11. Wedding Customs

the duties of the married state; the Roman ritual instructs the pastor to see whether they know the rudiments of the faith, so that they may teach them to their children. Such an examination is prescribed in some Evangelical churches. The modern usage of having groomsmen and bridesmaids is a relic of ancient usage (cf. John iii. 29; Matt. xxv. 1-13). The custom of having a paranymphus for the bridegroom and a paranympha for the bride remained usual in the East; they were compared to the sponsors in baptism. In the West the custom is referred to as regular by the Fourth Synod of Carthage (398). It fell in with the old Teutonic law, which required the bride to be handed over to her husband by her former guardian.

The wedding-ring is a symbol of great antiquity. Rings were used in Roman law for symbols of other mutual contracts, but especially of marriage (Pliny, Hist. naturalis, xxxiii. 1). The Christian Church early adopted the use, which is mentioned by Tertullian (Apol., vi.). That as late as the seventh or even the ninth century the ring was given at the first betrothal is attested by Isidore of Seville and by Pope Nicholas I. Later it was given at the wedding, and frequently two rings were exchanged. The ceremony of giving the ring varies in different places. According to the Roman ritual, it is blessed by the priest and placed by the bridegroom upon the bride's third finger. The reason for the selection of this finger is the ancient belief that a large vein led from it directly to the heart. The use of wreaths as part of the bridal attire was avoided by the early Christians in order to differ from the pagans and Jews (Justin, I Apol. ix.; Tertullian, De corona, v. 13). Later it not only came in but

197

acquired a special significance. In the Greek Church it became customary for the priest to place wreaths or "crowns" upon the heads of both bride and groom, though the strict rule forbade this except where the bride was a virgin. In the West the custom never attained so much importance, because the veil was early preferred, as is shown by Ambrose, Isidore, and Nicholas I. In Germany, however, wreaths long remained very common, and the restriction of their use to virgins was in many places definitely laid down by both civil and ecclesiastical law. At the present day such matters depend upon local custom.

(H. F. Jacobson†.)

II. Marriage Law.--1. History of Marriage Law: From the Christian doctrine of marriage, even in its ecclesiastical development, no new marriage law could be deduced because the relation of marriage is not a part of the plan of redemption. Nevertheless, it became necessary that, under its influence, both usage and marriage law itself should experience a partial renewal in Christendom. It ¹ became incumbent upon the Church to lay down principles; and gradually, together with the development of the dogma that marriage among Christians is a sacrament, the concept developed in the Western Church that the Church has the exclusive right of making marriage laws for Christians. The Council of Trent confirmed this dogma with great firmness and precision (Sess. xxiv., Can. 1: "Whoever shall affirm that matrimony is not truly and properly one of the seven sacraments of the Evangelical law, instituted by Christ Our Lord, but that it is a human invention introduced into the Church, and does not confer grace, let him be anathema"; and also, as the inference [Canon 12]: "Whoever shall affirm that matrimonial causes do not belong to the ecclesiastical judges, let him be anathema"). Jurisdiction in matrimonial affairs is here expressly asserted by the Church, which also indirectly claims control of the laws, since, according to the Roman system, it is a matter of course that ecclesiastical judges can decide only according to ecclesiastical laws and not after secular legal norms, unless the latter are acknowledged by the Church. Long before the Reformation a complete ecclesiastical marriage law had developed and become a part of the canon law in the West, and had obtained exclusive authority, especially in Germany.

Luther controverted the sacramental character of matrimony and declared it to be a purely secular relation, subject to the laws of the civil authority ("Apology," xiii.). That marriage is ² commanded of God and has divine promises was decidedly asserted, as well as that Christian authorities are bound to be guided in making and executing marriage laws by the utterances of divine revelation. The supplement to the Schmalkald Articles, §§ 80-81, declares the establishment of special courts for marriage affairs to be an ecclesiastical necessity. In accordance with these ideas in German Evangelical countries, Scriptural corrections of the canonical marriage laws were introduced into the church disciplines promulgated by the rulers in accordance with the advice of theologians, and the consistories were charged with matrimonial jurisdiction. Marriage legislation and its execution were based entirely upon the harmonious cooperation of Church and State. Toward the middle of the eighteenth century, following the example of Prussia, a complete transformation of these relations was gradually brought about. In Prussia, by an edict dated May 10, 1749, the jurisdiction of the consistories in general, especially in marriage affairs, was abolished and transferred to the regular secular courts; while the laws were soon modified in such a way that marriage was contracted exclusively from a secular point of view without the aid of the Church. Nevertheless, though the religious significance of marriage was entirely disregarded, the religious ceremony of marriage was inadvertently retained.

The fundamental idea of this legislation, foreign to the Reformers and to the Evangelical Church, according to which civil legislation pays no regard to the religious meaning of marriage, ³ but leaves it entirely to the Church to assert these relations of marriage by influencing the conscience, had its origin in the Roman Catholic Church of France, where the debate arose concerning what in Christian marriage constitutes the materia sacramenti and what the agent or minister sacramenti. A distinction should be made, according to the opinion which prevailed in France, between the contractus naturalis and sacramentalis. The contract made by the parties received its sacramental character from the priest (as the minister sacramenti) through his benediction (materia). The State must fix the conditions under which the civil marriage contract could be made and annulled. The priest could only bless the marriage (which was valid as a civil marriage contract), and this he need not do in case of ecclesiastical impediments; but his withholding the blessing must not prejudice the validity of the marriage, provided it was contracted in a form recognized by the law of the State (cf. E. Friedberg, Recht der Eheschliessung, Leipsic,1865, pp. 546 sqq.). The popes always rejected this doctrine without plainly deciding what was to be regarded as materia and who as minister sacramenti in the marriage, though both by their rejection and by the enactments of the Council of Trent (see below) the Roman Catholic Church indirectly taught that the materia sacramenti was the intended union of man and wife in accordance with ecclesiastical law, and that the parties to the marriage were the ministri sacramenti. The French theory here set forth has been made the basis of civil legislation by the Roman Catholic states of Germany, with the addition of an obligatory civil marriage form, following the example of the French law of 1792.

Upon the theory that the Church has authority to make a partial marriage law is based the distinction between ratum and legitimum matrimonium, i.e., between a marriage answering to the ecclesiastical demands and one meeting the requirements of secular legal provisions (ef. Corpus juris canonici, causa xxviii., quæstio 1, dictum of Gratian). According to canon law, a matrimonium ratum non legitimum

198