THE MARRIAGE SERVICE.

Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 148, 6 November 1886, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE MARRIAGE SERVICE.

The writer of the Ladies'. Column in the Illustrated London News says — A correspondent, signing hersel)" " G.s Fiancee," asks me, " What is the marriage ceremony at tin registry office?" It is bald, bare, and brief ; but still I think it h prettier than the Church service, which, in its obtrusion first of tho lowest view of the marriage relation, and next to the subjection of tho wife to the husband, seems to me to justify tho attacks which the Prayerbook Revision Socioty make upon it The Hon. and Rev. E. V. Bligh, the chairman of that society remarks : — "The coarse and indelicate opening exhortation to the office for the solemnisation of matrimony ha* been a source of pain and grief to thousands." There is a letter extant written by the Marchioness of Lansdowno of the time of our Queen'i? marriage, and giving an account oi that important ceremony. The Marchioness complains that tho Archbishop did not "Bowdlerize" the service, but gave the Queen and her bridegroom the whole of it, " which was very disagreeable," says her ladyship, "and when one looked at all the young things who where listening, most distressing. However, he mumbles a good deal." It is droll enough to hear that the Bervice for such an occasion is of a character to make a Marchionoss thankful that an Archbishop caunot speak plainly. But my readers may be surprised to hear that it is really arecognised practice with the fashionable clergy to spare aristocratic brides and bridesmaids parts of this rubric. I hoard this done when Lady Constance Milles was standing at the altar at St. George's, Hanoversquare, attended by eight bridesmaids, seven of whom bore titles. Another wedding immediately followed, anel performed by the same clergy ; but the bride and her maids ! were only plain " Misses," and every , \rord of the service -was read. I : j have just learned that omissions ¦ j were made at the wedding of Lady | E. Campbell, in Westminster Abbey. ; i It is surely time that a rubric should I , I bo changed officially when a custom 1 " ! has grown up of making distinctions ; !of rank in its use in this fashion. , But there are doubtless some people I ] } nowadays who look upon the prayer- ! ] 1 book as an inspirod volume, no more 1 !to be tampered with than Holy Writ , 1 1 itself. There is a good High Church j I clergyman, who held this view in 1 I the days of Charles 11., one Dr. I Swindlin, a sermon by whom on the subject reposes in a fat little tome - in our National Library. Curiously enough, Dr. Swindlin found internal evidence of inspiration in this very i sex-vice. In the Prayer of Blessing, 1 the newly-wedded couple are com- 1 pared to Isaac and Rebecca. Dr. t Swindlin points out that Isaac was 1 the only patriarch who had but one 1 wife ; so that the choice of any other 1 of them would have appeared to 1 countenance polygamy; but this c he considers too fine to have origina- f ted by the authors of the prayer- 1 book without the ajd of special i inspiration; therefore, Q.E.D. Till ] the objections of Dr. Swindlin's < modern co-believes are removed, f and the prayer-book is revised in 1 accordance with the customs of 1 speech and thought of our time, I 1 must think it not surprising that the 1 registry office marriage gains in i favoiir, as it does year by year. 1