Defender of the bond

The Defender of the Bond, or Defensor Matrimonii in Latin, is a Catholic Church official whose duty is to defend the marriage bond in the procedure prescribed for the hearing of matrimonial causes which involve the validity or nullity of a marriage already contracted.

Benedict XIV, by his Bull Dei Miseratione of 3 November 1741, introduced this official into the marriage procedure to guard against abuses occurring from the ordinary procedure. An annulment of a marriage might result from the appearance of only the spouse who desired freedom to enter upon a new marriage, while the other was apathetic and conniving at the annulment, or at times unable or indisposed to incur expense to uphold the marriage, especially if it required an appeal to a higher court. Scandal arose from the frequency of dissolution of marriages with the freedom to enter new contracts.

The Bull requires that in each diocese, the ordinary appoint a defender of marriage, upright in character, and learned in the law, an ecclesiastic if possible, a layman if necessary. The bishop may suspend him or remove him for cause, and, if he is prevented from taking part in the procedure, substitute another with the requisite qualifications.

He must be summoned to any trial in which there is question, before a competent judge, of the validity or nullity of a marriage, and any proceeding will be null if he is not duly cited. He must have the opportunity to examine the witnesses, and, orally or in writing, to bring forward whatever arguments may favour the validity of the marriage. He must be cited even though the party interested in the defence of the marriage be present, and all the acts of the court are always to be accessible to him, and at any time he has a right to bring forward new documents or witnesses favourable to the marriage. On assuming his office he must take an oath to fulfill his duties and he is expected to renew the oath in each case. If the judge decides in favour of the marriage the defender takes no further action unless its opponent appeals to a higher court. Here a defender undertakes anew the defence of its validity. If the judge of the first instance decides against the validity of the marriage and no one else appeals, the defender of marriage is required in all cases to appeal to the higher court. If the first two courts agree upon the nullity of a marriage the defender need not appeal, unless his conscience tells him that a serious mistake was made. If he feels it his duty to appeal, a new marriage may not be contracted until his plea is heard.

This canon legislation was extended and enforced in the United States by an Instruction of Propaganda in 1883, published with the Acts and Decrees of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore. Though the Bull does not require it, the practice of the Roman church extends the intervention of the defender to cases of true marriages not consummated where the Holy See is requested to grant a dispensation for a new marriage.

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