Marriage Debate

Huntster said:
I want the marriage vows to be enforced. In the church, it is. Regardless if you "separate", you're still married "until death do you part" (although, I admit, even the RCC in the West is bending to pressure, liberalizing the "annulment").

In secular law, marriage vows are a ceremonial joke. Even the marriage license and contract are a joke. (I guess we can't expect much better from a society that has "privitized" it's military in the way that it has).
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This is absurd.

You're making a claim atheists can't have mutual respect and keep marriage vows to each other. What, are the churchgoers going to Hell if they don't keep their marriage vows?

You are in a fantasy world.
 
skeptigirl said:
Originally Posted by Huntster :
When did "personal" become "not legal?"
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When did marriage vows become a legal contract?
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Vow:

An earnest promise to perform a specified act or behave in a certain manner, especially a solemn promise to live and act in accordance with the rules of a religious order: take the vows of a nun.

A declaration or assertion.
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Contract

1.a. An agreement between two or more parties, especially one that is written and enforceable by law. See Synonyms at bargain.
b. The writing or document containing such an agreement.
2.The branch of law dealing with formal agreements between parties.
3. Marriage as a formal agreement; betrothal.
4. Games.
a. The last and highest bid of a suit in one hand in bridge.
b. The number of tricks thus bid.
c. Contract bridge.
5. A paid assignment to murder someone: put out a contract on the mobster's life.
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Apparently, when the court said so.

Care to find any state law that refers to marriage vows as part of the marriage contract?
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I would love to. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that's not possible.

Damned shame, too.

You have a bizarre view here. Swear in? Swear in to what or for what?
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Testimony.

If you haven't done it, you wouldn't understand.

A marriage contract is the legal areas covered in state law like finances, property and bigamy.
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There is much more to a marriage than "the legal areas" of finances, property, and bigamy.

There might still be an archaic adultery law on the books somewhere.
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I hope you're right.

The state sanctions who can perform a marriage and there needs to be a witness usually. None of the rest of your wedding has anything to do with marriage laws.
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But they have a whole lot to do with marriage.
 
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skeptigirl said:
When did marriage vows become a legal contract? Care to find any state law that refers to marriage vows as part of the marriage contract?
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It's an interesting historical question - I've been trying to dig up this information for the UK and I can't find anywhere where the marriage vows from the religious ceremony are considered a binding contract as far as the state is concerned. However the old marriage legislative acts do pretty much codify the general terms and conditions of what are consider the "traditional" religious marriage vows but the time line shows that the religious vows reflect the civil contract of the time they came into being, not the other way around as some people may have assumed.

For well over half the history of the RCC the Church has not been involved in marriages. The ecclesiastical wedding ceremony is the new-boy on the block appearing in the early 13th century, the traditional marriage is a civil marriage. Therefore it is not surprising that the "traditional" wedding vows reflected the civil contract that pre-dates them. (The ecclesiastical wedding ceremony arose during the 13th century but was only declared mandatory for Roman Catholics during the Council of Trent in 1563.)
 
skeptigirl said:
Originally Posted by Huntster :
I want the marriage vows to be enforced. In the church, it is. Regardless if you "separate", you're still married "until death do you part" (although, I admit, even the RCC in the West is bending to pressure, liberalizing the "annulment").

In secular law, marriage vows are a ceremonial joke. Even the marriage license and contract are a joke. (I guess we can't expect much better from a society that has "privitized" it's military in the way that it has).
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This is absurd.

You're making a claim atheists can't have mutual respect and keep marriage vows to each other.
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No, what I've claimed is that government (the courts, specifically) have allowed the "vows" of the marriage ceremony to be meaningless.

What, are the churchgoers going to Hell if they don't keep their marriage vows?
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I don't know. I'm not the Judge.

You are in a fantasy world.
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Yeah. Obviously a different fantasy world than the one you live in.

I like mine better.
 
Darat said:
........For well over half the history of the RCC the Church has not been involved in marriages. The ecclesiastical wedding ceremony is the new-boy on the block appearing in the early 13th century, the traditional marriage is a civil marriage.......
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That is an extremely bold claim, as "marriage" is much, much, much older than the RCC.

What about China? Japan? African Aboriginal? American Aboriginal?

Do you claim that current style litigation held sway over the vows of a man-woman commitment going back thousands of years, and completely separated from each other?
 
Not to be condescending Huntster but try a law dictionary for legal terms.

legal term: vow - not found
legal definition: vow -
confidential communication
n. certain written communications which can be kept confidential and need not be disclosed in court as evidence, answered by a witness either in depositions or trial, or provided to the parties to a lawsuit or their attorneys. This is based on the inherent private relationship between the person communicating and the confidant's occupation or relationship to him/her. They include communications between husband and wife, lawyer and client, physician or other medical person (most therapists) and patient, minister or priest and parishioner (or anyone seeking spiritual help), and journalist and source in some states. Moral conflicts may arise when a murderer or child molester confesses to his/her priest, who is pledged to silence and confidentiality by his priestly vows and cannot reveal the confession in legal cases.
See also: privileged communication attorney-client privilege
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Huntster said:
That is an extremely bold claim, as "marriage" is much, much, much older than the RCC.

What about China? Japan? African Aboriginal? American Aboriginal?

Do you claim that current style litigation held sway over the vows of a man-woman commitment going back thousands of years, and completely separated from each other?
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I claim what I claimed.
 
skeptigirl said:
That's not how I read this. It basically talks about vows in a rhetorical sense. There isn't anything about specific vows you make to each other.
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That's more or less what I found. The statement of the vows, as such, was not the source of the contract. Of course, we knew that's true today, but I had thought that, traditionally, the vows themselves were a contract.

That's almost right. The contractual agreement was to become man and wife. The vows did indeed express what that meant, but the specific definition was up to the state legislature to decide. Of course, until recently, all the state legislatures had a definition that exactly matched the traditional vows. Therefore, when I claimed that the vows were contractually binding, I was not technically accurate, but in 19th and early 20th century law there would be absolutely no difference in legal effect between my claim and the actual situation.

Bottom line: In the old days, the marriage vows were legally binding, not because they were a contract in the ordinary sense, but because the state legislatures held them to be legally binding.
 
Darat said:
For well over half the history of the RCC the Church has not been involved in marriages.
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Is this actually true? It wouldn't surprise me if the "ceremony" originated in the 13th century, but the sacrament was surely earlier than that. I have a hard time believing that the church added a sacrament after 1000 years in the sacrament business.
 
Meadmaker said:
Is this actually true? It wouldn't surprise me if the "ceremony" originated in the 13th century, but the sacrament was surely earlier than that. I have a hard time believing that the church added a sacrament after 1000 years in the sacrament business.
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It was only universally adopted at the Council of Trent which was 16th century but the sacrament itself is given by Catholic authorities as dating to 12th century (I made a mistake above when I said 13th century - sorry.)

See:http://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/ct24.html

and

http://www.stcatherine.org/marriage.html
 
Meadmaker said:
Based on a day’s worth of google research, I’ll have to change somewhat. I had asserted that the marriage vows constitute a contract. Historically, that isn’t quite accurate, although it’s close enough. In the words of Maynard v. Hill, it is “more than a contract”.

More accurately, marriage could be thought of as a contract, but it was one in which the participants had no choice on the terms. The legal view of wedding vows in America was that the people getting married agreed to become husband and wife, but the state got to decide what it meant to be “husband and wife” And how did they define it? For the most part, they said it meant exactly what the traditional marriage vows said it meant.
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Well, let's not take your word for it but check out the actual context in which the phrase was used in Maynard v. Hill:

In the first of these the supreme court of Kentucky said that marriage was more than a contract; that it was the most elementary and useful of all the social relations; was regulated and controlled by the sovereign power of the state, and could not, like mere contracts, be dissolved by the mutual consent of the contracting parties, but might be abrogated by the sovereign will whenever the public good, or justice to both parties, or either of the parties, would thereby be subserved; that being more than a contract, and depending especially upon the sovereign will, it was not embraced by the constitutional inhibition of legislative acts impairing the obligation of contracts.

{snip}

In Wade v. Kalbfleisch, 58 N. Y. 282, the question came before the court of appeals of New York whether an action for breach of promise of marriage was an action upon a contract within the meaning of certain provisions of the Revised Statutes of that state, and in disposing of the question the court said: 'The general statute, 'that marriage, so far as its validity in law is concerned, shall continue in this state a civil contract, to which the consent of parties, capable in law of contracting, shall be essential,' is not decisive of the question. 2 Rev. St. 138. This statute declares it a civil contract, as distinguished from a religious sacrament, and makes the element of consent necessary to its legal validity, but its nature, attributes, and distinguishing features it does not interfere with or attempt to define. It is declared a civil contract for certain [125 U.S. 190, 213] purposes, but it is not thereby made synonymous with the word 'contract' employed in the common law or statutes. In this state, and at common law, it may be entered into by persons respectively of fourteen and twelve. It cannot be dissolved by the parties when consummated, nor released with or without consideration. The relation is always regulated by government. It is more than a contract. It requires certain acts of the parties to constitute marriage independent of and beyond the contract. It partakes more of the character of an institution regulated and controlled by public authority, upon principles of public policy, for the benefit of the community.'

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In Noel v. Ewing, 9 Ind. 37, the question was before the supreme court of Indiana as to the competency of the legislature of the state to change the relative rights of husband and wife after marriage, which led to a consideration of the nature of marriage; and the court said: 'Some confusion has arisen from confounding the contract to marry with the marriage relation itself. And still more is engendered by regarding husband and wife as strictly parties to a subsisting contrat . At common law, marriage as a status had few elements of contract about it. For instance, no other contract merged the legal existence of the parties into one. Other distinctive elements will readily suggest themselves, which rob it of most of its characteristics as a contract, and leave it simply as a status or institution. As such, it is not so much the result of private agreement as of public ordination. In every enlightened government it is pre-eminently the basis of civil institutions, and thus an object of the deepest public concern. In this light, marriage is more than a contract. It is not a mere matter of pecuniary consideration. It is a great public institution, giving character to our whole civil polity.' In accordance with these views was the judgment of Mr. Justice STORY. In a note to the chapter on marriage in his work on the Conflict of Laws, after stating that he had treated marriage as a contract in the common sense of the word, because this was the light in which it was ordinarily viewed by jurists, domestic as well as foreign, he adds: 'But it appears to me to be something more than a mere contract. It is rather to be [125 U.S. 190, 214] leemed an institution of society founded upon consent and contract of the parties, and in this view it has some peculiarities in its nature, character, operation, and extent of obligation different from what belong to ordinary contracts.' Section 108n..
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First, in each case where this was said, it was in relation to what other lower courts had said, not the Justices' own opinions.

Second, in each case the phrase was used, the "more" was in relation to marriage's importance in society, not in legal terms.


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Meadmaker,

It seems to me if the wedding vows -- the actual words spoken in the ceremony -- were to be taken as legally binding, then the law would have to address what specific vows were acceptable. My wife and I re-wrote the standard vows for our wedding, am I obligated to follow the actual vows I made, or do I have to adhere to the "traditional" vows? If the latter, then which "traditional" vows? The ones with "Obey" in them? And what if the actual vows spoken conflict with the legal ones?

Alternately, if the "contract" is based on the actual vows we make, then doesn't that allow each couple to decide what kind of marriage they want? Are you still opposed to the idea that each individual marriage should be defined by it's participants?

Finally, what about non-western wedding cermonies? In this melting pot of a nation we have here in the US, there are quite a few people who engage in non-Christian-style wedding ceremonies. Admittedly, I don't know a lot about these ceremonies, but I would think that, say, a Hindu or Buddist wedding might set forth different parameters and expectations for the marriage than a "traditional" marriage. If so, how would that affect the proposition that the vows form a legal contract?
 
ZirconBlue said:
Meadmaker,

It seems to me if the wedding vows -- the actual words spoken in the ceremony -- were to be taken as legally binding, then the law would have to address what specific vows were acceptable.
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That's correct, so I basically altered my understanding of things. In the old days, there really was only one view of marriage, and it was set by law. It reflected the tradtional vows, but was not governed by them. The contract entered into at marriage was to be husband and wife, as defined by the law.

Not by coincidence, the law defined it the same way the traditional vows did. So, it didn't matter what the couple actually said during the ceremony. They were bound by the traditional vows, or more accurately, by the law of marriage which happened to embody them.

Today, I think that the government should allow flexibility in marriage contracting, and allow couples to choose what they are legally committing to.
 
Upchurch said:
Well, let's not take your word for it but check out the actual context in which the phrase was used in Maynard v. Hill:


First, in each case where this was said, it was in relation to what other lower courts had said, not the Justices' own opinions.

Second, in each case the phrase was used, the "more" was in relation to marriage's importance in society, not in legal terms.


edited to fix some tags
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Thanks for posting the info. I'll let anyone who can read decide whether they were speaking in legal terms.
 
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