Legal Relationship as Impediment

Legal relationship is a bond arising out of adoption. Adoption is an act by which, under due process of civil law, aperson takes another who is not his child, to be in fact, his child; or, at any rate, takes another to be a true member of thefamily or household.

Legal relationship is an impediment to marriage, and is regularly considered so in civil law as well as in church law. Itis not seemly or suitable for those who live together as a family to intermarry.

Legal relationship exists between adopting parent and adopted child; also between adopted child and the natural children of the adopting parent; also between the adopting parent and the natural parents of the adopted child. Legal relationship is an impediment to marriage in all cases. But this impediment, as existing between the person adopted and the natural children of theone adopting, ceases when the adopting person dies, or when the children concerned come of age. In cases of legal relationship, the law of the Church follows the civil law of the country. Where civil law makes legal relationship a diriment or nullifying impediment to marriage, so does the Church regard it; where civil law makes this impediment only prohibitive, it is only prohibitive in church law.