Private Marriage Vows: When Legal Marriage Is Not An Option

It is not living in sin, it is not playing house, it is not practicing for the real thing. It is a legitimate option for people who cannot, or are unwilling to, get legally married. It is the practice of taking private marriage vows.

It's not a common practice by any stretch of the imagination. Very few people do it, but is that simply because it is very much an unknown option? Is it because society pressures us to tell the government and any church we are affiliated with that we are in love and committed to building a life with another person?

Taking private marriage vows is a personal commitment, and it is true that some couples may find it easier to dissolve a marriage that has been finalized in this way. However, for those couples who are truly dedicated to having a married life but cannot do it for one reason or another, the marriage may be just as strong as, if not stronger than, a marriage that has been governmentally sanctioned.

There are many reasons a couple would choose to go this route rather than get legally married. A couple may be of the opinion that the government should have no say in a person's married life, or a couple may be put under undue financial burden if they become legally married. A couple may be unable to get legally married for any number of reasons, including same-sex couples in many countries, or couples in which one of the members is transsexual. Many countries will even bar intersex persons from getting married, since they are not considered to be male OR female. Some couples will simply refuse to get legally married until it is legal for everyone, including homosexual and transsexual persons.

My wife and I said private marriage vows before we got legally married. At the time, I was going to college in Ohio and she was living and working in British Columbia, Canada. We said our vows over the phone. Something just felt right about doing it that way. We couldn't wait to get married, and as soon as we said our vows together, everything fell into place. It felt right to be together, and it hurt even more when we had to be apart for that first Christmas and birthday set, making for a very miserable December. The only thing that got us through it all was the daily phone calls. My cell phone cost me way too much money that month!

We chose private marriage vows not only because it felt wrong to us not to be married, but also because we felt that it would be nearly impossible to hold a "real" wedding any time soon. We did not have much money between us, and had not fully decided at the time whether I would move to Canada or she would move to the US. If she moved to be with me, then legal marriage would not have been possible.

Almost a year later we did get legally married, but it was a formality for my immigration paperwork. It was not important to us to become legally married. We plan to have a wedding later, with a renewal of vows rather than a marriage celebration. This is so that we can have the experience of being brides and having our families there. This occasion is much more important to us than our little exchange in the park. Neither one of us feels that it was a real marriage, because our real one happened the year before.

Many people, especially older couples. have to have private marriage vows rather than legal weddings due to their financial situations. I specifically read about an older, Catholic couple, where the man was living one a rather pathetic pension, and the woman was getting a tiny amount of money from her deceased husband's funds. If she remarried, not only would she lose her first husband's money, but her new husband would lose a portion of his money as well. They could not survive like that. The Priest who actually answered their letter, told them about the acceptability of private marriage vows in the Catholic Church. Since there is no certificate given, it is not a legal marriage, however the Church recognizes them as a married couple because matrimony is a sacrament that is bestowed upon the two people being joined and sealed by God, it is not performed by a Priest upon two people. Even the Catholics don't consider this living in sin, so why should anyone else?