EXCHANGE OF WEDDING RINGS

Otago Witness, Issue 3574, 12 September 1922, Page 29

EXCHANGE OF WEDDING RINGS

NEW MARRIAGE SERVICE. LONDON, June 28. Greville Place, Congregational Chapel, Maida Vale, is making history. The joint pastorship is held by the Rev. Claud Coltman and his wife, the Rev. Constance C. Ooldtman, BD. (Lond.). Mr and Mrs Coltmail were fellow-students together at Mansfield College, Oxford. They were married the. day after the girl minister was ordained, and became assistant ministers together in the East End, where they carried on together the Darby Street Mission for the King’s Weigh House Church. On Saturday the Rev. Constance Colt man officiated at a wedding and read a marriage service of her own composing. The bridegroom (Mr A. H. H. Draper, of St. John’s Wood) was placed on the right side of hia bride (Miss Ethel M. Parker), when Mrs Coltman began the service by saying: “Marriage is ordained of God for the exalting and perfecting of love through the union of body, mind, and spirit, and for the calling of men and women into partnership with Hi 3 own creative love. It was hallowed by our Lord, both by His presence and by Ilia solemn words. It has been consecrated by the faithful keeping of men and women in every generation.” NO “ OBEY.” Both the bride and bridegroom plighted their troth with a ring, and as each placed the ring on the other’s finger, said, “As tins ring now’ encircles thy finger, so let m y love surround thee all the days of thy life." Husband, and wife took precisely the same vows to “love, comfort, honour, and keep, in sickness, and in health,” and to cleave unto each other alone, “so long as ye both sliall live.” The word “obey” did not occur throughout the service. A CRITIC OF CUSTOM. “I regard the marriage service as an insult to women and an offence to the parity and holiness of marriage,” said Mrs Coltman to a journalist. “I have deleted from the service everything that implies the inferiority of women or that marriage is in any way an unclean tiling.” Mrs Coltman often christens three infante a day, and she uses a service composed by herself. “ The christening service I use ia not to absolve an innocent bal>e from sin, but to dedicate its life in service to humanity,” she explains. Before officiating at the wedding. Mrs Coltman made preliminary inquiries from the Congregational Union as to the legality of the act, and she was told that as there were women registrars she was entitled to perform the ceremony. “It was an ‘all-woman’ service—a woman minister, a woman organist, and a choir of women. Sure 1 j’ the Sex Disqualification Act (she remarks) gives me the right to marry people, as I am an ordained minister. In any case, the civil registrar was present.” An authority discussing this wedding thought, that tho omission of words of the service which were of an ecclesiastical nature would not affect the validity of the marriage, provided t.hat certain essential words—such as the troth, for instance—were repeated by the pair