In the presented study, a very narrow issue was considered, which is the issue of the status of a civil marriage concluded by Catholics without the canonical form in relation to the impediment of public propriety. Analyzing from a historical perspective the approach of the Church legislator and the doctrine to this issue, the author showed that the relevance of the civil marriage of Catholics was not yet recognised in the 1983 Code of Canon Law (can. 1093), despite the votes against. In his view, this finding was due to the fact that this relationship was seen in terms of matrimonium inexistens. He also noted that the legislator’s thought in this matter changed, mainly under the influence of doctrine, it evolved, an emphatic example of which is the granting of legal effectiveness to a civil marriage in can. 810 § 1, 3º of the Code of Canons of Oriental Churches. The author sees a change of approach to this issue in the fact that the Church’s thought on this issue have evolved. In his opinion, the fierce nineteenth-century dispute over marriage jurisdiction is no longer as fierce. Therefore, a new arrangement was introduced in the said regulation