Origin of The Wedding Ring and Marriage Vows

The wedding vows as practised in most English-speaking countries derive ultimately from the Sarum rite of medieval England.

The first part of the vows of the Sarum rite is given in Latin, but is instructed to be said by the priest “in linguam materna”, i.e. in the “mother tongue” of those present.

Marriage vows, as couples recite them today, date back to Thomas Cranmer, the architect of English Protestantism.

Thomas Cranmer served as the first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury from 1533 to 1555 CE and was one of the prime architects of the English Reformation during the monarchical reigns of Henry VIII of England (r. 1509-1547 CE) and Edward VI of England (r. 1547-1553 CE).

Cranmer oversaw such reforms as conducting services in English instead of Latin, removing altars and iconography from churches, and closing down the monasteries.

The archbishop also wrote and introduced a new and influential Book of Common Prayer.

When Catholic Mary I of England (r. (1553-1558 CE) then swept back the Reformation and restored Catholicism, Cranmer was one of her principal victims and was burned at the stake in Oxford in 1556 CE.

Before he was a priest, Cranmer married, but his wife died in childbirth within a year.

After becoming ordained as a priest, Cranmer married again, and he kept the marriage a secret for his first 14 years as archbishop because priestly marriage was forbidden.

Some have accused Cranmer of making a deal with Henry: if appointed archbishop of Canterbury, he would resolve Henry’s “privy question”—his need to legally divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn.

Long before his appointment, Cranmer believed Henry’s divorce was justified and had encouraged Henry to gain wider approval for it.

The divorce question was debated in Europe’s major universities, and many theologians had opinions about it.

The most unusual may have been Martin Luther’s:

“I would rather permit the king to marry still another woman and to have, according to the examples of the patriarchs and kings [of Scripture], two women or queens at the same time.”

Henry VIII was not a Protestant, even after his break from Rome.

He believed in transubstantiation, priestly celibacy, and other Catholic doctrines.

He wanted Catholicism without the pope.

Thus he had both Protestants and Roman Catholics executed in his reign.

Thomas Cranmer was one of the most influential religious leaders during the English Reformation.

In March 1554, Cranmer had to defend his religious views against a delegation appointed by Convocation.

His views were declared heretical. (as an unbeliever or heathen).

A great deal of pressure was placed on Cranmer to recant his beliefs and declare his support for Catholicism.

This Cranmer did in private – he made four partial and two complete recantations.

On March 21st, 1556, Cranmer was to do the same in public.

This he refused to do and he was burned at the stake as a heretic on the same day.

His public execution was meant to have shown to all that Mary would not tolerate dissent.

However, the manner of Cranmer’s execution was what baffled many.

Before the fire could consume him, he thrust into the flames his writing hand (he had to sign his recantations) and kept it in the flames unto the end.

Cranmer laid out the purpose for marriage and scripted modern wedding vows nearly 500 years ago in his Book of Common Prayer.

Although the book was revised in 1552 and 1662, “the guts of the marriage service are there in 1549,”

All the things that you think of, ‘to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer’, all of that stuff comes from that point.

While the Bible includes verses on love, marriage, and weddings, there aren’t any specific marriage vows mentioned.

You can, however, use the Bible’s inspirational verses in your marriage vows, include them as ceremony readings, or use a short verse as a theme on your invitations and programs.

The wedding vows as we know them originated in what is known as the Book of Common Prayer (BCP,) a liturgical book used by the churches of the Anglican Communion.

The BCP has served and still serves, as the source of the proper “procedures” and prayers to be followed for not only marriage, but also for baptism, confirmations, funerals, communion, morning and evening prayers, prayers for the sick, and more — along with the weekly service epistle and gospel readings. It pretty much runs the gamut of the dos and don’ts of worship and prayer.

While the Book of Common Prayer dates to the 16th century, it is not the first place such vows can be found.

In fact, they date back to the Sarum, as far back as the 11th century.

The Sarum was the Latin liturgical form used in the English Church for centuries before the BCP.

Even the expression “tying the knot,” while its actual history is uncertain, goes back to early-century traditions.

The phrase ‘tie the knot’ comes from a wedding tradition almost as old as time itself – The Handfasting Ceremony.

This ancient Celtic practice, which dates back to the medieval era, literally binds couples together in matrimony by tying knots of cloth around their hands.

And so the two become one!

Another origin story states that tying the knot can be traced back to the Roman empire, when brides wore girdles that were tied in knots, and the groom had to eventually untie those knots to consummate the marriage.

Tying the knot also may be traced to the custom of handfasting.

The marriage service has had “remarkable continuity” compared with most other services.

 

As early as the 12th Century, Roman Catholic theologians and writers referred to marriage as a sacrament, a sacred ceremony tied to experiencing God’s presence.

However, it wasn’t until the Council of Trent in 1563 that marriage was officially deemed one of the seven sacraments.

Following the development of Protestant theology, which did not recognise marriage as a sacrament, the Council felt a need to “clarify” marriage’s place.

There was an underlying assumption that marriage was a sacrament, but it was clearly defined in 1563 because of the need to challenge teaching that suggested it wasn’t.

 

Before 1858, divorce was rare.

In 1670, Parliament passed an act allowing John Manners, Lord Roos, to divorce his wife, Lady Anne Pierpon.

This created a precedent for parliamentary divorces on the grounds of the wife’s adultery, according to the National Archives.

This marked “the start of modern ‘divorce’,” says Rebecca Probert of the University of Warwick School of Law.

It also set the precedent for more than 300 cases between the late 17th and mid-19th Centuries – each requiring an act of Parliament.

It was only in 1858 that divorce could be carried out via legal process.

Even then divorce was too expensive for most people, and there was the added challenge for wives of proving “aggravated” adultery – that their husbands had been guilty of cruelty, desertion, bigamy, incest, sodomy or bestiality, Probert says.

The gates for divorce opened with the Divorce Reform Act of 1969.

Instead of pointing the finger, couples could cite marital breakdown as the reason for the split.

“Prior to 1969, the script was that marriage was for life” says Bren Neale, a University of Leeds sociologist. “The divorce law meant that people trapped in bad marriages need not stay in them forever.” The emphasis on marriage shifted from a long-term commitment at all costs to a personal relationship where individual fulfilment is important, she says.

 

The Clandestine Marriage Act of 1753, popularly known as Lord Hardwicke’s Act, marked the beginning of state involvement in marriage.

The act required couples to get married in a church or chapel by a minister, otherwise the union was void.

Couples also had to issue a formal marriage announcement, called banns, or obtain a licence.

Most prospective newlyweds were already following these directives, which were enshrined in canon law.

But with the act, the penalty for not complying became much, much harsher.

Catholic and Anglican doctrine have historically elevated procreation as one of the primary reasons for marriage.

But in the late 19th Century, a “silent revolution” began taking place.

With more children surviving and family sizes ballooning, couples started using rudimentary methods of birth control to limit pregnancies.

This started the process of decoupling procreation from marriage, at some level.

Before, if you’re married, you have a sexual relationship, and you have kids.

The idea that you would do something to stop yourself from having kids within a marriage doesn’t seem to be part of the mental landscape, but in the last few decades [of the 19th Century] it’s quite clear that things are changing.”

The Anglican Church cautiously accepted artificial contraception in the 1930s at a conference of bishops, but only where there was a clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood.

Today, the Church of England does not regard contraception as a sin or going against God’s purpose.

For the Catholic Church the procreation of children remains one of the essential things that marriage is about.

When a couple is preparing to marry, the subject of children is often discussed with a priest.

The marriage vows are vital to a wedding day.

For some couples, the vows are even more important than the dress, suits, venue, photography, cake, and catering!

After all, it’s the marriage vows that give meaning to the wedding day.

The first recorded evidence of marriage ceremonies uniting one woman and one man dates from about 2350 B.C., in Mesopotamia.

Over the next several hundred years, marriage evolved into a widespread institution embraced by the ancient Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans.

The word “marriage” is derived from Middle English “mariage” which first appears in 1250–1300 CE.

This, in turn, is derived from Old French, marier (to marry), and ultimately Latin, marītāre, meaning to provide with a husband or wife and marītāri meaning to get married.

The adjective marīt-us -a, -um meaning matrimonial or nuptial could also be used in the masculine form as a noun for “husband” and in the feminine form for “wife”.

The related word “matrimony” derives from the Old French word matremoine, which appears around 1300 CE and ultimately derives from Latin mātrimōnium, which combines the two concepts:

mater meaning “mother” and the suffix -monium signifying “action, state, or condition”.

Who is a Husband?

The word “Husband” is derived fromOld English (in the senses ‘male head of a household’ and ‘manager, steward’), from Old Norse húsbóndi ‘master of a house’, from hús ‘house’ + bóndi ‘occupier and tiller of the soil’.

The original sense of the verb was ‘till, cultivate’.

For “Wife”, the he word is of Germanic origin, from Proto-Germanic wībam, “woman”.

In Middle English it had the form wif, and in Old English wīf, “woman or wife”.

 

The Wedding Ring

The first wedding rings can be traced back to the Ancient Egyptians (nearly 5000 years ago) when they exchanged rings made from braided reeds and hemp.

They placed these rings on the fourth finger of the left-hand as they believed that there was a ‘vein of love’ that ran from this finger directly to your heart.

It is said that the Egyptians saw the ring circle as a powerful symbol of love.

 

Wedding ring traditions were widely adopted into Christian marriage ceremonies during the European Middle Ages, around 900 AD.

Many of these early Christian rings were heavily engraved and stylized, which caught the ire (anger) of the Church.

The Church denounced these rings as overly lavish, leading to the adoption of more simplified styles — eventually culminating in the plain wedding bands that are still widely used today.

That said, extravagance made something of a comeback during the Renaissance, with gimmel rings.

Gimmel rings (called joint rings in England) are designs that are composed of multiple interlocking hoops that can be separated into individual, stand-alone rings.

Traditionally, these were used as engagement rings; the betrothed couple would each wear one of the hoops during the engagement period, and then rejoin them to be placed on the bride’s finger during the wedding ceremony.

Posy rings, featuring short engraved excerpts from poems or scripture, were also popular at this time.

The design of these rings evolved from ornate examples with outward-facing inscriptions, to simpler designs featuring inward-facing inscriptions.

A common explanation for this transformation has to do with wedding ring symbolism and changing attitudes towards marriage.

Couples are beginning to view marriage unions as something personal, rather than simply as a legal agreement.

 

The Wedding Dress

In history, the first white wedding dress was worn by Philippa of England in 1406 when she got married to Eric of Pomerania.

However, the white wedding gown tradition didn’t become so fashionable or gain popularity until 1840 when Queen Victoria of England got married to Prince Albert.

From World War II through the end of the 20th century, the white gown symbolized prosperity, virginity and a lifetime commitment to one person.

For most people today, those meanings are gone.

The term “White Wedding” originates from the white colour of the wedding dress, which first became popular with Victorian era elites after Queen Victoria wore her white lace dress at her wedding.