Religion: Weddings v. Marriages

Are marriages registered in heaven, or just at the town hall? If a marriage is not a holy sacrament, as well as a civil contract, says the Most Rev. and Rt. Hon. Cyril Forster Garbett, Archbishop of

York, it had best be clearly understood which kind of arrangement a marriage is.

Last week, lamenting the fact that Britain has drifted so far from “the Christian conception of marriage,” the Archbishop pointed out the mounting pile of divorce pleas on Britain’s dockets.* Said he: “Marriage is no longer regarded . . . either as a sacrament or as a holy estate, but as a contract which can be broken fairly easily by mutual consent. The old idea of marriage is gone, and with it divorce is condoned.”

While adultery is the chief cause of divorce in England, Dr. Garbett does not believe that adultery is always good grounds: “Often [adultery] is committed under circumstances of great strain and temptation, with the person committing the sin never really losing love for wife or husband.”

Neither should divorce be outlawed when adultery is good grounds. But, says the Archbishop, since the Church will not change its position on the sanctity of marriage, perhaps most weddings should be mere civil ceremonies. Thus, only certain couples could expect the holy blessing of the Church: those who “accept [its] doctrine against divorce.”

Anglican doctrine: marriage is for life, and the remarriage of divorced persons is never recognized by the Church as a true marriage. Sole exception: the innocent party in a divorce for adultery may remarry.

*The Archbishop’s statistics for England and Wales: 1858, 24 divorces; 1914, 600; 1945, waiting to be heard in London alone, 4,000.