Marriage clearly has to be regulated, but is it really the business of a liberal democratic state in the 21st century to impose restrictions on where and when people marry and what they want sung, said or played at their civil wedding? Politicians of all parties and all the traditional religions encourage marriage, yet it is enclosed in an unwelcoming, oppressive legal framework. A 2003 white paper designed to ease restrictions on times and locations was never given the parliamentary time needed to see it into law.
Meanwhile, couples have hit upon a way, albeit cumbersome, around the ban on religious content in civil ceremonies. It involves going through the minimum legal requirements at a register office and then devising and holding one’s own ceremony in a location that is neither a religious building nor one licensed for weddings. I know of one couple who used a village hall and another who chose a remote woodland clearing in West Sussex.
People may well be infuriated by the restrictions before the wedding, but their anger is probably assuaged by a honeymoon and then quickly forgotten. Unless more couples ”“ like the pair denied their Elizabeth Barrett Browning poem ”“ complain, the rules will remain, and most people marrying in England and Wales will continue to discover an overbearing and unwelcome guest at their wedding feast.
Hel-LO — color me behind the times, but take a look at the numbers for 2007 in England & Wales: 150,000 civil marriages vs. 70,000 religious. Wonder what that is in this country? And then consider the numbers atop that for cohabitation . . .
There are some benefits to living in a country where it is written down that the Congress may make no law respecting an establishment of religion nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof. We fuss about the interpretation of the first clause, but I rejoice in the second one.