The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1876-11-21 00:00:00

OUR MARRIAGE SERVICE.

Seeing how large a apace the ceremony of marriage
Mb; in the minds aml lives of English men and women,
it is strange that in these days of biblical and
litikrgical revision nothing has as yet been said of the
revision most needed of all—that of our national
Marriage Service, It 6 a deplorable fact that, on an
occasion when a certain choice and delicacy of words
are most desirable, a formula should still be used
which is not merely an anachronism, but which
converts a happy ceremony into a painful ordeal.
The ..1.1 Roman pagans, with their diecnda ',ono suet
baui rtrixt do', showed a far juster appreciatbui of the
feelings of mankind than is manifested by the language
enforced by our Church in one of the most solemn of
our services.

The expressions now referred to are those contained
in the exhortation declaratory of the ?eject fur which
marriage was ordained. Directing our criticism from
the standpoint and in the interests of god taste, we
believe we only express a widespread desire in
suggesting that wor Is which give unneocessary offence,
without possessing any religious significance, should
be erased from our Prayer-book. We have no cause
of quarrel with any other part of the service. We
would lay no stress on the criticism once inacle of the
three declarations imposed on the bridegroom, namely,
that the first is superstitious, the second idolatrous,
and the third • falsehood. Nor would we advocate
the disuse of the ring, though it may well be regarded
as a survival from the period in England of the
purchase system of marriage, which was accompanied,
even so recently as in our first English Prayer-book.
by another such significant token of spousage as actual
money.
Everyone who is acquainted with the Con fusions of
St. Augustine will rememhee that he began to con-
template matrimony when he first wearied of habitual
profligacy. Yet it is surely to debase the institution
of marriage to impute to all men the motives of the
saint, and to treat as something quite accidental the
object which to many is the primary one of marriage
a community of life and affection. That '• the mutual
society, help, and comfort that the one ought to have
of the other' should be the only purpose of marriage
publicly recognised would be perfectly self-evident,
were it not that in this matter a imams and effete
ecclesiasticism has been suffered to tyrannise over
taste.
_

It is well known that our reformers borrowed all
their occasional offices—that of 'patrimony among
them—from the old Manual 4, Sarum, which, of
course, retained the exclusively carnal view of
marriage handed dovni to it from early and medifeval
Christianity. The visions of St. Anthony, and the
stories of the saints who Hod to the desert to avoid
any human being of feminine form, show that
exaggerated sanctity is sometimes accompanied by a
morbid sensuality ; and it was fnun the men or
monks, *, generally associated with that golden age
of Catholicism, that there arose the incapacity to see
in marriage any higher object than the satisfaction of
desire. In those days marriage was regarded as a
regulated concubina,e, recognised, but not approved,
by the Church. The idea of it as a community of
life, tastes, and affection WWI entirely lost sight of ;
and many Christian sects, such as the hianichees or
Eneratites, actually went so far in asceticism as to
prohibit it altogether. It is true such ultra tenets
were ultimately declared heretical at the Council of
Gamma ; but that they clearly coincided with the
ideal of true purity all the legends .if the saints and
isitristic writings "met abundantly prove. When
St. Jerome spoke of "cutting down the w.od of
marriage with the axe of virginity," he conveyed, by
his characteristically tasteless metaphor, an idea
that was an axiom of his age. But there is a gulf
between his age and 'lure; and the Reformation, by
sanctioning divorce and the marriage of priests,
marked an advance to a higher and happier con-
smiths' of marriage. Surely, therefore, our Church is
misrepresented in seeming to countenance as an
opinion what she retains but as a verbal survival.
Why, then, should we continue to use language which
belongs to the low level of the thoughts, and dates
from the dark times, of the ks and saints !
language, t 0..., which profits nulssly, and is con-
fessedly an offence to many. The matter in rather
one of moral delicacy than of religious argument, and
would seem only to require to be brought within the
focus of the public vision to be easily as speedily
remedied. Not an interest would be touched, not •
conscience could be shocked, by the removal from our
Book of f'ommon Brayer of words which, as they
stand, are a gratuitous insult to thousand* of educated
men and women sad whibh do in reality 1,•0 far to
misrepresent the tieory and outrage the principle of the
honourable state of rnatrimopy.—The World.