Hi, Ben!
Well explain then, this one of three rules for proper annullment in the Church other than the Pauline Rule. Yes, the rules have been abused in the West in the Church, but they stand nevertheless for the Church militant.
You mean that dementia is grounds for annullment? Dementia that existed before the supposed marriage, yes. But not if the person was of sound mind when he made his vow. That can’t be undone just because one spouse suffers from mental illness or some other grave ailment.
I don’t know where you are getting your claims about Catholic doctrine. Your idea that function makes one a wife is absurd from a Catholic viewpoint. What makes a woman a wife is her free, uncoerced, knowing vow with a man who makes the same vow. If she ceases to be able to do X or Y she, the person, who made the vow, does not cease to be a person and the marriage remains.
And in your first posting you wrote, “a man is not a monk.”
Sheesh. Your implicationis that men can’t live without sex so if a wife can’t give it, she’s no longer a wife, so find a new woman while taking care of your old woman.
Monks are men who show that men can live without sex. So too are all the faithful men throughout time who honored their vows even though it meant living without sex.
You demean men when you imply that a man has to have a woman for pelvic gratification.
Talk about “modern American culture” lenses.
You'll have to cite Canon Law here. It's online
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/_INDEX.HTM
If a person is mentally incompetent at the time of the marriage itself (e.g. if the bride or bridegroom were suffering from dementia at the time of making the vows) the vows would be null. A demented person cannot make a binding vow.
Suffering from dementia after validly marrying cannot retroactively "nullify" anybody's marriage vow.