Annulment
Grounds for annulment in secular law
Lack of capacity for marriage
- Existing marriage.
- Legal prohibition against one partner marrying.
- Under age of consent (varies from place to place).
- Lack of parental consent for a minor to marry.
- Force or fear.
- Mental incapacitation at the time of marriage
- Temporary or permanent insanity .
- Intoxication (drugs or alcohol) at the time of the marriage.
- Impotence (lack of consummation).
- Incest (whole or half siblings, first cousins, parents, grandchildren, uncles, aunts, and the like).
Some type of fraud
- Fraudulent statements or actions by the other party.
- Lack of intention to marry.
- Deception about identity.
- Using the marriage for some other purpose (e.g., gaining citizenship or inheritance rights, financial gain).
Prohibition of Divorce in Catholicism
It was Jesus who prohibited divorce. This is not something invented later by the Church. When men (males) invent a religion, they make sure that they can either keep a harem directly (like Mohammed and Joseph Smith) or else have the benefits of serial polygamy (taking one trophy wife after another, as with the a multitude of stars and celebrities in American culture--the Playboys of the western world).
The Roman Catholic Church is one of the few Christian bodies in all the world to obey Jesus. As with the "hard teaching" about Jesus' real presence in the Eucharist (Jn 6), so with this hard teaching about the permanence of marriage: Bible Christians find a way to interpret what they read to suit their fancy.
Some Pharisees approached him, and tested him, saying, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause whatever?" He said in reply, "Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate." They said to him, "Then why did Moses command that the man give the woman a bill of divorce and dismiss (her)?" He said to them, "Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) and marries another commits adultery." [His] disciples said to him, "If that is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry." He answered, "Not all can accept [this] word, but only those to whom that is granted. (Mt 19:3-11)