Marriage
vows
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encyclopedia
Background
In the time of the Roman Empire
(17 B.C.- A.D. 476) the lower classes (proletarians) had "free"
marriages. The bride's
father would deliver her to the groom, and the two agreed that they were wed,
and would keep the vow of marriage by mutual consent. Wealthy Romans, though, would sign
documents listing property rights to publicly declare that their union was
legalized and not a common law marriage. This was the beginning of the official recording of
marriage. The oldest traditional wedding vows can be traced back to the manuals
of the medieval church. In England, there were manuals of the dioceses of Salisbury
(Sarum) and York. The compilers of the first ‘Book of Common Prayer,’ published in 1549 based its marriage service mainly
on the Sarum manual.[1][2]
Upon agreement to marry, the Church of England usually offered couples a choice. The couple could promise
each other to 'love
and cherish' or alternatively, the groom promises to 'love, cherish and
worship' while the bride to 'love, cherish and obey.' [3]
Christianity
Roman
Catholic
Couples wedding in the Roman
Catholic Church essentially make the same pledge to one another. According to
the Rite of Marriage (#25) the customary text in English is:[4]
I, ____, take you, ____, to be my
(husband/wife). I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in
sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.
I, ____, take you, ____, to be my
lawfully wedded(husband/wife), to have and to hold, from this day forward, for
better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until
death do us part.
The priest will then say aloud
"You have declared your consent before the Church. May the Lord in his
goodness strengthen your consent and fill you both with his blessings. What God
has joined, men must not divide. Amen."[5]
Anglican
The law in England authorises
marriages to be legal if properly carried out and registered in the Church of
England and some other religious bodies (e.g. Jewish, Quakers): other men and
women who wish to marry can be married by a local official authorised to do so
(civil ceremony). Circumstances may result in the same partners having both
ceremonies at different times though this is rare. The vows, presence of
witnesses and civil registration are absolute requirements under the law.
Civil ceremonies often allow couples to choose their own marriage vows,
although many civil marriage vows are adapted from the traditional vows, taken
from the Book of Common Prayer, "To have and to hold from this day forward, for
better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and
to cherish, till death us do part."[6]
They were first published in English
in the prayer book of 1549, based on earlier Latin texts (the Sarum and York
Rituals of the medieval period). An older version of the final phrase is "
until death us depart" where "depart" means "separate".
"Until death us depart" had to be changed due to changes in the usage
of "depart" in the Prayer Book of 1662. In the 1928 prayer book (not authorised) and in editions
of the 1662 prayer book printed thereafter "obey" was retained (in
the 1928 book an alternative version omitted this). The 1928 revised form of
Matrimony was quite widely adopted, though the form of 1662 was also widely
used, though less so after the introduction of the Alternative
Service Book.
Groom: I,____, take thee,_____, to
be my lawful wedded Wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better
for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to
cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto
I plight thee my troth.
Bride: I,_____, take thee,_____, to
be my lawful wedded Husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for
better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love,
cherish, and to obey, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance;
and thereto I give thee my troth.
Then, as the groom places the ring
on the bride's finger, he says the following:
With this Ring I thee wed, with my
body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow: In the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
In the Alternative Service Book
(1980) two versions of the vows are included: the bride and groom must select
one of the versions only. Version A:
I,N, take you, N, to
be my wife (or husband), to have and to hold from this day forward, for better,
for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to
cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy law, and this is my
solemn vow.
Version B is identical except for
the clause "to love and to cherish" where the groom says "to
love, cherish, and worship" and the bride says "to love, cherish, and
obey".[7]
Since 2000 the service in Common Worship
the normal vows are as follows:
I,N, take you, N, to
be my wife (or husband), to have and to hold from this day forward, for better,
for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to
cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy law, in the presence of
God I make this vow.
However, the bride and groom may
choose to replace the clause "to love and to cherish" with "to
love, cherish, and obey" when the bride makes her vows.[8]
On September 12, 1922, the Episcopal
Church voted to remove the word "obey" from the bride's section of
wedding vows. Other churches of the Anglican Communion each have their own
authorized prayer books which in general follow the vows described above though
the details and languages used do vary.
The entire wiki link on the subject can be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_vows
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