"The Canon Law retains a clear idea of what marriage is and what it is for, something totally absent from the Civil Law"

"The Canon Law retains a clear idea of what marriage is and what it is for, something totally absent in the Civil Law". This is what Carlos Martínez de Aguirre, Full Professor of Civil Law of the University of Zaragoza, said at the Campus of Madrid of the University of Navarra. His words are framed in the lecture of the Omnes Forum 'Marriage in the West: from deconstruction to reconstruction', which he gave on the occasion of the presentation of the new Master's Degree of training Permanent of Marriage Law and Canonical Procedure of the of the University of Navarra.

The new Master's Degree will start in September with a hybrid format of teaching 80% online and 20% face-to-face at campus in Madrid. It consists of 60 ECTS credit and is the only Master's Degree in Spain, in this field of training, which is mostly online and at the same time is C by the Holy See.

In the lecture, Martínez de Aguirre pointed out that Civil Matrimonial Law and Family Law as a whole, have undergone in recent decades some mutations that allow us to conclude that we have not witnessed a mere change in the rules of the game, but what has changed is the game itself. "With the latest legal changes there has been a subjectivization of marriage and the family, because they are no longer considered as a natural reality and are progressively subjected to human will, both individual and social".

In this regard, Full Professor recalled a statement by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Spanish Constitutional Court in relation to marriage: they recognize that it is increasingly treated more as a simple ultimate self-satisfying relationship between adults, rather than as an institution aimed at providing an adequate environment for the birth and Education of children.

For Martínez de Aguirre the characteristic features of marriage "disappear legally when civil marriage can be between persons of the same sex and when either of the spouses can divorce without the need to allege any cause". And he adds: "Civil marriage and canonical marriage are called the same, but they are two different things".

In his exhibition, the Full Professor of Civil Law emphasized some data published by the high school National Statistics: in the year 2021 there were 86,851 divorces, 3,674 separations and 57 civil annulments. And he recalled some words of Professor Pedro Juan Viladrich in which he pointed out that the basic goal of the legal changes experienced in recent years by the family and marriage should be the achievement of higher levels of quality of family life, and yet, the results have been the opposite. This is reflected in the decrease of issue of marriages, the decrease of issue of children living in stable families, the increase of family breakups, the decrease of fertility, the increase of extra-marital births, the increase of fees of child and youth suicide and the increase of fees of psychopathies of family origin in children and adolescents, for example.

In spite of this, Martínez de Aguirre is sample positive and considers a reconstruction of civil marriage in the West feasible if the conception of canonical marriage remains alive in the academy and in life, so that it can exercise guide to Civil Law when we become aware of it.