**FREE STATUS** — More precisely, the freedom of status, is the condition in which the spouses must be in order to validly contract marriage. In a broad sense, it is immunity from all those things that oppose its valid and lawful celebration, but in a stricter sense, both in civil and canon law, it means that the contracting party is not bound by any juridically valid matrimonial bond. Otherwise, due to the impediment of *ligamen* (q.v.), the new marriage would be null.
The necessary proof of freedom of status is matched in canon law by the premarital process (q.v.), which must verify the absence or presence of obstacles or impediments. Freedom of status of the spouses is canonically proven by documents and by testimonies or assurances in the form established by law.
I. DOCUMENTS
1. The baptismal certificate (can. 1021 § 1) is the first of the documents that can prove freedom of status, provided it is of recent date and issued for the purpose of marriage, i.e., containing the mandatory marginal notes. Indeed, it is prescribed that the reception of Confirmation and Holy Orders, the celebration of marriage, and the religious profession must be noted in the margin of the baptismal registers (can. 777 § 1, 1103 § 1).2. The document of the completed marriage banns with a negative outcome is another proof of freedom of status; and since the banns may be obligatory in different parishes (q.V. MARRIAGE BANNS), sometimes not one but several such documents are required.
3. When one of the contracting parties comes from places other than that of the celebration or where the premarital process is conducted, instead of the document of the banns, the respective Curia is asked for a certificate of freedom of status, which is issued either following banns concerning only the contracting party in question without relation to the other, or after thorough searches in the parish registers or reliable information from persons who may be aware of the freedom of status of the individual (can. 1023 § 2-3). Even the certificate of freedom of status issued by the civil authority can sometimes be useful, and in certain cases must be requested.
4. Other documents proving freedom of status for specific cases are: a) the certificate of death or the legal, civil, or ecclesiastical declaration of the presumed death of the deceased or presumed deceased spouse, when dealing with widowers or presumed widowers; b) the definitive sentence of nullity of a previous marriage, or the dispensation from a ratified but unconsummated marriage, when there has been a previous null or dispensed marriage. However, such a sentence or dispensation must not contain a prohibition against contracting a new marriage. Naturally, these documents must be of recent date, to exclude the possibility that in the meantime another bond may have been contracted.
II. TESTIMONIES AND ASSURANCES
Freedom of status is also proven by means of testimonies and assurances.In the premarital process, the spouses themselves are the first to be questioned on this matter. Each of them must produce two witnesses; however, those of one may also testify for the other. Nevertheless, if, despite everything, the parish priest remains in doubt that is not merely negative, either because he is not sure of the truthfulness of the spouses or their witnesses, or for other reasons or circumstances, he must question some other person who is presumably in a position to know whether the spouses have contracted any bond not publicly known. All must be put under oath. Although the CIC (can. 1019 § 2) prescribes this only when the proofs are not entirely conclusive or in case of danger of death, many parish priests nonetheless administer the supplementary oath, called thus because it should supply the evident proofs that are lacking, to all the spouses or even to other persons.
In conclusion, in order to have at least moral certainty of the freedom of status of both contracting parties, the parish priest must observe the prescriptions of the CIC and of the Ordinary, and use all the precautions that the circumstances might suggest, including the intervention of the Ordinary himself in complicated or highly doubtful cases.
Civilly as well, freedom of status is proven by documents and testimonies. Research is likewise conducted in the civil status registers and the banns are published. For testimonial proof, recourse is had to a notarial act. In cases where a spouse has been abroad or in other places, the certificate of freedom of status issued by the respective local civil authority is also required.