Â鶹Éç

Available for over a year

Please say after me: I Murdoch (I Murdoch) take you, Mhairi (take you Mhairi) to be my wife... It seems that words such as these are not echoing so frequently in Scottish churches these days, as more couples opt for a humanist marriage ceremony, something which has been legal in Scotland for well over a decade. I can't say I'm disappointed. In some ways I'm quite pleased, and I imagine that some of my clerical colleagues might feel the same. You see, in Scotland, as in England there is an 'established' church. That term indicates that the Church of Scotland is, by statute, responsible for offering the services of religion to those residing in its parishes. In the main this is with regard to weddings and funerals; services which other denominations can also offer. But it meant that we Christians had a monopoly on marriages whether people were believers or not. Well into the 1970s, it would have been considered at worst a disgrace, and at best a poor substitute to be married in a registry office; so most people got married in church. Now, in a more image conscious era, priests and ministers sometimes find themselves compromised not by an interfering mother-in-law-to-be who wants her daughter's wedding to be a replica of her own; no, now it's wedding designers and video camera operators who want a nervous couple who are not Hollywood stars and a church which is not a filmset to host the grand production. That apart, I believe there is a lack of both integrity and respect in asking people who do not profess any faith to pretend otherwise for 40 minutes in a building which might be as alien to them as a mortuary. Humanist marriages are not, as I understand, anti-religious. But they do allow a couple who would prefer not to be married in church to have a decent and sometimes more creative option. And if this challenges churches to amend some mediaeval traditions, well and good. The best marriages I have celebrated were where the bride and groom arrived first at the church to greet all their guests at the door, rather than have the bride arrive late for good luck and then be publicly transferred like a piece of property from her father to her fiancé. I also encourage the couple to face their invited guests rather than turn their backs to them. And as regards asking the groom to 'say after me', that practice comes from a time when many people were illiterate. I believe that most grooms can read now.