Shot Gun Wedding – Covid Marriage

 

Although a bit different from the shotgun wedding, with the bride’s father hovering with his loaded weapon, to make sure the reluctant groom marries his pregnant daughter, there has been pressure for people to get married during the pandemic. Like wartime weddings, where people were in a rush, because they didn’t know what would happen, or where they’d be, Covid weddings are similarly different.

One couple couldn’t marry, when the registry offices were closed, but had planned their move in together. They didn’t want to ‘live in sin’, so we performed a wedding in our garden; not a legal wedding, but surely in the eyes of God. Later in the summer, they had their legal ceremony in the church. Another couple managed to book the Registry Office, but asked me to pray for them in a restaurant afterwards. Which was the ‘real’ wedding? A third had to get married before Brexit, to apply for a spouse’s permission to remain with their European partner in the UK. For all these couples, I had to make clear, that this ceremony didn't give them any rights under law.

For each, I managed to do marriage preparation: important for couples today, when pressures on marriage are great. But these stories open up debate about what constitutes a genuine marriage before God? Do they need a legal, state-sanctioned, ceremony? I’ve previously performed other marriages, which were not legal weddings. In each, one partner’s passport was with the Home Office, so they couldn’t complete the documents. But they didn’t want to live together, without God’s blessing. So, I performed their wedding.

One ended in separation. Does that invalidate it? With current divorce rates, I don’t think so. It could question the western model of romantic marriage, in favour of arranged (not forced) marriage. But in itself doesn’t undermine my pastoral response. It was only in the 19^th century that marriage certificates were introduced. Beforehand, marriage was customarily recognised, even when not performed in a church (though the church often tried to impose a monopoly). In my home county, Lancashire, there was the custom of ‘jumping the broom’ – the families would gather, so it was socially sanctioned, and the couple would literally jump over a broom, before setting up house together!

Meeting Africans in my various churches, I discovered they often recognise three forms of marriage: church, civil and traditional – this latter is officially recognised in in their own countries, but not in Britain. Again, the families come together (this is no private agreement to ‘shack up together, but a communal practice), gifts are exchanged, and the marriage sealed. Frequently, a couple may have all three forms of marriage, sometimes separated by many years. But what about when a marriage goes against the law? A friend of mine, who was an Anglican priest in Apartheid-era South Africa, performed inter-racial weddings, when they were illegal. Surely these were legitimate in God’s eyes?

In all these cases, we witness the severance of church-state links established under Christendom. Marriage does not mean the same for both of these communities. This was already understood by the Catholic Church, which did not officially recognise the re-marriage of divorcees, even the though the state does. Likewise, since the passing of laws on same-sex marriage, many churches have argued for the distinction between government-sanctioned regulation and regularisation of relationships in a kind of ‘marriage’, and what the church itself considers a marriage. This leads, already in many countries, to a twin-speed approach, where couples get their blessing from the church, and their legal status from the civil authorities.