Marriage: A Personalistic and Institutional Understanding

Abstract

This presentation is an attempt at a synthetic perception of the marriage institution by a theologian- canonist. The title reveals the assumed methodology of exposition, which means that they reveal such an approach to the mentioned issue that, on the one hand, rejects “positivist” frames of mind, while on the other hand enhances the close relationship between the law and Church teaching. Consequently, with the premise that the parameters of the marriage institution refer to the anthropological-ethical foundation of a “personalistic norm” (K. Wojtyla), the author perceives the marital “unity of the two” through the logion of Genesis 2.24. The incidentally, but distinctly emphasized demand for “source locating”, together with the accompanying assumption of coherence and complementarity of the ecclesiastic de matrimonio sources, required that in this presentation the essential contents pertaining to the structure of the canonical marriage be preceded by comments on the biblical origin of the mentioned institution.