DISPARITY OF CULT MARRIAGES AND THE PARTICULAR LAW OF THE SYRO-MALABAR CHURCH George Thekkekara In a religiously heterogeneous society where the social distance between religions is less, it is quite natural that more interreligious marriages occur. Two sets of people who are influenced more by this mingling are those in the lower strata of the community and those who are highly educated. 1 Though many factors promote positive thinking towards interreligious marriages, either a total lack of religious constraints or a strong negative attitude towards the strict practices of one’s faith can become a prominent cause. I do not venture to analyze these issues in this article since these are beyond its scope. Today, it is a social reality that inter-religious marriages celebrated in the Church after dispensation from the impediment of disparity of cult are on the increase. Formerly, though the law permitted such marriages, the parties were reluctant to approach the competent authority for dispensation from the impediment to celebrating marriage in the Church, especially when the Catholic party was a girl. As a result, often, the girl joined the religion of the non-baptized party, whether by force or not. In such cases, no dispensation or permission was given since a following apostasy of the Catholic party would increase the depth of scandal among the faithful. Nowadays, the girls are in general bold enough to affirm their right to follow the religion they practice, even if they choose a life partner from another religion. There are, of course, exceptions too. The Catholic Church has well-established norms regarding inter ecclesial or inter- religious marriages. The inter-religious marriages involve an impediment of disparity of cult, for ordinarily, marriage is permitted between two baptized persons only. Therefore, a baptized and a non-baptized person cannot validly celebrate marriage in the Church unless a dispensation from the impediment of disparity of cult is obtained from a competent authority. The Catholic party must make promises and declarations as per canon 814 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches to obtain such permission and dispensation. In this article, I try to analyze common law on the disparity of cult marriages and the particular laws of the Syro-Malabar Church and make a few concrete proposals to revise the particular law of the Syro-Malabar Church for more clarity in this regard. 1. The Impediment of Disparity of Cult Marriage is one of the seven sacraments in the Catholic Church. The Church believes and teaches that Christ raised the natural institution of marriage between a baptized man and a woman to sacramental dignity. The canonical legislation on Christian marriage, inspired by 1 See the article by Alex Minichele Sewenet, Fasil Merawi Tessagaye and Getnet Tadele, "Interreligious Marriage: Social and Religious Perspectives" in Research Gate 3/6 (2017) 355-362, p. 357, foot note 28, in which the authors refer to Petersen, L. R., “Education, Homogamy, and Religious Commitment,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 33, 1994, pp. 122-134. 1