ords, good doctor, to the question briefly.
CUT: I answer then, the canon-law affords divorce but in a few
cases; and the principal is in the common case, the adulterous
case: But there are duodecim impedimenta, twelve impediments, as
we call them, all which do not dirimere contractum, but irritum
reddere matrimonium, as we say in the canon-law, not take away the
bond, but cause a nullity therein.
MOR: I understood you before: good sir, avoid your impertinency of
translation.
OTT: He cannot open this too much, sir, by your favour.
MOR: Yet more!
TRUE: O, you must give the learned men leave, sir.--To your
impediments, master Doctor.
CUT: The first is impedimentum erroris.
OTT: Of which there are several species.
CUT: Ay, as error personae.
OTT: If you contract yourself to one person, thinking her another.
CUT: Then, error fortunae.
OTT: If she be a begger, and you thought her rich.
CUT: Then, error qualitatis.
OTT: If she prove stubborn or head-strong, that you thought
obedient.
MOR: How! is that, sir, a lawful impediment? One at once, I pray
you gentlemen.
OTT: Ay, ante copulam, but not post copulam, sir.
CUT: Master Parson says right. Nec post nuptiarum benedictionem.
It doth indeed but irrita reddere sponsalia, annul the contract:
after marriage it is of no obstancy.
TRUE: Alas, sir, what a hope are we fallen from by this time!
CUT: The next is conditio: if you thought her free born, and she
prove a bond-woman, there is impediment of estate and condition.
OTT: Ay, but, master doctor, those servitudes are sublatae now,
among us Christians.
CUT: By your favour, master parson--
OTT: You shall give me leave, master doctor.
MOR: Nay, gentlemen, quarrel not in that question; it concerns not
my case: pass to the third.
CUT: Well then, the third is votum: if either party have made a
vow of chastity. But that practice, as master parson said of the
other, is taken away among us, thanks be to discipline. The fourth
is cognatio: if the persons be of kin within the degrees.
OTT: Ay: do you know what the degrees are, sir?
MOR: No, nor I care not, sir: they offer me no comfort in the
question, I am sure.
CUT: But there is a branch of this impediment may, which is
cognatio spiritualis: if you were her godfather, sir, then the
marriage is
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