Since as long ago as 1836, it has been possible in England and Wales to get married in a registry office, which provides “just a convenient social arrangement” (to quote N .T. Wright) . Most people who avail themselves of this do not think of themselves as representing “the marriage of Christ and his church”, or “God’s intention for the eventual new heaven and new earth”. It’s doubtful if this is foremost in the minds of most young Christian bridegrooms either. But some older Christians are given no alternative to the civil ceremony, for example those who are divorced are usually refused a “proper” marriage by N.T. Wright’s own church.
Most other countries have a similar system. Indeed, you only have to go as far as France or Italy to find a country which does not recognise church marriages as legally valid at all, but only civil ones, so that Christians there have to get married twice if they want to be married in both ways.
This being so, I don’t see why the civil system shouldn’t change its rules (only affecting a small percentage of its ceremonies) to increase the number of couples who can be legally married. It doesn’t at all affect who can be church-married. There is really no problem there for N.T. Wright and for God’s intention for the eventual new heaven and earth as he sees it. Presumably the homosexual couple won’t end up in either, whether legally married or not.
Wright dislikes the unusual or changing use of words, something which in fact it’s very difficult to get away from. Surely when he refers to “the marriage of Christ and his church”, most people wouldn’t see this relationship as a “marriage”, and how can he insist that one partner is male and the other female ? I recommend to him a slight change in the use of words by referring to “church-married” (when that matters), or “merely legally married” (when he wishes to stress the opposite), or just “married” (when he isn’t sure, or it really doesn’t matter which it is). “Secular-married” is another possible term which the squeamish could employ, or “state-married”. But I don’t see how Christians (or Muslims or Jews) can expect to take control of marriage for the whole United Kingdom. This would be very much a retrograde step.
OK, that’s a good term. Church-married people are all of the traditional heterosexual kind, but some state-married people are gay-married, and church-married people never are., I think there is more mileage in this than trying to change the law. You would say that gay-married people are merely legally married, but not church-married.
And before 1836, what made a union a marriage? If marriage is something that is defined and therefore granted by the state – and incidentally can therefore be dissolved by the state – by what authority was a couple ‘married’ before the state got involved?
For many centuries before 1836 (and for some time thereafter), the Church charged too much for formal marriage for poor people to be possible, so they just lived together and were generally recognised as “married”. Hence the phrase “common law marriage”, although in fact it never had any real legal status in England.
In Scotland, it was formalised that two people could just announce that they were married in front of suitable witnesses (who might include the blacksmith, as famously at Gretna Green). This was legal, and helps to explain the fashion for elopement to Scotland.
Some people who could afford it were, of course, married by the Church of England, the established church and so in a sense an arm of the state. In fact, other Christians like Baptists had no choice for a long time but to be married by the Church of England or not at all, whether they liked it or not .
You haven’t really responded to my questions.
It is not difficult to imagine that the state, in its determined accruals of power, will decide for some reason that the UK must go ‘continental’ and marriages must take place first and foremost in a civil ceremony in order to be legal; religious ceremonies will then become optional extras.
In effect. this is the total opposite of the old law you have referred to, namely that all marriages had to be conducted by the CofE, in recognition of the fact that marriage came from an Authority higher than the government.
Should the state proceed with what I have just described, and should it then declare all marriages prior to such legislation to be invalid, would I still be married? Yes’ because marriage is ordained by God, not the government.
Don’t worry, in such an (unllkely) eventuality you would still be married. Most people are not quite as worried as you about who has authorised a marriage, and in practice, if two people come into the country on holiday or otherwise saying that they are married, it has always been accepted that they are, without checking up on exactly what ceremony they attended in China or Botswana or Kazakhstan or wherever it was.
But this “problem” wouldn’t apply to you at all, unless you are Church of England (which seems unlikely). All marriages in churches of other denominations in England are actually civil ceremonies with the minister acting as an assistant registrar. The religious bit is already an optional extra which, as a registrar in those circumstances, he is allowed to throw in. The state doesn’t care in the least what prayers or other words he utters as long as the marriage is properly registered.
I think I did respond to your question, which was “And before 1836, what made a union a marriage?” .
Also “by what authority was a couple ‘married’ before the state got involved?” The brief answer to that is “The Established Church of England”, and also by common recognition of their marriage if they could not afford to pay the Church of England. I’m sorry if my answers were not what you wanted.
A marriage is made up of two people who love each other
Following the 2003 publication of Dan Brown’s publishing phenomenon, The Da Vinci Code, there has been a renaissance of interest in the ancient heresy...
Since as long ago as 1836, it has been possible in England and Wales to get married in a registry office, which provides “just a convenient social arrangement” (to quote N .T. Wright) . Most people who avail themselves of this do not think of themselves as representing “the marriage of Christ and his church”, or “God’s intention for the eventual new heaven and new earth”. It’s doubtful if this is foremost in the minds of most young Christian bridegrooms either. But some older Christians are given no alternative to the civil ceremony, for example those who are divorced are usually refused a “proper” marriage by N.T. Wright’s own church.
Most other countries have a similar system. Indeed, you only have to go as far as France or Italy to find a country which does not recognise church marriages as legally valid at all, but only civil ones, so that Christians there have to get married twice if they want to be married in both ways.
This being so, I don’t see why the civil system shouldn’t change its rules (only affecting a small percentage of its ceremonies) to increase the number of couples who can be legally married. It doesn’t at all affect who can be church-married. There is really no problem there for N.T. Wright and for God’s intention for the eventual new heaven and earth as he sees it. Presumably the homosexual couple won’t end up in either, whether legally married or not.
Wright dislikes the unusual or changing use of words, something which in fact it’s very difficult to get away from. Surely when he refers to “the marriage of Christ and his church”, most people wouldn’t see this relationship as a “marriage”, and how can he insist that one partner is male and the other female ? I recommend to him a slight change in the use of words by referring to “church-married” (when that matters), or “merely legally married” (when he wishes to stress the opposite), or just “married” (when he isn’t sure, or it really doesn’t matter which it is). “Secular-married” is another possible term which the squeamish could employ, or “state-married”. But I don’t see how Christians (or Muslims or Jews) can expect to take control of marriage for the whole United Kingdom. This would be very much a retrograde step.
And some now are getting ‘gay-married’. (In other words, in this case, not really married at all.)
OK, that’s a good term. Church-married people are all of the traditional heterosexual kind, but some state-married people are gay-married, and church-married people never are., I think there is more mileage in this than trying to change the law. You would say that gay-married people are merely legally married, but not church-married.
And before 1836, what made a union a marriage? If marriage is something that is defined and therefore granted by the state – and incidentally can therefore be dissolved by the state – by what authority was a couple ‘married’ before the state got involved?
For many centuries before 1836 (and for some time thereafter), the Church charged too much for formal marriage for poor people to be possible, so they just lived together and were generally recognised as “married”. Hence the phrase “common law marriage”, although in fact it never had any real legal status in England.
In Scotland, it was formalised that two people could just announce that they were married in front of suitable witnesses (who might include the blacksmith, as famously at Gretna Green). This was legal, and helps to explain the fashion for elopement to Scotland.
Some people who could afford it were, of course, married by the Church of England, the established church and so in a sense an arm of the state. In fact, other Christians like Baptists had no choice for a long time but to be married by the Church of England or not at all, whether they liked it or not .
You haven’t really responded to my questions.
It is not difficult to imagine that the state, in its determined accruals of power, will decide for some reason that the UK must go ‘continental’ and marriages must take place first and foremost in a civil ceremony in order to be legal; religious ceremonies will then become optional extras.
In effect. this is the total opposite of the old law you have referred to, namely that all marriages had to be conducted by the CofE, in recognition of the fact that marriage came from an Authority higher than the government.
Should the state proceed with what I have just described, and should it then declare all marriages prior to such legislation to be invalid, would I still be married? Yes’ because marriage is ordained by God, not the government.
Don’t worry, in such an (unllkely) eventuality you would still be married. Most people are not quite as worried as you about who has authorised a marriage, and in practice, if two people come into the country on holiday or otherwise saying that they are married, it has always been accepted that they are, without checking up on exactly what ceremony they attended in China or Botswana or Kazakhstan or wherever it was.
But this “problem” wouldn’t apply to you at all, unless you are Church of England (which seems unlikely). All marriages in churches of other denominations in England are actually civil ceremonies with the minister acting as an assistant registrar. The religious bit is already an optional extra which, as a registrar in those circumstances, he is allowed to throw in. The state doesn’t care in the least what prayers or other words he utters as long as the marriage is properly registered.
I think I did respond to your question, which was “And before 1836, what made a union a marriage?” .
Also “by what authority was a couple ‘married’ before the state got involved?” The brief answer to that is “The Established Church of England”, and also by common recognition of their marriage if they could not afford to pay the Church of England. I’m sorry if my answers were not what you wanted.
A marriage is made up of two people who love each other
Like a mother and daughter, you mean?