Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Kevin on August 19, 2009 at 10:49pm

I personally do not believe in marriage - nothing to do with my atheism. You do not have to get married in the house of god - there are humanists that can legally marry you, if you so desire.

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Permalink Reply by Adam on August 19, 2009 at 11:14pm

I'm engaged, but it is nothing to do with religion, and the church will have nothing to do with our wedding when we get to it. If your partner is in hospital, for instance, there may be cases when only relatives can visit. In such cases, you aren't allowed to visit unless you are married

Just don't bother with a church wedding or blessing.

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Permalink Reply by Sentient Biped on August 19, 2009 at 11:20pm

I view marriage as a way of accepting that I can't go it alone. It's an acknowlegement that I need someoone, and need to be needed. There are financial advantages of course. There is also the understanding that each takes care of the other. If ill, there is someone there. If tired, there is someone there. There is someone who needs my care at times, what goes round, comes round. Pair bonding has advantages to both members of the pair. Sometimes there is someone there to annoy me, too, but that is part of the deal.

Legally sanctioned marriage means that the state recognises the partnership along with the rights and responsibilities. There are times when one partner needs to act in the interest of the other, and the marriage is a shorthand way to make that possible.

That doesn't mean it's for everyone, at every stage of life. It also doesn't mean that it needs any religious connotation.

If a state changes to a domestic partner system, where the partners have the same recognition, rights, and responsibilites as married parthers, the "marriage" is not needed. In the US, at least, that has a snowball's chance in hell of taking place.

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Permalink Reply by Lori Wenger on August 20, 2009 at 2:30pm

My husband and I were together for 16 years before we got married. We'd already had our two kids and knew we were each committed to spend our lives together. When we finally got married it was during a trip to Las Vegas that just happened to fall on the anniversary of when we met, so we thought, "What the hell!" LOL

We ended up getting married at Graceland Chapel (I wasn't really pleased about being in a church), but it was a good deal and we actually convinced the Elvis impersonator who owns the chapel to do the cerimony instead of a priest... He usually only does vow renewals. It was a blast!

You can find us by searching "Lori and Rick Vegas Wedding" on Youtube. :)

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Permalink Reply by Crazy Cat Lady on August 20, 2009 at 5:36pm

It was my husband who really wanted to get married, I was rather ambivalent, after all we were already living together. First we were going to elope, but later decided to have a little ceremony, in the end it was nice for the family.

My husband and I had a JP and got married at a beautiful Bed and Breakfast. It was great because our honeymoon suite was there, his family stayed in the upstairs rooms. I got married on a Wednesday and had the place to ourselves. We got married in the parlor and had the reception in the dining/reception room with food and open bar :). Had only immediate friends and family, I think there were only 27 people. We were able to take pictures there, I did not have to do a thing really, the hosts took care of everything.

I bought a nice champagne colored dress on the internet for $100.00 and I think the total cost for the wedding only $1500.

I think because it was small, it was more intimate and meant more that the big weddings you go to. After all the day goes really fast. But after the fact, I am glad we did get married, it made our friendship more special.

A word of advice though, if you get married during the week, be sure to remind the JP, ours was an hour late as he almost forgot about our wedding and we had to call him. On the bright side he gave all our money back that we had to pay him.

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Permalink Reply by MrBiggMan on August 21, 2009 at 11:40am

Lots of stuff may or may not have religious roots. You can't really know for sure if the origin of marriage is secular or religious.

The fact is that marriage is a secular government contract. You buy a "licence" and you are "legal partners". There's no church required to start or end the contract.

- It's only as religious as you make it.

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Permalink Reply by Miisa on August 21, 2009 at 11:49am

Marriage shouldn't be religion's monopoly, people have likely been pairing off into life-long relationships since the beginning of human societies. Most religions have something like marriage written into their dogma simply because religions grew up in human societies and were (and always shrived to be) integral parts of them, they would hardly leave something so central to human behavior out.
Let's take marriage back!

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Permalink Reply by Louis on August 21, 2009 at 11:53am

You don't need to be married in a church.

In any case its religious roots shouldn't really bother you since you're not doing it, if you're doing it, for religious reasons -- and there are plenty of perfectly rational reasons to get married.

I still celebrate Christmas because I love the whole concept of presents and eating a lot; I couldn't care less about the birth of Zombie-Jew or the Big Fat Red Guy who gave birth to Zombie-Jew -- or something. I still celebrate Easter because I like chocolate. I celebrate and get dressed up for Halloween because it's fun. I know that there really was no race in heaven among 12 animals but I still celebrate Chinese New Year with my family because I like watching stuff get blown up.

You don't need to believe in all the stupid shit associated with something to still get the benefit of participating in it.

So yes, it's perfectly rational to get married.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Baker on August 21, 2009 at 1:32pm

me and the missus got married in an american legion hall by my best friend and future sister-in-law.
we decided to get married after having been together for a couple of years mainly so I could have health insurance and we'd get better money back on our taxes(which helped pay for a storage building since my wife's a hoarder).Other than that we could have been perfectly happy living together for a long time

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Permalink Reply by Rev Hellbound Alleee on August 22, 2009 at 6:38pm

You decision about marriage depends on your feelings toward the state. If you need the State to sanction your relationship, then do it. Yes, marriage was about passing the daughter from the father to the husband. It doesn't have to be that way. You do not have to be "the bride." A wedding need not be offered as your big, final, best-day-of-your-life. Your last day as a princess. That's nonsense. You can legalize, finalize, paperize, privatize, sanitize your relationship in any way you wish. If that involves being a "princess" or just a nice party to announce your relationship to whomever you wish, then go for it. You don't really need the State or a Church to tell you what your relationship is, but if that's what you need to have happen, do it.

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Permalink Reply by Robert Head on August 22, 2009 at 6:49pm

I would get married purely for its ceremonial value but I wouldn't take my vows. I think that no religious stigmatisms should be put on non-marriage or conceiving out of wedlock. If you love someone, marriage is irrelevant.

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Permalink Reply by OutlawGirl on August 22, 2009 at 7:06pm

Get married anyway! I'll give you a perfectly good reason why.

At the time of this post, it is Saturday, August 22. The word "Saturday" is thought to have two sources. The first, the oldest source for the word is the Roman god Saturn. Then of course there is the Hebrew sabbath.

The day before was Friday. "Friday" was once known as the day sacrad to the Norse goddess of beauty, Frigga (also known as Freya). In Germanic Friday is translated as Freitag.

If you want to avoid gods all together you may as well throw out the whole calander. The word "June" is thought to come from the goddess Juno. March is thought to be named for the Roman god of war, Mars. Ever eaten ceral? If you really want to be a devout atheist, you might want to cut that out, or at least come up with a new name for ceral, which is named for Ceres, the goddess of agriculture. For more on this, I recommend reading Parallel Myths by J. F. Bierlein. Really fascinating stuff. =)

Mythology is a beautiful part of our culture, it opens the doors to our past. So embrace mythology (but don't believe in it)! Besides, there are pleanty of unconviental ways to get married. You should have your wedding the way YOU want it, not the way religion tells you to have it.

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