSA); and, in the second degree, it is an impediment of lesser degree (CIC, can. 1042 § 2, n. 3; motu proprio Crebrae allatae, can. 31 § 1, n. 3). However, a dispensation is never granted for a marriage between the man and a daughter of the woman when there is any doubt that the daughter was conceived by that man.
This impediment does not apply to unbaptized persons; its applicability is doubtful, however, in the case of persons who lived in concubinage (or contracted an invalid marriage) before receiving Baptism and then, after the concubinage or pseudo-matrimonial cohabitation had ended, received Baptism.
The impediment is likewise doubtful in the case of an invalid marriage resulting from a defect of consent. It is also doubtful whether the impediment persists, together with the subsequent affinity, when the two concubines contract marriage with each other, or when the invalid marriage is convalidated.