Welcome to Douglas Wilson's Blog and May Blog, presented by Canon Press.

Wedding as Adornment October 12, 2022 Dear Darla, I hear from Nancy, via your mother,

the trenches proposed that you have accepted.

So good job everybody, now we're talking.

If you will permit me just one more short letter, allow me to tie this happy thing off with

just a few surrounding observations.

In all the happiness and excitement of getting ready for marriage, and with all the planning

for the wedding, it is sometimes easy to forget, which is the gift and which is the altar.

Here's what I mean.

Let me begin by defining what it is that constitutes a marriage.

What is it that causes a marriage to come into existence?

There are two elements, and neither one is necessarily what we would call ceremonial.

Those two elements are first, the covenant that is struck, in a manner recognized by the

society in which the marriage is happening, and the second element is the sexual consummation.

When both these conditions have been met, then you have a marriage.

And if only one of them has, then you do not yet have a marriage.

If covenant valves are taken, but there is no consummation, then it is not a marriage.

If sex has occurred, but no covenant, then there is no marriage.

So first a note about what it means to be societally recognized.

It is not just a matter of promising.

It has to be a covenant promise that it needs to be publicly binding.

If a young man gets his girlfriend into the backseat of a car by promising to love

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