| If a diriment impediment exists and consent is exchanged, no marriage is contracted. |
| Further, Of these diriment impediments some are temporary, as defect of age, and some are perpetual, such as Holy Orders. |
| The reason for this is that a prior marriage is only a diriment impediment to marriage, when it is truly valid. |
| Of course this is notwithstanding that failure to receive dispensation from form invalidates marriages where diriment impediments are not present. |
| However, if after a marriage, a couple divorces and they can prove that a diriment impediment existed at the moment of consent, the marriage is declared null. |
| The Second Lateran Council seems to have enacted the first written law making sacred orders a diriment impediment to marriage for the universal Church. |
