IMPEDIMENTS, contracts. Legal objections to the making of a contract.
Impediments which relate to the person are those of minority, want of
reason, coverture, and the like; they are sometimes called disabilities.
Vide Incapacity.
2. In the civil law, this term is used to signify bars to a marriage.
These impediments are classed, as they are applied to particular persons,
into absolute and relative; as they relate to the contract and its validity,
they are dirimant (q.v.) and prohibitive. (q.v.) 1. The absolute
impediments are those which prevent the person subject to them from marrying
at, all, without either the nullity of marriage, or, its being punishable.
2. The relative impediments are those which regard only certain persons with
regard to each other; as, the marriage of a brother to a sister. 3. The
dirimant impediments are those which render a marriage void; as, where one
of the contracting parties is already married to another person. 4.
Prohibitive impediments are those which do not render the marriage null, but
subject the parties to a punishment. Bowy. Mod. Civ. Law, 44, 45.