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Introduction

Weddings Around The World

Decades

Faculty and Friends

Conclusion and Appendix

E. Jesus and Christian weddings


 http://www.stmaryscathedral.ca/gallery/images/stained_glass/window_f/panel5.jpg

In this file, starting with the story of Jesus at a wedding, we will consider other Christian Scriptures and then later writings about weddings in Christiany, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, pagan traditions up through the medieval era to the time of Luther and the Protestant Reformation. For those looking for a Christian ceremony from subsequent times, click on "Weddings around the World" to "Weddings in Great Britain." Also I might say that in each of the "Decades" from the "1950s" to the "2000s or The New Century," I have included ceremonies which I performed for a variety of people including the following: Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Baptists, Methodists, Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, agnoistics, and perhaps even an atheist or two. Perhaps in asking me to perform or attend their wedding, they could not have cared less what organization ordained me to celebrate the wedding with them. But I consider myself a Christian, often wearing a garmet with Christian symbols or a plain robe of a medieval looking priest, and I have sometimes wondered, "Does my presence as a Christian at a wedding mean something special? Does the couple imagine that I bring any magic to make their vows more lasting? Should I say any more that that Jesus was once invited to a wedding, and he celebrated with whoever invited him. So I shall do the same."

So let us start this section with Jesus; and if we should read the canonical writers whose works comprise the New Testament, we discover that Jesus went to weddings (John 2:1-11) where he did not serve as priest; instead he reportedly turned water into wine, which was more to do with his power over the world of nature than merely to provide more wine for a host who had not brought enough wine for for so large or thirsty a guest list. Once at a wedding, a host asked me if I could turn water into wine. I answered that it was a sufficient miracle for me to pronounce a bride and a groom as a "husband and a wife!"

My research suggests that there need not have been any priest at the wedding in Cana or in any other weddings in the First Century of our era, for “no hint is preserved either in the Old Testament or the New Testament, that a religious ceremony accompanied the wedding.”  More likely there were written contracts signed by representatives of the two families (Towner 1996).

The wedding in Cana has captured the attention of many interpreters for a variety of reasons.  One modern Biblical scholar imagined the event as if “the marriage had already been contracted; the groom had gone to the bride’s home to acquire his wife; the wedding procession to the groom’s house had taken place and now the wedding festivities had begun.,  This celebration could last for days, possibly even a week….just was no stranger” (to these celebrants)…But when the wine was gone, he turned water into between 120 to 150 gallons of wine not to make up for the mistake of the host in calculating the thirst of his guests, but to demonstrate in his first sign that “the wedding feast with its new wine portrays the coming of the kingdom” (Toussaint 46-50).

Jesus himself taught a parable dealing with a marriage feast (Matthew 22:1-14). Was it to suggest that he, himself, was like the “bridegroom”?  The purpose of the parable seems to appear at the end with the lines “many are called, but few are chosen, ” but hints of how to prepare for a wedding in the proper attire, the proper attitude at the ceremony (calling) and arriving on time are elements of a wedding etiquette, might today be useful to remember a weddings in the 21st Century.
Matthew refers to another wedding (Matt. 9:14 with the parallels in Mark 2:19 and Luke 5:34) where an attitude of great joy should be with feasting as at a wedding.  By the time the Scriptures that became "The Holy Bible" were written down, Jesus was himself taken to be like that of the bridegroom at the wedding.

Surprisingly none of the canonical gospel writers seem to focus as much on sexual misconduct, as did the writers of the Hebrew Scriptures (see chapter above on “Weddings of Adam and Eve."  In discussions in recent years regarding Dan Brown’s The DeVinci Code, some have imagined Jesus as more than a bridegroom in a parable. For Brown or his readers, was Jesus married to Mary Magdalene? Having sex and producing an hier with her? Clearly, the early church did not give attention to that dimension of Jesus’ life.  Compared to St. Paul, in particular, Jesus was less specific about sexual conduct, and sex was less a focal point of his teachings than of his followers.

Many early Christians believed that the end of the world would come in their lifetime, and therefore they conducted their lives in expectation of such an event.  St. Paul, for example, did not call for those who were already married when they became Christians to disavow their vows for in “the opinion of Paul, that each should remain in his calling, that one should remain single or married, as before, and have wives as if one had them not.  All these affairs of the present after all are completely irrelevant, for he end is directly at hand.”(Weber, 326).  Sometimes it amuses me at weddings when brides and grooms wish to have I Corinthians 13 read as if Paul wrote if for such a ceremony.

St. Paul wrote several times about marriage in the letters to the churches he visited or wished to visit.  He did not leave a record as to having performed or being present at weddings; and Paul might be very surprised to find how popular his poem on love  (I Cor. 13) is in wedding ceremonies; indeed,  for the setting in life of that poem was more for harmony within the church than what a couple being wed should hear.  Paul did explore the role of sex and marriage in the lives of his converts. Similar to the teachings in Judaism which strongly influenced Paul’s views in Christian ethics, Paul emphasized the category of “holiness”, which “implies separation; it is contrasted with passions attributed to the ‘gentiles who do not know God.” (I Thess. 4:5 cf. Meeks, 100).

 Paul wrote about Adam (Romans 5) as the one through whom sin came into the world.  But he was less specific as to how sin entered than some of the subsequent patristic writers, like Origen, for example, who lived from 185-255 CE. Origen tried to solve the issue of temptation to sexual sin by castration.  Thankfully that solution did not find its way into practice, and it was not accepted by the church;  and in Nicea at the time of Constantine in the Fourth Century, the practice of castration was condemned with more certainty than was sexual misconduct.

In the Gnostic Gospels found written in the Coptic langage in Egypt, one may find references to Adam (and Eve) as without expression in the Garden of Eden.  The authors of those gospels are unlikely to have seen, as I did when inspired by Joel Rosenberg, I wrote the file ," Adam and Eve's.Wedding" above (Cf. . Rosenberg’s poem, “The First Wedding in the World” in the "Conclusion" below .)

A very different perspective of a wedding is to be found in Revelation 19:9-10 as the “wedding supper of the Lamb” recently called to my attention by my brother, Reid.  In fact, on Amazon.com I just discovered there a book, “The Lamb’s Supper: the Mass as Heaven and Earth.”  The apocalyptic background to the Book of Revelation may offer a subsequent opportunity to consider this ritual, but I am not likely to include it in future weddings I perform hereafter, and  I have not ever used Rev.19 in any previous weddings.


In the Acts of Thomas there is imagery of the bridal chamber. Coptic Christians might have the selection “Hymn of the Bride” at the wedding fest (6-7 as “underlying the ascetic renunciation.” (Hunter, (2000), 209).

In the Gospel of Philip, the author does not give us a wedding ceremony, but he did leave an image of “the bridal chamber.”  Somehow there is a collage of other terms of “baptism” and “resurrection” connected to the “bridal chamber.”  However, lacunae on the manuscript leave us uncertain of the meaning other than “A bridal chamber is not for the beast, nor is it for the slaves, nor for the women defiled; but it is for the free men and virgins. ….”  (Spacing from Coptic  text, cf. Wilson, 45).

In the second century of the common era, a wedding contract KETHUVA written for the wedding of Babatha of Maoza, born in the year 100CE, was found in a cave otherwise connected with Simeon bar Kokhba.  There is no evidence as to her connection with Simeon, the leader of the second Jewish revolt against Rome.  Some considered him the Messiah for a period, but important is the fact that there exists an actual papyrus document which was found in a leather bag with other documents concerning her.  Attached below is an English translation of an 2nd Century woman's wedding contract:

Babatha’s Marriage Contract

1. On the [thi]rd of Adar in the consulship of

2.

3.

4.                                                                                             ...[that you will be]

5. my wife [according to the la]w of Moses and the “Judeans” and I will [feed you] and [clothe] you and I will bring you (into my house) by means of your ketubba

6. and I owe you the sum of four hundred denarii (zuzin)which equal one hundred tetradrachums (sorin) whichever

7.  you wish “to take and to .[….” from]… together with the sue amount of your food, and your clothes, and your bed (?),

8. provision fitting for a free woman… the sum of four hundred denarii (zuzin) which equal one hundred tetradrachms (sil’in)

9. whichever you wish “to take an to.[…” from]… together with the due amount of your food, and your bed (?),

10. and your clothes, as a free woman. And if you are taken captive, I will redeem you, from my house and my estate,

11. and I will take you back as my wife, and I owe you your ketubba money…

12-13. [and if I go to my eternal home before you, male children which you will have by me will inherit your ketubba money, beyond their share with their brothers,]

14. female [child]ren shall dwell and be provided for from my house and [from my estate un]til the time when they will be [mar]ried. And if

15. >and if< I go the my eternal h[ome] before you, you w[il]l [d]well in my house and be provided for from my house and from my estate

16. [until] the time that my heirs wish to give you your ketubba money. And when ever you tell me

17. [I will exchange this document as is proper]. Lacunae and fragments of letters containing the warranty clause

18. [And I Yehudah son of El’azar Khthousion], I [ace]pt [all that] is written [above]”( Kraemer, selection 62).

But what can we learn from this document?  It may give strong evidence of elements not only of Jewish wedding agreements but since the earliest followers of Jesus were Jews and thereby serve to shine a light on both religious aspects, which in this case would be the law of Moses.  In fact, in the Gospel of Matthew, we learn that Jesus said he came to fulfill that law.  So would this have been the very kind of document Jesus could have read at the wedding in Cana? What interested me was the exactness of the amount that Yehuda brought into the marriage as he provided for “a free woman” named Babatha. 

Also the provision in this time of great turmoil when the wedding took place his pre-nuptial agreement was to promise to buy her back in case she might be captured and needed to be redeemed. Also of importance was the promise to take care of her children,  males who were also his children would inherit their  money “beyond their share with their brothers” (l. 13 above)  and females, “until such time when they will be married” (l. 14). She would be taken care of it he died first (“go to my eternal home before you”) and be supported by his heirs. I was surprise that there was no mention of the possibility of a divorce or no prohibition of a re-marriage upon such an event or upon death, in contrast to the Christian prohibition of Tertullian in the comments below.

 

 


The early Christian church father Chrysostom in the Second Century  left instructions in Homily 12 on Colossians 7 on “making preparations for a wedding” clearly suggesting some of the wrong practices he found in weddings of his day.  He suggests “do not run from house to house, borrowing mirrors and clothing…nor are you leading your daughter in a parade…invite (only) people as you know who are moderate…let no one from the theatre be present, since that involves excessive and unseemly expenses...it’s annoying to invite prostitutes…adorn the bride not with ornaments made of gold, but with moderation and modesty and her usual clothes…let there be no uproar nor confusion…let the groom be called; let him receive his bride. Let the midday and evening feasting be filled not with drunkenness but with spiritual pleasure”(Leyerle  258). Soon the issue would arise when a class of Christians, ministers of the word, presbyters and bishops, who were most often married from (80 -300 CE) were to be models of conduct as examples to their flocks.

Tertullian, an early Christian writer wrote that the union of man and woman is “an institution blessed by God for the reproduction of the human race…for the purpose of populating the earth.”  Tertullian argues that such a union should be done only once, “For Adam was the only husband that ever had and Eve was his only wife; one rib, one woman.” (Tertullian 400).  The context of the comment was a letter to his wife, whom he imagined might outlive him in which he was urging her with all the legal training he could bring to bear NOT to remarry.  That would not be so useful today, even after we seem to have followed the task of propagating the planet beyond Adam and Eve’s imagination.  I must intrude upon Tertullian’s wisdom to comment that most of the weddings I perform are for a couple; at least one has been married before.  Here I can note that in the last century, many pastors in America would not do so.

One of the issues which interested me in the "wedding album project" was when in the development of Christianity the idea of marriage with Christ evolved. One historian of Christianity offers an economic reason growing out of the wish to relieve family of dowry payments which a female child would encounter so some Christian families "found it convenient to dedicate their unwanted girl babies to the church (Brown 261). These women came to be called "brides of Christ" and served to give females a quest for holiness have "become the stereotypical representatives of the notion of "virginity" for Western readers (Brown 262).

Sometimes there were attractions by  the monks who "sought female spiritual companions" seeking “susneisakai  in Greek or subintroductae in Latin, "call-in girls," who “enjoyed a relationship of permanent companionship with a man who was neither father, brother, nor husband to them” …This caused alarm among the officials in the church.  To combat this “hookup” Basil of Caesarea wrote a treatise entitled in English translation On the Preservation of Virginity “conjuring up the facts of sex so as to keep the female ascetics of his region at a safe distance from male soul-mates" (Brown 267).

One woman of the 4th Cenury named Macrina wore a ring with what she believed was a fragment of the Cross of Christ. It was also a doken of her bethrothal to a man who died and the wedding was postponed indefinitely. She considers herself a widow and remained faithffl to her intended bridegroom. "but the ring and its relic were also the pledge of the enduring presence of Christ, her true Bridegroom" (Brown 273).

 



www.wutsamada.com/msu/phl200/wolff8.htm


The most celebrated writer toward the end of the Roman Empire in the Fifth Century (CE) was Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in North  Africa who had a good deal to say about sexual desire. He connected the sins of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden with a sexual rebelling against God, and he also wrote about a loss of control over the will which led to the expulsion from the Garden.  The life of Augustine is interesting for his Confessions are among the earliest writings of its kind in the history of Western Civilization and they reveal a great deal about his inner search for salvation that he did not imagine could come with marriage.

But Augustine had kept a concubine for some years and had a child with her.  But I could find no proof that he ever had a wedding, or even a “secret marriage” with the woman.  Brown, an expert on Augustine, wrote that Augustin's own betrothen wife, a Milanese girl in her early teens, had lost him as a future husband on his conversion to the life of continence. (Brown 275).

But has his relationship with the concubine endured and become known to his contemporaries, it probably would not have caused dismissal from his office or excommunication from the church.  In his later years, Augustine seems to have come to believe that women were of value to men as bearers of children.  But in his early writings, he seems to have found other reasons for the attractions between men and women.  Augustine wrote as well about Psalm 45 discussed already in ‘Adam and Eve’s wedding.” Augustine in “a variety of works, letters, sermons and polemical treatises” postulated that the intent is to make a clear reference to Christ, and the queen is “Christ’s church.” Then, the City of God, Augustine points out that the virgin bride can be “no one other than the church. (Hunter 296-297) 

Augustine, who read about prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures and considered them as moral examples even though they were married, wrote that the sexual union was not for pleasure but for bearing children.   Augustine seemed to respect what Freud would later identify as the libido or the sexual drive in humans.  So he wrote that his followers were promised not only to a partner, but each partner had a right to give sex when needed by the fell also reminded their married hearers that they were obliged to give their spouses sex when needed by the partner..

After the Roman Empire collapsed the leaders of the church in Rome  made laws regarding marriage and its validity.  For example late in the 9th Century CE Pope Nicholas I reported a wedding took place in a church, thereby suggesting that the custom " of holding a marriage in a church was not mandatory" (Carmody 29) .  

There were many areas where Christians and Jews influenced each other in the medieval period, often showing the predudice against Jews and therefore persecutions, but since both shared much of the same scripture, Christians were interested in Jewish texts and exegesis. Also Christians were aware of Jewish practices in weddings. Christians learned that Jews used rings in weddings, as for example "Jewish marriage occurred when the bride consented to mary by accepting the ring from the groom" (Snyder 25). That seems to sugest an influence from Judaism to Christianity. But I have not found the first instance of the use by Christians in weddings.

In the 11th Century the Eastern Orthodox Church split with the Roman Catholic Church, but the two bodies of Christians came to recognize the Seven Sacraments although the Eastern Orthodox call them the"Mysteries." Marriage is equally important in both branches of Christianity.

In the Eastern Orthodox tradition the leaders of the  church “demanded that the two partners in a marriage should both be of the Christian Orthodox faith.  Marriage with a non-Christian was forbidden; if contracted, it was declared illegal’’(Constantelos 24). 

However, not until the 12th Century could I find a “text listing marriage among the Seven Sacraments” (Fourth Book of the Sentences of Peter Lombard). Lombard was important in establishing the view that more than "sexual relations and mutual affection" would be necessary in a wedding. He insisted that the bride and groom pronouce "words of the present," that clearly declare(d) their intent" (Snyder 26). It was not the ecclestiastical formlity or ritual act that made the marriage.   In the 13th Century Thomas Aquinas  affirmed  that  the sacrament of marriage, was “a community of nature which God transformed into a community of grace” (Carmody 29). But Aquinas and the Pope Alexander III, followed Lombard's influence in proclaiming the marriage "require the free-will consent of the two people" (Snyder 26). Meanwhile "the Jewish communituy agreed with the Christian Church that the personal bond of the couple constitutes marriage" (Snyder 28). Thereby a rabbi "does not 'marry' the bride and groom; they marry each other" Diamant 43-4). That common view of both Jews and Chrisians influenced the expression of wedding rituals of both tradtions, and it is echoed over and over in my discussion of weddings in the chapters below where vows selected by students, friends and faculty wish me to include the line..."

Meanwhile all over Christian Europe as churches and monasteries were being built, many people still followed more ancient ceremonies. I wondered if I might discover what were the ceremonies for union between a male and female who were not Christians or between a goddess and her lover?

For me the search became most real during a journey to Ireland in 2010.  Images of a goddess appear in many different places on the island, sometimes in a field, sometimes in a church yard, sometimes even in the iconography of stained glass in a church building.  For me, she (the goddess) appeared most vividly in the Dublin Museum of Archaology and in a book I found there by Concannon, who wrote that “in Old Europe, anthropomorphic carvings and rock paintings of the Great Mother have been discovered back to 25,000 BE…a naked goddess, often regnant” (19).

 

www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.goddessgift.net/images/GoddessSheelaNaGigReliefD-88.jpg

Images of the figure appear as "sheela, Madonna and Hag (in the image above as Hag) capture three rolls or "aspects of the goddeess-maiden, mohr, and crone" (Concannon 36) Also in Ireland we find rivers, such as the Shannon, the longest in Ireland “named after Sinann, ‘yellow-hair goddess of the Tuatha De Danann, yearned for and sought after…and the Boyne, named for the goddess Boann-a reference to the cow Goddess” (Concannon 21).

www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.goddessgift.net/images/GoddessSheelaNaGigReliefD-88.jpg

Names for women, still used in Ireland, such as “Brighid” suggests a fiery arrow, which has a Sanskrit rootbrihati “meaning ‘the exalted one’.  In her cosmic role Brigid wast he goddess of he son, the moon, of fire, divination and the laws of nature…” (24). The figures are also to be found even in churches, as in the image below:

In the image above the goddess image was preserved in the window of a Christian church, which might have meant the builders used a stone older than the church building or perhaps to preserve the power of the goddess, the stone was carved into a stone under a window to make sure the powerful goddess appeared to support the building of the new religion of Christianity which made its way to Ireland in the 6th Century, when St. Patrick brought a form of Catholic Christianity to Ireland that preserved the high regard for and of women that the Roman Church had not done. Another ancient goddess was "Medb" whose name is a "cognae ofthe English word MEAD and may be found as a root in many Indo-european lanugages, meaning something like "she who intoxicates"...(Cahill 127). Now her image can even be found on Irish currency as in the image below.

 

In this form the goddess looks reflective and not fearsome. But what interested me in the investigation of how goddess figures from ancient Ireland were "tamed" by the influence of Christianity upon the ancient culture. During my May journey through Ireland in 2010, I was influenced by the theory that "unlike the continental church fathers, the Irish never troubled themselves overmuch about eradicating pagan influences which they tended to wink at and enjoy. The pagan festivals continued to be celebrated, which is why we today can celebrate the Irish feasts of May Day and Hallowee'en" (Cahill (1998)149). Elsewhere in a footnote, one reads "the first day of May, called Beltaie, was a spring celebration distinguished by bonfires, mayhpoles and sexual license...." (Cahill 149). Looking out the window of our Mercedes bus in Western Ireland, I saw a much less exotic Ireland and wondered where we might discover ancient rituals of a goddesses who inspired the ancestors of the Irish people of today, who sublimated their images into banknotes or church window.

I imagined that marriage and wedding ceremonies reflected the powerful partnerships which existed in Ireland among the Celtic peoples. For as a woman "passed from the power of her father into that of her husband....the practice (in "Gaul" at any rate) was for the husband and wife to pool equal amounts of money , and to share any gains--at death, the surviving partner inherited everything" (James 66). This practice seemed to shock Romans like Caesar, but it did not shock the subsequent Christian missionaries. How much of Ireland today is Celtic, how much is influenced by the Vikings, all under the huge presence of Roman Catholic tradition is a topic which I will continue to question.

In spite of my quest, I did not find a wedding ceremony as a text or even clues in an icon, except the implication that the union of the goddess with a male might lead to producing children or crops, as in other places in the Celtic world of Europe. I must say that I might have discussed the rituals of goddesses in several other places in this "album project" such as in the comments on the "Wedding of Adam and Eve" for the worship of Anat or Astarte were challenges to the Hebrew prophets through the centuries of life in Israel. But being in Ireland and reading there about the role of "pagan festivals" made the quest to imagine a union with a goddess in a religious ceremony all the more lively.

 

Meanwhile in the 13th Century
"The popular belief that simple fornication between unmarried persons was neither a sin nor a crime persisted, although this had been classified formally as heresy since 1287."   "Several authorities maintained that when a woman committed adultery, her husband was at fault and should be punished as much or more than she was, but I have yet to see a case in which that was done."

 "Dowry represented the married woman's claim to financial security, but that security might be jeopardized by her own actions or those of her husband. The married woman who committed adultery stood to lose her dowry, and the beneficiary in that case was her husband, who received part or all of it as compensation for his humiliation."

What were weddings like during the Middle Ages? In Italy the wedding had three parts as follows:

1. The first portion consisted of the families of the groom and bride drawing up the papers. The bride did not have to attend this part.

2.The second part was the betrothal, legally binding and involving a celebration, when  the couple exchanged gifts (a ring, a piece of fruit, etc.), clasped hands and exchanged a kiss. The "vows" could be a simple as, "Will you marry me?" "I will."

3.The third part of the wedding was the removal of the bride to the groom's home. The role of the clergy at a medieval wedding was simply to bless the couple. Not until the council of Trent in the 15th Century was a third party [as a priest] responsible for performing the wedding.In the later Medieval Era, the wedding ceremony moved from the house of the bride to the church. It began with a procession to the church from the bride's house. Vows were exchanged outside the church, and then everyone moved inside for Mass. After Mass, the procession went back to the bride's house for a feast. Musicians accompanied the procession.

So long as the couple made the vows before a witness, the marriage was valid--no priest had to be present. Weddings during the Middle Ages were considered family/community affairs. The only thing needed to create a marriage was for both partners to state their consent to take one another as spouses. Witnesses were not always necessary, nor was the presence of the clergy necessary.


Weddings during the Middle Ages seem to have involved spoken vows and witnesses to confirm them, but no priests were required. Thus weddings were family events not in a church.  Priests might have attended but not in an official role.

If I could have arranged my "space-time" vehicle to take me back to the 15th Century, I would have gone to Florence. In fact, I loved Florence in the 20th Century. And no doubt the 15th would be just as good. The year was 1432, the season was the summer, at "Santa Maria sopra Porta, near the Guelh part" where the bridegroom was Piero of the Medici family and the bride was Gostanza. It would have been very hard to actually see the ceremomy, for most of the energy that summer was keeping track of all the gifts that were exchanged on this special wedding. He had sent the bride a large silver "basi, a kerchief of silk full of pears, a pearl necklase, a skein of thread, and two belts decorated with silver...."(Klapish-Zuber 35).

As for the trousseau, we find the catalog as follows:

A pair of pained chests, worthd 62 florins

A piece of damask, 70 feet long, worth 55 florinss.

a robe of white cloth decoraed with pearls, worth 25 florins.

An undergarment in green cloth, worth 15 florins.

A velvet headdressadorned with silver, worth 11 florins.

A piece of cloth for hankerchieves, worth 10 florins.

A tight dress with silk sleeves, worth 8 florins.

a coral wreath, worth 8 florins.

A small both with the office of Our Lady worth 6 florins.

200 florins in total" (Klapisch-Zuber 37).

So far, so good, but that was not all, a longer list amount added up to a thousand florins, which if had been in cash would have been easir, for a note had to be drawn which led to interest from the Commune's Bank.

Clearly, I never saw such gifts in my own 100 weddings. And usually I have tried to avoid any attempts in my own century to give advice about costs of weddings. I could guess that the least expensive wedding in which I took part was the cost of a 10 foot long subway sandwich and a case of beer served to the guests, what would that be? Perhaps 35 dollars, and the most expensive wedding was calculated by a father of the bride who told me his daughters's wedding cost forty thousand! But I just learned that the costs of William and Catherine's wedding in April at WestminsterAbbey will be about forty million dollars, about half of it for security to protect the guests from harm. So this Florentine wedding would be cheap by comparison1

So now to the 15th Century.

In the 15th Century(after the Council of Trent), priests began performing weddings. Hence the settings of weddings were more often thereafter in the nearest church.  Artists portrayed processions to churches from homes of the bride. From that time priests gave the bride to the groom and at the doorway of the church the vows were made then the guests went inside the church for Mass. After Mass, the procession went back to the bride's house for a feast. Musicians accompanied the procession.

In the 16th Century we find evidence of Luther’s teachings about weddings and marriage.
In 1519, just two years after posting his famous “95 Theses, Martin Luther wrote “A Sermon of the Estate of Marriage.” In that sermon he cited "the wedding in Cana" (John 2).  But the first part of the sermon is an exegesis of Genesis 2:18-24, in which he affirms that after God realized there was no suitable mate for Adam, he created Eve and brought her to Adam, at which time he immediately “felt a married love toward her” (Luther’s Works 44:8).Thereafter, Luther discussed several kinds of love and told the bridal couple (and his readers 500 years later) that the doctors of the church have said that “marriage is a sacrament” in which two people becoming one flesh (Eph. 5:32) and that the ceremony is a covenant of fidelity which binds the two together.Luther reacted strongly to the wedding vow of his as “I am thine, thou art mine” as content in the ceremony itself at that time. One might assume that the sermon which Luther (or his amanuensis) recorded was a part of the wedding Luther challenged the vow above as wrong," for both the man and woman, belonged to God, not to each other" ( Luther 11).   This reader of Luther would have liked to have known what music, if any, was played and what was on the menu of the feast, but Luther left no clues. Luther also disavowed “secret marriages’ which were not shared with the parents, for the parents have given food and clothing and deserve to know something as important as a marriage. An editorial note suggested that Luther was opposed to long engagements and would have preferred that the three stages of a marriage, engagement, wedding and consummation all took place on one day. Luther continued to think about weddings throughout his life; certainly to be included would be his own wedding in 1525 to Katharina von Born. He also continued to conduct weddings for his friends, students, and church members (Luther x), without wishing to include marriage as among the sacraments.

Long before Luther’s time the Roman Catholic Church had established a vow of chastity for clergy; but Luther was also aware that while many clergy affirmed chastity, they visited prostitutes or kept mistresses.  He points out that in Christianity it was not a sin “not to marry and have children” as he read in Hebrew Scriptures which he attributed to Moses.  But he says that both living in chastity or marriage were both states decreed by God. When “marriage is given as a common gift to all but chastity is reserved for he few as a very special gift" ( Luther 17).

Luther also dealt with the issue of a Christian believer being married to an “unbeliever,” which St. Paul had written about as well.  His comments might serve today as advice for someone performing a similar wedding. Would there have been a different ceremony when one person is of strong religious belief and the other held no such belief? Luther noted that Paul observed in this circumstance that what he wrote was his own opinion and that “these words are not from the Lord but from himself” (Luther. 33). Hence if one partner is Christian, then the non-Christian partner need accept all such beliefs but should be “satisfied with the choice of the partner to be Christian and does not object to or prevent his living a Christian life….” (Luther 33).

 


 
Luther and Paul, for that matter, might be quite surprised to know that the most famous of all passages which people planning a wedding often as k me to  read are from I Corinthians 13, for perhaps both Luther and Paul knew that this chapter as we find it in the Corinthian letters was on a topic quite other than marriage.

Luther did not consider marriage one of the Holy Sacraments, and in Germany today about one third of children born come to parents not yet, or ever to be, married.

Perhaps Luther would recognize the wedding dress of this modern version of a 16th Century German wedding dress I found in an issue of magazine sold on the Wedding section of Barnes and Noble. I have written so little about the proper attire for weddings, even though some interest in that topic was demonstrated in the New Testament Gospel tradition. To offset my failures to notice the important issue of what the bride should wear, then let the image below redeem me. I hope my reader and Martin Luther would like i

Meanwhile in the 16th Century, John Calvin, in a generation after Luther and strongly influenced by Luther, published his own views in the Institutes of the Christian Religion, in which he wrote that marriage was instituted by God as was demonstrated in the story of Adam and Eve. He also held that marriage was not a Sacrament (Calvin 966), but marriage was a way in which Christians could hope for salvation, at least by not giving in to lust and avoiding fornication (Calvin, 258).

On a personal note, since I had been born and ordained in a branch of the Christian tree which followed Calvin, I must say I did not find his comments on marriage very helpful in discussing wedding plans with either students, faculty or friends.

I looked as well at the Anglican tradition. There I found King Henry the VIII had a series of weddings hoping for a male heir. But his son soon died and was followed by Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth.  The Anglican Church did not make marriage a sacrament, but a service for a wedding became very influential in establishing the language used until this century. (cf. "Weddings around the World" then "Weddings in the United Kingdom"). At the end of that section, a reader may find the 20th Century version of the Prayer Book that goes back to the 16th Century and the same service that will be used in 2010 in Westminster Abbey for the Wedding of Prince William and his bide, Kate.

Comments on weddings in the various branches of Christendom will be found elsewhere in "Weddings around the Wold"in "Weddings in Great Britain," where the celebrated and important ceremony used not only by Anglicans is offered in full, the ceremony soon to be used in Westminster Abbey for Prince William and Meg. also "Weddings in Greece and Rome," contains the civil ceremony in modern Greek.