The Coalition For Marriage have put forward a proposal requiring there to be a civil ceremony prior to or during a religious ceremony and to forbid religious ceremonies from taking place without the legal bits being in place. Now, I must admit that my first reaction was surprise that the Coalition For Marriage was still going given that it was set up specifically to campaign against the Equal Marriage Act back in 2012. It is unclear as to is now in this coalition and so whose views are represented by this proposal.[1]
The specific proposal is to “stop parallel marriages” and has a specific focus on Sharia or Muslim marriages. For this reason, a number of people have said that they cannot support the proposal including John Stevens on Facebook and Steve Kneale here. I am in agreement with them. A proposal that is framed in this way preys into the climate of fear we currently see being enflamed against Muslims.[2] For this reason, I agree with John and Steve.
However, I also agree with Steve, that if you remove the specific focus on Muslims and fear of Muslims that there is a legitimate question about whether or not the UK should permit these, essentially private/closed off religious marriage ceremonies without some form of legal/civil involvement.
It’s worth pointing out at this stage that Steve and I differ over the question of Church and State involvement in marriage and have debated that specific subject in the past. Steve has provided some links to his views in his article and you can read my position here. Our difference however is not over whether or not there needs to be a legal/civic element to the marriage but rather whether or not that amounts to the State being responsible for it. My take is that marriage is a public matter and therefore the business of the whole of society because of this it has a legal dimension. In that respect, the State should be very careful about stepping in to provide its own unique definitions of marriage.
There are important reasons as to why marriage should be public and governed by law. These are primarily to do with protection of the husband and wife (and often it is the potential wife who needs the greater protection). This means that it is not an issue limited to Islamic weddings. Indeed, John Stevens’ argues against the proposals because they would prevent those who disagree ideologically with the State’s oversight of marriage from conducting their own weddings. However, it is reasonable at this point to ask “on what basis would we disagree?”
I guess some might disagree because of a very particular interpretation of “Lex Rex”, itself a fallible bit of political theory rather than biblical doctrine. So, it is possible I guess for some to claim that there are three independent spheres of authority: Church, Family and State (Crown) but note that this doesn’t work because first, these three spheres could never be seen as completely divorced from one another (pardon the pun), the Church after all has a stake in what happens in the Christian’s home. Second, because Lex Rex is all about the rule of law, so all three spheres are meant to be under the Law. We therefore have to be careful that we don’t. especially in a multi-faith society take marriage outside from under the rule of Law.
There are two crucial clues as to why we can’t just remove the law from marriage. First, the description of it as a “marriage covenant”. That word covenant points to something that is legally binding, it’s not just an experience and more than a private arrangement. The Law is specifically there to oversee our public relationships.[3] Secondly, the presence, historically in the vows of the question “does anyone know of any lawful impediment.”[4] Note the word “lawful”. It’s not “any reason”. The law controls the parameters of who can and cannot enter this covenant (as indeed it would any covenant). Take that out and you are left with no more than a blessing, which is fine if you have already got the binding covenant in place.
Apart from that, whilst people may object to changes that are perceived to have altered the meaning of marriage, I’m not sure that marriage is likely to ever limit people from being married when we believe that they should be.[5]
So, what the Law does, is it ensures that a couple are freely consenting to get married, without compulsion and that they are lawfully in a position to do so, This means that it prevents underage marriage, forced marriage and polygamous marriage. Those are the restrictions around marriage and it is worth asking why anyone would want to go outside of those boundaries.
Sadly, I can think of three examples of where this might be a risk. First, one of the reasons why the USA has had to tighten up against child-marriages is because in some states, historically there has been a loophole on age restrictions where the girl is pregnant. One concern with this is that it opens the door to coercion, especially where there may have been rape, an abusive relationship and a much older male party. Now what this means is that those child marriages may also in effect be forced-arranged marriages. I suspect that the laws around marriage here have protected against such a risk.
The other scenario is to do with what happens when an unfaithful husband decides to move on with another partner? Again, sadly, when it comes to taking on someone who has been unfaithful and so subject to church discipline, I find that churches don’t take much notice of this. In such cases, at least, as things stand, there are constraints. He must wait for a divorce before remarrying and the divorce process means that his ex-wife and children stand a chance of being provided for. There is however, nothing to stop him from entering a religious marriage to his new partner. Indeed, if the tie between state/the law is broken then this also gives the religious body power over divorce as well as marriage. Again, that makes one party potentially very vulnerable.
What happens if one party turns out to be abusive, a deserting unbeliever or adulterous? Those are considered legitimate reasons for divorce by many but not all Christians. Yet who is actually able to grant a divorce. It really has to be the same people who granted the marriage. Yet what if the church doesn’t agree with divorce or the specific grounds? Supposing as many of us have seen, one party may bs able to influence the elders of the church and get their way. Does that mean the other party is now trapped in the marriage. Then if course, there is the question about what happens when a couple move from church A to church B but church B don’t recognise church A and therefore the marriage? The challenge is that once religious communities set up their own jurisdiction outside of the law, it closes them off and traps people inside. We have words to describe such situations.
For those reasons, to protect against child marriage, forced marriage, polygamy and privatised divorce, I agree that all marriages should be in the eyes of the Law.
[1] C$M list two directors on their website, Rob Badhams, former FIEC Administrator and Andrea Minchello-Williams of Christian Concern which does rather leave it looking as though C4M is another outlet for Christian Concern.
[2] I realise that some will try to shutdown any criticism of the proposal by saying that we have all got caught up in a woke agenda to use the concept of Islamophobia to block criticism of Islam. So, it is important to be clear about what this fear is. It is a fear of people from specific ethnicities, often dressed up as a criticism of a religion.
[3] Indeed, it is important for this to be present in human to human covenants because it points to the crucial legal dimension to our covenant relationship, indeed a marriage covenant relationship with Christ where his church is the bride. The legal element to that is seen in penal substitution and justification. These are the basis for our faith union.
[4] Whilst this wording is not legally required now, it is often kept in and sums up what has happened in a process whether via notification at the registry office and self-declaration prior to the ceremony or the Wedding Banns in a Church of England setting.
[5] The one, very rare possible challenge to this is where a couple are being held up from getting married due to immigration status and lack of crucial documents. I have as it happens been asked to conduct a religious only wedding in such a context once. I declined because in fact, Human Rights laws and Treaties confer crucial rights on the couple here and because we would still need the same information to verify the legitimacy of the marriage. In terms of changes to the definition of marriage, the 2013 Marriage Act doesn’t actually do this, contrary to public perception. In fact, it does not get into the nuts and bolts of what marriage is and is not. Instead it simply permits people in same-sex relationships to have a ceremony and call it marriage.
Faithroots 