Posh and Becks style weddings? Or something even better?

This article made me aware of just how conservative many of my colleagues must be when it comes to weddings because what the report appears to be trying to do is get them to loosen up a bit:

 Under Church rules, vicars have wide-ranging powers to decide how weddings should be conducted. While some have been prepared to experiment, many have until now taken a traditional approach and been reluctant to allow couples to innovate.

I suspect that some of them have been reluctant because they are wanting to preserve the dignity of the event -but of course that means that they run the real risk of being taste Nazis (reminds me of the saying that the Church of England would die of good taste). Now I suspect that there could be some weddings that I'd be uncomfortable to do -but I'm pretty certain that my own tolerance for 'different' is wider than most; I find myself constantly surprised at the inability of people often especially clergy to allow others to be different and even to discover in their difference some interesting and even delightful things. It's often the case that in showing an interest and being helpful we offer an affirmation which brings smiles.

But my real beef is with what this report doesn't (and probably can't) do: break the building connection. As a parish priest I've had the duty and joy of serving with congregations whose buildings are not ... well ... photogenic.  I've also been inspired by the film Robin Hood (you know, the Kevin Costner one) where the wedding of Hood and Marion takes place in a woodland clearing. That's what I want to be able to do. But to do it the law has to change: we have to stop only allowing CofE weddings in church buildings and license the clergybeing so that they could carry out the ceremony anywhere (if necessary checks could be built in to such legislation if there were concerns about trivialising or inappropriate places).
I  don't necessarily think that huge numbers would want to be wed in a forest glade or a circle of stones, but I do think that we should allow for the possibility, and I'd be keen to give it a go.
Church to allow Posh and Becks style weddings - Telegraph

Couples who delay having sex get benefits later

This seems the kind of stats that ought to ggo into sex education and relationship education. My question is whether it actually will find its way to the curriculum ...

Couples who delay having sex get benefits later, study finds:
"A statistical analysis showed the following benefits enjoyed by couples who waited until marriage compared to those who started having sex in the early part of their relationship:
* Relationship stability was rated 22 percent higher
* Relationship satisfaction was rated 20 percent higher
* Sexual quality of the relationship was rated 15 percent better
* Communication was rated 12 percent better

For couples in between -- those that became sexually involved later in the relationship but prior to marriage -- the benefits were about half as strong."
The researchers, if the report is accurate enough, seem to have spotted some of the most likely issues in their methodology. The issue may be whether the actual questioning was fair-enough ...
However, like many pieces of research, the longevity and plausibility come down to whether there is a good hypothesis as to why. The article seems to put a finger on a likely runner for that: energy/time given to developing the relationship well-roundedly.

Why married men tend to behave better

I was dimly aware of this: "Researchers have long argued that marriage generally reduces illegal and aggressive behaviors in men. It remained unclear, however, if that association was a function of matrimony itself or whether less 'antisocial' men were simply more likely to get married."

A good example of a proper question being developed out of the results of some research. I'd also want to add my question: whether legal marriage only produces these results or whether other kinds of 'household' partnership do this.

Anyway, with regard to the question as put (rather than mine), it seems that it is not either/or but both/and.

As to my question, there is one bit that seems to be tangential to it, at least. "Burt said her finding may differ from past studies because marital rates have declined significantly in recent years, whereas marriage was more of the norm in the 1950s, meaning selection likely wasn't much of a factor.

It seems that marriage 'proper' is what was studied, so no figures would be available, I would assume, to answer my question. Both the research as reported and as it would have to be to answer my question seem to be crying out for an explanatory hypothesis. What do you reckon would explain the phenomenon?

Anyway, it does seem to me that the 'why' in the title still remains to be substantiated. Without an explanatory hypothesis, it can't be.
Why married men tend to behave better

Marriage and registration

I think that it is time to reform the way that we do marriages in Britain. Take this letter in the Church Times where the correspondent tells of his daughter's wedding, in a stately home with state registrars, where a poem deemed to have religious content was banned from the main ceremony and not allowed until the registrars had left the building.

She says: "I understand that a ceremony conducted by the registrar is not a “religious” ceremony — although some of the choices of vows were “I do solemnly declare” and “I take thee . . .”, taken directly from the Book of Common Prayer. We were under the impression, however, that, as the letter included with the pack from Somerset Registration Services states, “the choice is yours” to “personalise your marriage ceremony”. This is incorrect. It should read: “the choice is only yours as long as you don’t mention God.”"

Of course, it's a hard thing: if the state registrars start 'doing' religion; where might things end? Would they end up encroaching on the rites of religious bodies? And would we have to let traffic go the other way; 'religious' registrars would have to be able to do 'non-religious' ceremonies? And would that situation be a problem any way?

I'm inclined to think that we should do one of three things. One: registrars are licensed to conduct marriages wherever (the situation in many USAmerican States, and in Australia, for example) and it is up to the families and the registrar concerned just where and by what rites the ceremony is conducted (subject to a set of standards to allow it to be a marriage or a civil partnership). Two: the state should only register civil partnerships and then religious, or other bodies would conduct blessings of the same according to their own polity and policies (which would be similar to the French, Belgian and Dutch systems). Or Three: a comination of these two: the state registers partnerships as in scenario two, but it does so either via registrars who would attend a ceremony and register it regardless of its religious content, or via making the 'celebrants' into registrars.

Personally, whatever scenario we went for, I would just like to be able to conduct a marriage ceremony anywhere acceptable. For now, I'd love it if the CofE would allow us to conduct services elsewhere than a licensed church building. I would love to conduct a marriage service in a forest or on a hilltop or even amidst standing stones ... But that would be a further battle not with state legislation but with church canon law. At the moment the two coincide, under any of the alternative scenarios, the CofE would have to decide its own terms of engagement and that would be another story.
Church Times - ‘Are you here for your banns?’ Marriage matters:

Clergymen more likely to marry for keeps

This article, Clergymen and dentists marry for keeps | Life and style | The Observer, is tantalising. It tells us that clergy and some other professions tend to produce fewer divorces. It tells us about the main way the figures were collected and worked. So we can be reasonably confident that this: "Those looking for a life of fidelity and loyalty, however, should marry agricultural engineers, optometrists, dentists, members of the clergy and podiatrists." is correct. What we don't get is clues to explain both the lower frequency /statistical likelihood in the aforementioned professions, or the higher incidence in chefs, mathematicians, urban planners etc. I guess that would be the next phase of study -or someone else's research project. What would be fascinating is to see the potential interplay of work-life balance, commitment, attitudes, workplace and home and perhaps things like general contentment. Watch this space ... or tell me if you find the follow-up studies.

The Case for Early Marriage

This The Case for Early Marriage | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction is a very intriguing and provocative article and worth reading for that. I'm still thinking about it and very happy to hear others' reactions. I did find this bit very much ringing bells for me. I think it names what, if I'm honest, I've always in my heart of hearts believed about marriage (I seem to recall formulating it as a hypothesis as a child, I think) and which seems still to be broadly right even now I've been married for some 23 years: "In reality, spouses learn marriage, just like they learn communication, child-rearing, or making love. Unfortunately, education about marriage is now sadly perceived as self-obvious, juvenile, or feminine, the domain of disparaged home economics courses. Nothing could be further from the truth.In sum, Christians need to get real about marriage: it's a covenant helpmate thing that suffers from too much idealism and too little realism.Weddings may be beautiful, but marriages become beautiful." I fear this is true and yet I also find it hopeful that it may be.

Non story of the month: Marriage-with-baptism

I am frankly a little surprised about the legs that this story grew. Mainly for all the reasons that the various reports have outlined. The CT report is here: Church Times - Marriage-with-baptism defended. And of course, the most salient facts summarised thusly: "WEDDINGS at which the couple’s children are also baptised have been legal for years, a Church House spokesman said this week. An initiative promoting such services had been criticised for giving tacit approval to sex outside marriage." So it should have been a case of 'move along folks, nothing to see here', but somehow it wasn't. Of course, the sticking point is that it seems to licence extra-marital sex; but hang on let's get over the tut-tut reaction and engage our brains a moment: do we really want to be heard to say, in effect: "We'd rather you just didn't bother us if you have made life-choices we don't like". It does seem to me that we want to be heard saying: "It's never too late to try to get things back on track". Now that's the PR angle.

The other angle is a little more tricky.
The sacramental thing.
Marriage is one thing: it's 'a gift of God in creation' and as such is something the church solemnises as part of celebrating Gods common grace. Baptism is a gift of God in the order of redemption. Unfortunately the CofE has inherited a situation it partly created, unwittingly, where baptism is used in popular culture as a creation-rite (ie to celebrate the birth of a child etc) on a par with marriage, in that sense. So the real rub is not the marriage but the confusion about baptism and that is only a problem in situations where both are contemplated togethr where the couple concerned are not really in a position psychologically or spiritually to attempt to make good on the very explicit promises required of them in the baptism service. It's a different matter if the couple concerned have come to a point where they are starting to respond actively to the gospel: in that case it is very appropriate for wedding and baptism to be held together. However, if that is not the situation it really would be better for churches to have a policy of using a very first rate non-baptismal 'christening' (a suitably well-done Thanksgiving is actually more appropriate to the needs, see my research and various church policies being operated up and down the land without any serious problem).
But then I would say that; I'm on the exec of Baptismal Integrity ...

‘Healthier to be wed’

While this sounds like it makes a pragmatic case for valuing marriage and therefore a case to support marriage as part of social policy, I have concerns. The CT report is here: Church Times - ‘Healthier to be wed’ and the guts of the report are, I judge, this: "The Centre’s research found that co-habiting couples were more than twice as likely as married couples to break up, and that, on average, half of all cohabiting couples will break up by a child’s fifth birthday, compared with just one in 12 married couples.
The findings suggested that children from lone-parent families were 75 per cent more likely to fail at school, and 70 per cent more likely to succumb to drug addiction."
It's obviously one of those things to read more and further because what is stated above is tantalisingly brief. The main difficulty is that without a fuller exploration of the factors that produce the figures, it is hard to assess the significance. Why are co-habitees more likely to break up? Is it something intrinsic to either state or extrinsic but collateral? What would it be about lone-parent families that would produce the shocking figures above? It should be noted that it is a right-ish wing think tank set up by IDS.

One of the interesting bits in the CSJ report is a refutation of the idea that there were a lot of informal relationships in times past; it would seem that studies indicate that 98% of cohabitations were supported by records of a marriage (p.49-50).

Divorce rate at its lowest for 26 years

Only the figures look a bit fragile and tenuous so perhaps it's too early to celebrate or learn much as yet. Go here to see more. Divorce rate at its lowest for 26 years | UK news | guardian.co.uk. One thing that would be needed to interpret is to compare with marriage rate and cohabitation figures. Perhaps, after a generation or two of people learning the new social rules, we are coming to a point where tacit knowledge on getting and staying married have caught up with the change social attitudes and conditions ... ?

Marriage still in fashion – finances are the problem

At one level this is no surprise, though it is good to see some evidence-basis beyond the anecdotal and admittedly not-so-random sampling of personal encounter and conversation. This is the articleMarriage still in fashion – finances are the problem - Times Online: and here's one of the most important findings. "Of those cohabiting, eight out of ten wanted to wed. The most frequently found reason for wanting to marry was to indicate commitment, another large proportion saying that the institution provided a stable environment to bring up children." Which all sounds good. Though I'd also want to ask questions about the 'tell me what you think I want to hear' factor. In other words how far are these statements of aspiration to which respondents are reasonably committed and how far, like losing weight or giving up smoking, are they aspirations which are 'some other time, when ...'?

We are also told that "The main reason for not having yet married was having not met the right person, but almost a quarter of those surveyed said it was financial: either they could not afford the wedding or were waiting for things to improve, for instance so that they could buy a home". Again, anecdotal evidence is supported. And maybe this is a big part of the aspiration 'if/when ...'. The difficulty is that in the meantime, we have, consensually but not consciously, as a society, created a new pattern of pair bonding where formal, legal, marriage is a staging post later on. What is the new meaning for a wedding and a marriage in this case? It cannot mean what it did: the start of a committed and intendedly stable relationship which is safeguarded socially and in which children may be brought up. The privatising of the relationship may mean that many couples are 'married' well before their nuptuals, though the public side of that may be somewhat inconclusive compared to previous 'marriage'; are they intending a lifelong partnership or is this a trial-run? Is cohabiting mainly a convenience or a statement of intent? Now let's note that in some cases, particularly where divorce is easy and frequent, these kinds of questions adhere to marriage too. So this is not so much an issue about legal marriage as about a society's ability to sustain and nurture stable partnerships -whatever the recognition structures may be. We should note an important and likely interpretation of the results, "Marriage signals, rather than generates, commitment," The report itself, identifies the main factor to promote marriage and stability as being freedom from deprivation. Yet another piece of social research (and the linked post links to still more research) that indicates that if we want to build a society of greater 'moral worth', we have to pay attention to reducing absolute and relative poverty: otherwise all we are doing is letting the rich feel morally superior because of their good fortune or because they can hide from the injustice of how they gained and maintain their prosperity while blaming the poor who can't buy distance from their wrong.

Married Men Really Do Do Less Housework

... than 'live-in boyfriends'. Grouch Marx is supposed to have quipped that marriage is a great institution -but who wants to live in an institution? Well, the answer would seem to be that women (and men) who want an equal approach to housework, at least according to the findings of this large sample and cross-cultural study:

"it suggests the institution of marriage changes the division of labor. Couples with an egalitarian view on gender--seeing men and women as equal--are more likely to divide the household chores equally. However, in married relationships, even if an egalitarian viewpoint is present, men still report doing less housework than their wives. 'Marriage as an institution seems to have a traditionalizing effect on couples--even couples who see men and women as equal,' "

I'm actually not surprised: the mental schemas about marriage are implied and passed on tacitly through many sources, little wonder they should have an effect in actual behaviour in the agregate at least. The interesting thing is the cohabitation dimension. There are those who reject traditional marriage precisely because of the inequalities. I didn't have too much sympathy with that viewpoint until a read this; but not I think I'm getting it more. It's a challenge to Christians who genuine do believe in an egalitarian approach; the weight of tradition may be prooving to be a dead-weight in our attempts to reform the institution. Perhaps it is time for us to take more seriously what we mean by marriage in a social context that seems almost irreformably unequal ... In fact, do we really want 'marriage' in the terms it has been handed down to us? And if not, how do we take on the task of adjusting to or from the social psychology of it?

ScienceDaily: Married Men Really Do Do Less Housework Than Live-in Boyfriends: