Today when we consider marriage we think of it as an official ceremony performed by a representative of church or state; without their sanction, no “marriage” can be called such. It wasn’t always quite like that. Given the pressure to legalise marriage between two people of the same sex (apparently a “civil partnership” isn’t quite enough), it may come as a surprise that it is entirely possible that there have been single sex marriages in the past.
The idea of marriage being a ceremony conducted by an official (a priest or state official) is actually relatively modern. It was not until the Council of Trent in the 16th century, that the church insisted that marriage could only be performed by a priest. Whilst the church had laws governing marriage, the ceremony itself was a private one between two individuals. This would often be followed by the priest blessing the marriage, but that was a separate ceremony.
If you look at genuine early English churches (many of those old looking churches in sleepy villages are in fact 19th century), you will notice that many have quite large porches. There are various reasons for this, but principally it was a convenient place for conducting business that either didn’t require the whole church, or did not have any business in the church. And marriages were often conducted in this porch before the wedding party would enter the church for the priest to bless the marriage.
Now in almost all circumstances, the marriage would be conducted in this way; in public with a notice published on the door of the church some time in advance for people to object to the marriage if there were suitable grounds. But there was nothing to stop anyone from having a private (and probably illegal) marriage in their own way. It was even accepted by the church that merely saying the phrase “I marry you” was enough to constitute a marriage – effectively a common law marriage which was abolished in 1753. Such a marriage may not have been accepted by secular law, but would as far as the church was concerned been a marriage.
This would seem to indicate that marriage was originally a personal commitment between two people with nobody in authority sanctioning it. And only concerns over property rights and the urge that all authorities have to regulate everything changed that. Property? Of course to the rich, the effect of marriage on property ownership was exceptionally important – enough that many marriages were arranged principally to ensure that property ownership was preserved in some way.
So we know that many marriages in the past were arranged marriages conducted for merging property holdings ? Well there is plenty of evidence that the rich conducted marriage in such a way, but there is little to say that the vast majority who were poor also did so. Why arrange a marriage for property when neither partner owns any land ?
Of course there was also a tendency to pick a future partner for possible future earning power rather than for love. However we simply do not know enough about marriages in the past to say that love marriages did not exist.
But enough of the past. What about the present ? Is it not time to tell governments everywhere to keep out of our private business and take back ownership of marriage ? It is no business of government or any other authority to tell individuals whom they can or cannot marry. Sure, there are plenty of reasons why marriage should be registered with the government, but why do they insist the ceremony must take place in front of an appropriate official ?
The instant you allow private marriages, you solve so many problems that it is plainly (to me) an obvious thing to do :-
- No nutters with an axe to grind can stop single-sex couples getting married, or impose any form of lesser marriage.
- Private marriages mean you can get married anywhere – if I were to get married, my choice of spot would be on a hill north of Arundel overlooking Amberley mount. Not the kind of place that would normally be allowed by the government but why should they have a say on where I get married ?
- It allows for marriages to be much cheaper. According to a quick search the average cost of getting married in the UK in 2006 (so it’ll have gone up since) is £25,000 – which is plainly ridiculous. Anyone can understand wanting an unforgettable day for a marriage, but surely it can be done for cheaper than this ? At this cost, many people put off getting married either because they just can’t afford it, or because they have better things to spend the money on – like putting down a deposit on a house!