The Royal Wedding

Just before the sudden killing of Bin Laden all the news was about the marriage of the British heir to the throne and his commoner bride. They certainly gave the appearance of a fairy-tale couple, he the prince charming and she the beautiful princess.  While everyone knew that they had been living together for about 8 years already, the world just overlooked that as if it simply didn't matter. All the focus was on the fairy tale of the lovely couple who would live happily ever after.

To some degree I can understand why such fanfare was expected for a public personage like the heir to the British throne, as it would not look good to become king with a common law marriage. The laws around common law marriage have been changing as co-habitation has become more common, but when I was growing up in Ohio, the law was that after 7 years of co-habitation you were considered married for purposes of estate, health care, children and property rights. As far as I am concerned, the royal couple was already married, whether they admitted it or not. While it would be unseemly to talk about 'William and his common-law wife, Kate' when talking about the royal family, that was in fact the reality. What I do not understand is why the church would pretend otherwise in conducting a church wedding for them.

Back in the early 80's one of the shift supervisors at the paper mill where I worked was living with a woman and he was contemplating getting officially married. This was to be his fourth marriage, but he said he 'of course' wanted a church wedding. I asked him why. He did not attend church regularly and was not sure he believed in God. So then why, I asked, would he want a church wedding since he clearly was not part of the church? Well, it just seemed like the right way to have a wedding to him. It was the way you did it.

I recently read The Shadow of Almighty by Elizabeth Elliot, which is about the life of Jim Elliot, her martyred husband. Back in 1953 he complained that 'Twentiety century Christian weddings are the vainest, most meaningless forms. There is no vestige of reality.' He and Elizabeth were married in a civil ceremony in Quito, with 2 other missionary couples present as witnesses. Very simple. He simply couldn't abide the vain events that weddings had become. It has gotten worse since then.

The wedding ceremony is loaded with symbolism, most of it made a mockery in the recent royal wedding. The white dress represents the purity and virginity of the bride which was clearly not the case; the giving away by the father of bride shows that she is leaving his house to dwell now with the groom, obviously no longer appropriate; the vows are made before God to obey God, but His commands about fornication had long since been flagrantly discarded. The entire event made a mockery of what a Christian wedding should be, just like it would have been for my co-worker in Ohio back in the 1980's, but that is pretty much the norm today. 

It was a lovely event. They make a lovely couple. And it was all meaningless. I hope their marriage proves to be more meaningful than their wedding.