1983 Code of Canon Law

Can. 1055 §1 The marriage covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of their whole life, and which of its own very nature is ordered to the well-being of the spouses and to the procreation and upbringing of children, has, between the baptised, been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament.

From "The Canon law : letter & spirit : a practical guide to the code of Canon Law" (1999):

"The first canon on marriage reflects the development in thinking and teaching on this sacrament which has taken place since the promulgation of the 1917 Code. Firstly, it describes marriage at the outset as a 'covenant' rather than as a contract. This term, which is used to translate the Latinfaedus, derives from Vat. II,1 and it serves to broaden and enrich the concept of Christian marriage, by linking it (a) to the covenant between God and his chosen people and (b) to the Pauline model of the Church as the spouse of Christ. The term is not used to supplant the idea of marriage as a contract; indeed the Revision Commission makes it clear that the terms 'covenant' and 'contract' apply to the same reality. 2 The biblical and theological antecedents and associations of the first term are richer; they emphasise the personal nature of the commitment made in marriage.

This emphasis on the personal is also reflected when the text speaks of the mutual consent of the parties as setting up a 'partnership of their whole life' whose essential purpose is 'the well-being of the spouses and the procreation and upbringing of children'. The phrase 'partnership of their whole life' has its origins in Roman law and has a long tradition in canonical usage. It implies not merely a physical sexual union, but a total union on all levels between equal partners. The 1917 Code did not explicitly give a description of marriage; rather, in its c.1081 §2 it defined the object of marital consent as a 'perpetual and exclusive right over the body, for acts which are of themselves suitable for the generation of children'. The present law has expanded the object of consent, and it clearly regards as essential certain elements which formerly might have been seen as pertaining to the perfection, rather than the essence, of marriage. The previous law distinguished between the primary (procreation and education of children) and secondary (mutual help and allaying of concupiscence) ends of marriage. The present law, following Vat. II, makes no such hierarchy of distinction.3 Instead, both are seen as essential and related parts of the total self-giving which is marriage. This has important practical consequences, in that the capacity for this partnership of life and the willingness to commit oneself to it have a direct bearing on the validity of marriage.

When it takes place between baptised partners, the natural institution of marriage has been 'raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament'. This statement affirms the traditional belief of the Church that marriage is one of the seven sacraments. Even though this was not formally defined until the thirteenth century, marriage had from the earliest times been regarded as having a sacred dimension."