IMPEDIMENTS

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.