I’ve been called to reflect recently on the two kinds of weddings I’ve been exposed to this spring; what their bearing is on the marriages that follow is beyond me to discern, although some of my readers may be moved to speculate.
The first and certainly more common is the one I call The Worldly Marriage—although of course it may include depths and mysteries not available to the onlooker. This marriage, heterosexual and primarily for the middle-aged, white and well-heeled, is founded on traveling. The great advantage of this, in my eyes, is that it allows for the married couple to live apart, maintaining their own houses, friends and time-worn routines and getting together regularly and frequently to travel all over the world.
There are, of course, no vows at the ceremony, except perhaps for the two given by the groom in this case. He promised to learn how to say “No onions in four languages,” protecting his wife from the horror of finding onions in her dish, a vow certainly easier to fulfill than the traditional “till death do us part” that gives us modern folk the willies. Another vow, perhaps a little more difficult to achieve, goes, “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine also.”
The old vows for heterosexual couples now seem not only outdated but impossibly demanding; gay couples perhaps have a different attitude. Having already been through the struggles associated with coming out—even today—they may be a little more interested in taking a harder view of weddings. After all they’ve waited a long time to be married in the church. My friends are still waiting.
Two men are going to be married in my garden next week. Our church is on the verge of blessing such unions but not quite there yet, so this is just the legal form, performed by a judge, which probably doesn’t include vows of any kind. But it is this couple’s ardent wish to be blessed in the presence of the congregation in our beautiful old Episcopal church and if that happens, I feel sure they will want the full set of vows, including “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer” and the terrifying “till death do us part.”
They both work and they are not rich and so the worldly wedding is not available to them. I will imagine as I watch them saying whatever they are required to say to the judge under my grape arbor that the legal form, while necessary, can’t possibly duplicate what is in their hearts and souls. I have a hunch what’s there will fit more closely the traditional vows that I hope and they hope they will be able to say later.
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