Note 1080 — Chapter VIII · RISE OF ECCLESIASTICAL MARRIAGE: THE CHURCH DEVELOPS AND ADMINISTERS MATRIMONIAL LAW
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Sohm, Eheschliessung, 133 ff.; idem, Trauung und Verlobung, 1 ff., has demonstrated that in their "content" the two kinds of sponsalia are identical; the one is no more nor less a betrothal than the other, each looking to a subsequent perfected marriage. The distinction is not "eine Unterscheidung verschiedener Thatbestände, sondern nur eine verschiedene rechtliche Behandlung desselben Thatbeständes."—Eheschliessung, 137. The differences in tense were arbitrarily made to have different legal consequences.
On the controversy as to the legal significance of the two kinds of sponsalia with Sohm compare Scheurl, Kirch. Eheschliessungsrecht, 76-107; idem, "Zur Geschichte des kirch. Eheschliessungsrechts," ZKR., XV, 65-92, who agrees with Sohm that both species of sponsalia are forms of betrothal (Verlobungen), but insists that they have different legal consequences. This article is criticised by Bierling, "Kleine Beiträge," ZKR., XVI, 288-316; who is answered by Scheurl, "Consensus facit nuptias," ibid., XXII, 269-86. See also Dieckhoff, Die kirch. Trauung, 115 ff.; Sehling, Unterscheidung der Verlöbnisse, 40 ff., 60 ff., 72 ff.; Lyndwood, Provinciale (Oxford, 1679), lib. quart., tit. I, 270, 271; Sanchez, Disputat. de sto. mat. sac., I, 3-220; Selden, Uxor ebraica (ed., 1673), 92 ff., or Opera, III, 599 ff.