Grounds for Nullity

A petition to the Tribunal for a formal investigation of a marriage requires a “ground” or reason why the marriage is accused of nullity.  The Petitioner is asked to identify why or on what grounds he/she believes the marriage is not valid, and to provide testimony to support their contention.  Ultimately the judge will set the ground(s) for the case after scrutiny of the testimony of the parties and witnesses.  The following is a list and brief description of each ground.
 
Lack of Due Reason (Canon 1095.1)
At the time of the wedding, a spouse did not possess the intellectual ability to understand the basic nature of marriage and/or to be responsible for his/her actions. This could include a condition of the mind lacking contact with reality or a disorder that prevents the ability to form an act of the will.
 
Grave Lack of Due Discretion (Canon 1095.2)
At the time of the wedding, a spouse did not possess the ability to make a mature and prudent decision about whether to marry due to severe impairment of knowledge or freedom regarding consent.  This could include the presence of a psychic anomaly at time of vow, or an inability to discern the properties and elements of marriage. The condition must be grave to vitiate the capacity to understand or the will to marry; the ground is not applicable if a party has the ability to discern, but simply fails to use it.
 
Incapacity to Assume the Essential Obligations of Marriage (Canon 1095.3)
At the time of the wedding and for severe psychological reasons, a spouse was unable to live up to the responsibilities of being a spouse and /or a parent.  The condition must be confirmed by an expert witness, that it was present prior to consent, and that it affected the person’s capacity to assume the obligations of marriage.  It must be impossible to assume, not merely difficult.
 
Total Simulation (Canon 1101.2)
A person is capable of giving consent and living out the obligations of marriage, but does not intend to marry as the Church teaches; or does not want a marriage at all (total) or seeks a self-defined notion of marriage (partial). The person intentionally excludes from their vow either marriage or an essential element or property of marriage.
 
Partial Simulation, intention against fidelity (Canon 1101.2)
The willful exclusion of unity, which includes exclusivity and fidelity.  The good of fidelity means having one’s spouse as one’s only sexual partner.  A spouse has the right to fidelity from his/her mate. It is the intention at the time of consent to reserve the right to be unfaithful that invalidates the consent.  An actual act of infidelity in the course of the marriage, if the intent at the time of the vows was to be faithful, is not invalidating.
 
Partial Simulation, intention against children (Canon 1101.2)
A spouse entered marriage while denying the right to marital acts open to having children, either permanently or for a time: A willful rejection of the right to procreation and rearing of children.
 
Partial Simulation, intention against the good of the spouses (Canon 1101.2):
A spouse entered marriage while intending to inflict harm or to not provide for the well-being of his/her spouse.  The intent must be present at time of consent and the person does not see his/her spouse as a human person with equal, common dignity.
 
Partial Simulation, intention against permanence (Canon 1101.2):
A spouse entered marriage while rejecting that his/her marriage would be permanent, rejecting indissolubility by a positive act of the will rendering the marriage invalid. The exclusion of this property intends the bond will either end or could end whenever the parties might choose. A person may intend a civil divorce and then be free to marry again if the partner is unfaithful, violent, or if they are unhappy.
 
Conditioned Consent (Canon 1102):
If a person chooses a marriage subject to a condition about the future, they do not contract marriage validly.  They may choose a quality of a person, or an external choice, such as where we will live or that the spouse will become rich; if that does not happen, the person believes they are free to leave the marriage and enter another marriage.
 
Force or Grave Fear (Canon 1103):
A marriage is invalid if entered into because of force or grave fear from without, even if unintentionally inflicted, so that a person is compelled to choose marriage in order to be free from it.  The pressure must come from outside of the person, not something imagined.  Force is a moral or physical threat that coerces the will.  It must be grave, and it must be the cause of the wedding.
 
Error Induced by Ignorance (Canon 1096):
For matrimonial consent to exist, the parties must at least not be ignorant that marriage is a permanent partnership between a man and a woman ordered to the procreation of offspring by means of some sexual cooperation.
 
Error Concerning a Quality of a Person (Canon 1097):
A person intended to marry someone who either possessed or did not possess a certain quality.  Quality may include such things as social status, marital status, education, religious conviction, freedom from disease or arrest record. Only affects consent when the decision to marry was based primarily on the erroneous quality in the other person.
 
Error of Person (Canon 1097.1)
The physical identity of a person’s intended spouse was mistaken.  As a result, he/she married the wrong person.
 
Error Induced by Fraud (Canon 1098):
A person contracts invalidly who enters into a marriage deceived by malice perpetrated to obtain consent, concerning some quality of the other party which by its very nature can gravely disturb the partnership of conjugal life.  Deceit must gravely bear on the quality of the person; criminal history, recovering alcoholic, lying about age, sterility, homosexuality, etc.  It must be proved that the deceit was employed to secure the other party’s consent to marry.
 
Error of Law or Determining Error (Canon 1099):
A person entered marriage in error concerning the unity or indissolubility or sacramental dignity of marriage. They held very deep and pervasive beliefs that are in error concerning marriage, so much so, that they could not and did not marry according to the Church’s understanding of marriage.