SARAO VS GUEVARRA 40 OG 15 SUPPL 263

FACTS:
Plaintiff and defendant were married and on the same day, plaintiff tried to have carnal
knowledge of defendant. The later showed reluctance and begged him to wait until evening. Although
he found the orifice of her vagina sufficiently large for his organ, she complained of pains in her private
part later that night. Plaintiff also noticed oozing of some purulent matter offensive to the smell coming
from defendants vagina.
Every attempt to have carnal access to his wife proved to be futile because she always
complained of pains in her genital organs.
Upon the advice of the physician, defendants uterus and ovaries were, with consent of the
plaintiff removed due to the presence of a tumor. The removal of said organs rendered defendant
incapable of procreation.
Plaintiff declared that from the time he witnessed the operation, he lost all desire to have access
with his wife and thus filed this complaint for annulment of marriage on the ground of impotency.

ISSUE:
WON their marriage can be annulled on the ground of physical impotency.

HELD:
No. Judgment of the Court of First Instance affirmed.

RD:
Plaintiff wants to construe the phrase physically incapable of entering into the married state as
with the capacity to procreate. Impotency is not the ability to procreate but the ability to copulate.
Defect must be one of copulation and not of reproduction. Bareness will not invalidate the marriage.
The removal of the organs rendered her sterile but it by no means made her unfit for sexual
intercourse. It would appear that it was the memory of this first unpleasant experience with her that
made him gave up the idea of having carnal knowledge of her.

Defendant was not impotent at the time she married the plaintiff for the existence of tumor did
not necessarily render her incapable of copulation.
Plaintiff also contends that his consent of the marriage was procured through fraud in that the
defendant did not reveal to him that she was afflicted with a disease in her sex organs. According to the
Court, this contention in untenable since fraud is not alleged in the complaint and has not been proved
at the trial.