Cherish is the Word

Since death did part me from my mom, I have been sifting through her time in a box. I found the wedding vows of my mother's mother and father, part of a beautiful booklet published by The Methodist Book Concern in 1916. .

The vows went like this: I Russell, take thee, Carrie, to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my faith. And then she said the same to him, except he became the wedded husband. Then Russell gave Carrie a ring and said: With this ring I thee wed, and with my worldly goods I thee endow, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Meanwhile, my Botswana book friend, Mma Romatswe*, was ruminating on the wedding vows:

"She was not sure that it was ever right to read somebody else's letters or private papers unless you were certain that it was the only way of averting some very serious consequence. Or... and there were other exceptions. Errant husbands, for instance, could hardly complain if a wife, or somebody acting for the wife, read the letters they might write to their mistresses. That was because a wife has a right to read her husband's letters, in Mma Ramotwe's view, because he agreed to that in the marriage ceremony; not that those exact words were used, but they were surely implied. Perhaps it might be better to spell it out in the wedding service, where it might be put tactfully, along with the general promise to share. I promise to share all my worldly goods - including letters, parcels, and other items of correspondence, opened or unopened. Perhaps that sounded a bit too formal, but no doubt there were ways of saying the same thing in a warmer, more romantic way."

Which brought me to my own wedding vows of 1974. The conventional vows of the day had the woman promise to love, honor, and obey. How did we get from the egalitarian love and cherish of 1916 to the hierarchical love, honor and obey of 1974. Was it just my own denomination? I didn't think so. I thought it was in all the wedding scenes in movies and real life that I had ever witnessed. To suggest leaving out the "obey" part left me vulnerable to raised eyebrows and  accusations of "feminist."   Nevertheless "obey" was for kids, and I wasn't marrying my father. I thought to push against "obey" was pushing against patriarchal time immemorial. I just found out I was wrong. Something happened after 1916. I wonder what.


*Mma Ramotswe is from the The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection by Alexander McCall Smith