Revising the marriage liturgy in the Church of England: Towards clarifying issues and possibilities

Anglican Theological Review, Spring 1998 by Spinks, Bryan D

Of note is that vows do not feature as part of either type of celebration. Following both Roman law, with vows, and Germanic tribal custom, with the agreement of a dowry, these were a domestic affair between families. The Church did not solemnize the marriage, but blessed it and celebrated it.

These two distinct and different Western liturgical traditions were at some stage brought together, first found in the Sacramentary of Vich which united Roman and Spanish usages. In the third group of British books identified by Ritzer, the Roman and Gallican usages were brought together. A further stage of development took place in the 12th and 13th centuries, first traceable in the surviving texts of the coastal regions of Northern France. Under the influence of canon lawyers and in a bid to safeguard property rights and inheritance rights, vows were now to be repeated (after the domestic arrangement) in public at the door of the church in front of a priest and any of the community who wished to be present. With scholastic theology, great weight came to be placed on the vows in terms of defining marriage as a sacrament. In the Ritual from the Abbey of Barbeau (14th century) the vow of betrothal contains a promise to marry within 40 days. Betrothal vows are then repeated at the marriage rite, and in the course of time elided to become one. Through the Norman settlement the British books gave way to these new forms. The vows were in the vernacular, and in some rites, attracted an opening exhortation which explained the meaning of marriage. After the legal marriage at the door of the church-exhortations, free consent, exchange of vows, blessing and giving of a ring and tokens of espousal-the parties entered the church for the mass with nuptial blessing, and then later, at home, the priest blessed the bed chamber. It should be noted, though, that in England many marriages were still only private arrangements-common law marriage-and that lasted well into the late 18th century.

In his reforms of 1549 Cranmer used the Sarum rite. Some of the old mass prayers were modified and brought forward to follow the vows which took place inside the church. A mass was indicated by rubric only, and no propers were provided. The old Gallican-Celtic blessing of the bed chamber was suppressed. In 1552 the blessing of the ring and tokens of espousal were suppressed. Few changes took place in 1662.

Looking at the development diachronically, it is apparent that the late comer to the marriage rites, the vow, became the center of the Anglican rite, and the older provisions-nuptial blessing, blessing of rings and espousal tokens, and the bed chamber-disappeared. But a reading of the rite suggests an emphasis-found in the exhortation and prayers-that marriage is simply a solemn life-long vow to avoid sin and generate offspring. The question posed by this is whether this is a correct emphasis, and whether a balance should be restored which sets the legal making of a marriage alongside a blessing and celebration of marriage in a Christian context, and how this might best be done.