Consummation

[sixpence]

Is a marriage considered consummated if the couple has always used contraception?

[Jaime]

I've spoken with my spiritual director about this and the consensus he has is this. The marriage is consummated when the marital act is engaged and the sperm is deposited. (sorry for the romance) whether or not the woman can conceive is not relevant to the consummation

[cappie]

Can. 1061 §1 A valid marriage between baptised persons is said to be merely ratified, if it is not consummated; ratified and consummated, if the spouses have in a human manner engaged together in a conjugal act in itself apt for the generation of offspring. To this act marriage is by its nature ordered and by it the spouses become one flesh.

§2 If the spouses have lived together after the celebration of their marriage, consummation is presumed until the contrary is proven.

According to Canon Law, the only sexual act that is able to consummate a marriage, changing the state of their relationship from ratum tantum (ratified only) to ratum et consummatum (ratified and consummated) is natural marital relations open to life. This sexual act must be “suitable in itself for the procreation of offspring”, in other words, it must be the type of sexual act inherently ordered toward procreation. Unnatural sexual acts do not consummate a marriage. Contraceptive natural sexual acts do not consummate a marriage. If the couple have never had non-contraceptive natural intercourse, then they do not have the full Sacrament of Marriage.

[cappie]

in the Canon on the consummation of marriage, if the baptized man and woman have exchanged vows with proper consent, in a marriage ceremony with proper form, then their marriage is ratified, but not yet consummated.

In order to consummate the marriage, they must have natural marital relations open to life. If they use contraception continuously, from the time of their vows and thereafter, then their marriage is not consummated. They in fact do not have a valid Sacrament of Marriage. Subsequently they engage in natural marital relations open to life, then they have the full Sacrament of holy Matrimony. For only then is their marriage both ratified and consummated.

Natural marital relations open to life is an essential part of the Sacrament of Marriage. Defects that substantially affect this required element of marriage can invalidate the marriage. For the Sacrament is ordered primarily toward the procreation and education of children as its first purpose and highest good.