I saw via the Boundless blog an interesting article from the Wall Street Journal about the fashion for individually-written wedding vows. Beverley and I put a lot of thought into our wedding vows and into our marriage service, so I’ll try and explain some of our thinking here…
When it came to planning the wedding, I was happy to let Bev decide many things, such as the colour scheme and the size of the bouquets. But I’m a writer, and so there was one area where I wanted to be as hands-on as possible, and that was the words to the service.
I’ve always liked the traditional Book of Common Prayer marriage service. The words have a real weight and poetry to them. Also, because couples have been marrying each other with these words for hundreds of years, there’s a real sense of continuity and connection. They bring a sense of participation in something far larger and more permanent than us.
More importantly, what the words actually say is very good! I particularly like the solemnity of the charge to answer truthfully, “as ye will both answer on the dreadful day of judgement, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed”. I also think the way the words acknowledge the reality of sin is healthy, such as the warning that we are not to enter into marriage “wantonly, like brute beasts that have no understanding” – but instead, “reverently, discreetly and in the fear of God”.
But I wasn’t quite happy to stick with the original Book of Common Prayer wording. Some of the language is rather misleading or hard to understand to the modern ear. I set about updating the language slightly, taking out the “thee”s and “thou”s and other obvious archaisms, while trying to retain the spirit and poetry of the original.
Bev and I discussed the wording and what changes we wanted together. One very easy early decision was that we definitely wanted to say “I do” rather than “I will”! We had a lengthly discussion was over whether we should keep the words “I pledge you my troth” or go for something more modern like “I give you my promise”, eventually opting to keep the original.
Nick Ruff, one of our elders from Mackintosh Church, conducted the ceremony for us, and also gave a lot of very sensible and helpful input into the wording of the service. For example, one slightly difficult section to update was the following:
[Marriage] was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication; that such persons as have not the gift of continency might marry, and keep themselves undefiled members of Christ’s body.
As you can see, this might have been a bit distracting!
We didn’t want people tittering in the pews at the mention of “fornication” and “continency”, but I wanted to acknowledge this aspect of marriage, as Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 7. I wanted to retain that down-to-earth realism, which helps avoid the danger of over-sentimentality, without being too direct for modern sensibilities. Nick suggested the phrase “for the promotion of fidelity”, which does a really good job of putting over the same idea but stating it in the positive. In the end we went for “for the avoidance of sin and the promotion of fidelity”, which I think worked really well.
From the service, one word in particular is controversial in our culture: the bride’s promise “to obey”. But Bev and I didn’t consider taking it out for a moment. We both believe that the Bible teaches that men and women are equal in worth but have different roles. As described in Ephesians 5, the wife is to be a helper to her husband and submit to him, lovingly and respectfully; her husband is to be the head, demonstrating servant leadership just as Jesus is head of the church, and loves her and gave up his life for her.
This rather goes against the grain of our modern culture’s focus on rights and equality, and might strike you as very strange and old-fashioned! Sadly, the Bible’s teaching has often been used as an excuse for chauvinism and abuse of power, for a sinful domination of women by men. But I don’t believe it has to be that way, and in fact, it is in flat-out contradiction to what the Bible actually teaches.
Authority and submission exist as part of the life of God himself – Father, Son and Holy Spirit are co-equal to each other, but the Father sends the Son, who lovingly submits to the Father. This gives us a model for our own human relationships. The answer to the abuse of authority is not to abandon the exercise of authority, or to seek to overthrow all authorities, but to redeem authority through love and respect.
No marriage will be perfect, but in the power of the Holy Spirit, we can be made more like the God who is both Lord and who gave himself up for us. The Bible points to Jesus’ sacrifice of himself on the cross as the model of headship for husbands – I find this a scary and humbling idea, which calls me to a greater love of my dear wife Beverley, rather than something that gives me any possibility of lording it over her!
I recognise that different Christians take very different views on this subject and how it should play out in our relationships. Some would argue that the Bible doesn’t in fact teach this pattern for marriage, and take a much more “modern” view. Each couple has to work this out for themselves, of course. But what I’ve outlined above is what Bev and I believe God teaches in the Bible, and which we want to do our best to live up to.
We were very happy with the service. It was rooted in the traditions of the Christian faith, while having our own slightly wordy, slightly quirky spin on things, which matches our personalities very well!
