Selections from Chapter 11: (Click here for full text)

 Promises, Promises

When you sign a contract, do you read the small print? We know we should, but it’s such a chore that we usually don’t bother. What about when you got married? Did you read the small print then? Perhaps you did not realise there was any, because the small print in a marriage service consists of the marriage vows. You promise to love, honour and keep, and perhaps to obey. The wording varies, but it has remained remarkably similar for centuries and we can trace the vows right back to the Old Testament.

One vow has changed, because in the earliest English marriage services the bride’s vows included a promise to be:

This wonderfully alliterative phrase comes from the Use of Sarum, the earliest English marriage service I have found, which was authorised by the Bishop of Salisbury in 1085. In this very early version some of the vows were still in Latin while others were in old English. The whole service is almost identical with our modern version except that the Latin has been translated and the line about bonny and buxom brides has been omitted.

Originally these words meant something rather different from now. "Bonny" is from the French ‘bon’, or ‘good’; "buxom" is from an old German word meaning ‘pliant’ or ‘obedient’; "board" is where you put food (on the ‘sideboard’) so this means mealtimes; and "bed" simply meant ‘night-time’. So "Be bonny and buxom in bed and at board" meant: "Behave properly and obediently through night and day." The meanings of these words changed over the years and the church objected to talking about bonny and buxom brides in bed, so we have now lost this vow.

The other marriage vows have survived intact and this is very fortunate because they come from the New Testament. Both bride and groom make promises to each other that they will "love, honour, and keep" or "love, nourish and cherish" or something equivalent. The exact words vary, but these basic ideas are always present because they come from Ephesians:

Eph.5.28–29: Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. [29] For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church.

More in this chapter...

Marriage vows are central to the wedding service and the foundation of a life together. Allowing remarriage in church does not diminish their importance, so long as we make sure that there is sufficient recognition that breaking marriage vows is sinful and requires repentance and forgiveness.

The Biblical vows have survived intact from their origins in the book of Exodus, via the Jewish marriage contracts and the letter to the Ephesians and through to the early English marriage services where they have remained almost unchanged for the last thousand years. The language has evolved from "love, clothe and feed" to more general terms like "love, honour and cherish" but the underlying principles have remained the same – material support and physical affection. When we marry, we make these promises to each other, and when we break them, the marriage starts to break down, because when you fail to love or honour or cherish each other, what is left?

The Holy Spirit has ensured that we still make the same marriage vows which God recommended through Moses even though the church has forgotten their origin. It is remarkable that these vows have been preserved when we consider that the church has almost completely forgotten the Biblical principles of marriage and divorce. How did the church forget these vital principles? We will look at this question in the next chapter.