Kinds of meat - Synonyms and other related words in the Thesaurus and the British English Dictionary - Cambridge Dictionary Cambridge dictionaries logo. Cambridge Dictionary.
In many traditions and statutes of civil or religious law, the consummation of a marriage, often called simply consummation, is the first (or first officially credited) act of sexual intercourse between two people, either following their marriage to each other or after a prolonged sexual attraction.
Consummation is in particular relevant in a Catholic marriage. Within the Roman Catholic Church, if a matrimonial celebration takes place (ratification) but the spouses have not yet engaged in intercourse (consummation), then the marriage is said to be a marriage ratum sed non consummatum.