Irregular Unions

Front matter

Katharine Cleland

IRREGULAR

UNIONS

Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction: Making a Clandestine Match in Early Modern English Literature

. Reforming Clandestine Marriage in Spenser's Faerie Queene, Book I

Introduction

Making a Clandestine Match in Early Modern English Literature

In Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Touchstone, the fool, attempts to marry Audrey, a poor country girl, in a clandestine ceremony in the forest of Arden. Sir Oliver Mar-Text, the would-be officiate of the wedding, insists that Audrey “must be given, or the marriage is not lawful” (3.3.69- 70).' What no one in this scene realizes is that this statement is not technically true: witnesses or participants of any kind were not required to make a legal marriage in early modern England. Sir Oliver’s ineptitude, however, can be forgiven. His misstatement reflects the widespread confusion concerning the making of a match during the period, even on the part of the clergy. Many early modern audience members probably would have nodded along in agreement. Since the Book of Common Prayer does call for witnesses, those not familiar with the law could easily assume that they were necessary for a legal union. The Book of Common Prayer also dictates the types of witnesses: a couple’s “frendes and neighbours.” Even more specifically, a woman’s “father or frendes” should be the ones to present her to the minister.’ An eavesdropper who happens to be lurking in the bushes nearby (in this case, the melancholy Jaques) would not seem to fall into one of these recommended categories. Jaques, who obligingly offers to give the bride away, also persuades Touchstone to delay the wedding to a more appropriate time and venue:

And will you (being a man of your breeding) be married under a bush like a beggar? Get you to church, and have a good priest that can tell you what marriage is. This fellow will but join you together as they join wainscot; then one of you will prove a shrunk panel, and like green timber warp, warp.

(3.3.83-89)

By ordering Touchstone to “get . . . to church,” Jaques informs the fool that a nuptial ceremony with an officiate and a stranger giving away the bride does not fulfill the proper requirements. Even more tellingly, he insists that the marriage be performed by a more qualified minister, “a good priest who can tell you what marriage is,” so that the union does not “warp” over time. Performing the appropriate rituals is just as important as thoroughly understanding the duties and responsibilities associated with marriage. Couples who participate in clandestine marriages, Jaques suggests, may not learn marriage’s true purpose or how to foster that marriage after a wedding has occurred. Touchstone, of course, indicates that he has no desire for his marriage to be a success. In an aside, he admits that he is aware of the minister’s shortcomings: “I am not in the mind but I were better to be married of him than of another, for he is not like to marry me well; and not being well married, it will be a good excuse for me hereafter to leave my wife” (3.3.90-94). By employing a minister not well versed in the law or the appropriate rituals, Touchstone anticipates that he might be able to finagle his way out of the marriage later. Happily, Jaques’s chiding spoils this plan. His meddling legitimates the potential benefits of constant communal surveillance: he rescues Audrey from being left in the lurch by an unscrupulous groom.

Shakespeare thus stages the confusion surrounding the proper making of a marriage in early modern England. The officiate himself does not understand the lawful requirements of marriage, but everyone involved seems to agree that a witness is necessary to give away the bride. There is also such a thing as a good officiate and a bad officiate: one who can “tell you what marriage is” as opposed to one who might “mar the text” of the marriage ceremony as Sir Oliver’s name implies. Furthermore, the proper way to make a match may not be entirely the same as the legal way. A proper minister and witnesses may not be necessary for a legal union, that is, but they may be necessary for a good one that will not “warp.” Throughout his works, Shakespeare famously portrays an array of marriage rituals and oaths—none of which adhere exactly (or, in most cases, remotely) to the Book of Common Prayer. On the one hand, Shakespeare takes advantage of his role as artist. He manipulates rituals and customs to suit his story and purpose (and to escape the

Master of the Revels’ censorship).* On the other, Shakespeare’s varying approaches evince the range of marital practices during the early modern period. Shakespeare could portray marriage making in such a variety of ways because they were all within the realm of legal possibility, even if some of them were not always very likely.

The practice of clandestine marriage, however, was far more than one of Shakespeare’s favorite plot devices. As this book demonstrates, a range of other early modern authors, including Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, and George Chapman, incorporate clandestine marriages into their works, underscoring the widespread interest in irregular unions and their impact. The issue of clandestine marriage was also at the heart of theological, political, and social controversies that permeated all levels of early modern society. In theological terms, clandestine marriages undermined the rituals of the Book of Common Prayer, destabilizing the state’s desire for religious uniformity. The practice also created possibilities for political maneuvering, allowing members of noble families to strengthen their claims to the throne through intermarriage. From a social perspective, clandestine marriages had the potential to create general unrest, resulting in single mothers, for instance, who struggled to provide for their children (the hapless Audrey’s conceivable fate if not for Jaques’s interference). Often, these differing controversies entangled with one another. This book reveals how taking the complexities of these controversies into consideration can inform and even change our reading of clandestine marriage in early modern literature, including—but not limited to—Shakespeare’s plays.

Irregular Unions: Clandestine Marriage in Early Modern English Literature thus constitutes the first literary history of clandestine marriage in early modern England. R. B. Outhwaite has already provided a historical account, while other historians have recognized the importance of the practice.’ Considering the long-standing general interest in early modern marital practices, however, it is surprising how infrequently literary scholars have considered the subject of clandestine marriage specifically. Most of the literary scholarship on irregular unions has been confined to chapters in monographs devoted to marriage and Shakespeare more generally.° In this book, I look beyond descriptions of discrete rituals or practices in Shakespeare’s plays to call for a wider cultural view on clandestine marriage and its literary significance.

In doing so, I not only uncover instances of neglected marital practices in early modern literature but also explore how attention to these practices and the controversies surrounding them can influence how we read individual works as a whole. We can thus see how the controversies surrounding clandestine marriage inform and collide with one another, sometimes in a single work. Historical documents often tell only one side of the story. Court depositions, for instance, may include only questions asked or evidence provided. Protestant reformers may condemn the theological basis for clandestine vows when championing their cause, while ignoring real-life practicalities. Works of literature show that attitudes toward irregular unions did not remain stagnant after the Reformation or change overnight. Literary genres allow authors to look at clandestine marriage from different angles, portraying it as troubling the foundations of nation in the epic or allowing for sexual liberty in the epyllion or being the reason for psychological torment in the complaint. Furthermore, by foregrounding irregular unions, this book’s chapters illuminate difficult aspects of familiar works that have long puzzled readers and scholars alike, such as the imbroglio between the Redcrosse Knight and Duessa in Spenser's Faerie Queene, book I, and Jessica’s seeming discomfort when entering the Belmont community in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice.

In reading fictions of clandestine marriage, I argue that early modern authors use irregular unions to explore the intersection between the self and the marriage ritual in post-Reformation England. The texts that I consider— Spenser's Faerie Queene, Marlowe’s Hero and Leander and Chapman’s continuation, Shakespeare’s A Lover’s Complaint, The Merchant of Venice, and Othello—all display a strong link between clandestine marriage and the transformation of identity. Early modern theologians, preachers, and moralists frequently dwell on the transformative nature of the marriage ritual, which turns a couple into a husband and a wife, as well as into householders and citizens. Since the public solemnization became a vehicle through which couples confirmed their commitment to the nation’s new rituals and ideals, participating in a clandestine marriage called a couple’s intentions and even their very identities into question. On the one hand, clandestine marriage allowed couples complete freedom of choice when transforming their identities through marriage. On the other, these transformations could fail if the couple’s families and communities did not accept their new identities as husband and wife. This book explores how early modern authors exploit and interrogate this potential contradiction.

Defining Clandestine Marriage

What made a marriage “clandestine” in early modern England? In an affirmation of the importance of the practice to the period, the Oxford English Dictionary cites a letter describing the clandestine marriage between the Earl of Hertford and the Lady Katherine Grey in 1562 when defining the term as

“secret, private, concealed; usually in a bad sense, implying craft or deception; underhand, surreptitious.”” Clandestine marriages certainly could be “secret” in the literal sense. Canon law, deriving from the Middle Ages, dictated that consent alone was all that was necessary to make a legally binding match even in the absence of witnesses.* In his Treatise of Spousals, or Matrimonial Contracts, Henry Swinburne explains the meaning and significance of spousal vows that could result in legal marriage.’ A de praesenti contract, or marital vows spoken in the present tense, resulted in an immediate marital union, while de futuro vows indicated the promise of a future marriage (a kind of high-stakes betrothal).'° Swinburne elucidates: “Spousals de praesenti are a mutual Promise or Contract of present Matrimony . . . as when the man doth say to the Woman [I do take thee to my Wife] and she then answereth [I do take thee to my Husband].”"’ While Swinburne acknowledges “that man and that woman, which do contract Spousals de futuro as [I will take thee to my Wife; I will take thee to my Husband] are not very Husband and Wife,” he does warn that de futuro spousal vows can be dissolved only by “mutual agreement.” ” Otherwise, any relationship or contract made later would be adulterous or even bigamous. Furthermore, the sexual consummation of a de futuro contract automatically resulted in a legally binding contract. While Swinburne urges couples to use the language he recommends, spousal contracts did not have to follow an exact formula. A variety of verbal and nonverbal expressions could result in, or at least be confused for, a promise of marriage. As Martin Ingram, Ralph Houlbrooke, and Loreen L. Giese have all shown, church court records are full of depositions between couples where one member clearly thought that a marriage had been contracted via spousal vows and the other, quite simply, did not.”

While clandestine marriages could be secret or even “underhanded,” this was not always the case. The term “clandestine” also operated in a more technical legal sense. The ecclesiastical courts considered any marriage that violated the other canons relating to marriage to be “clandestine.”'* The church courts, therefore, could punish couples that married clandestinely (as well as ministers who officiated clandestine weddings and their witnesses), but they could not invalidate irregular unions.” Ingram explains: “A marriage ceremony was regarded as ‘clandestine’ when it neglected one or more of the canonical regulations governing the solemnization of matrimony. ... This meant a marriage without the threefold publication of banns or the issue of a valid license, a ceremony conducted outside the diocese in which the couple dwelt, or a marriage performed during certain prohibited seasons or outside certain set hours, or in any circumstances save within a lawful church or chapel and in the presence of a proper constituted minister of the church of England.” 16

According to Outhwaite, “Some irregular unions might have involved only minor breaches of the ecclesiastical code... . Such a union was irregular but not necessarily a hole-in-the-corner affair. Nevertheless it was technically clandestine.” 7 Outhwaite’s useful categorization of the varying levels of clandestinity further illustrates the range of possible irregular unions:"*

Handfastings or trothplights (marriages without church or priest) Marriages by priest but without church

Marriages by priest in church but without banns or license Marriages in the “lawless” churches or in prison churches eh Re ts

Licensed clandestinity

Handfastings or trothplights were supposed to be performed via the spousal vows described above. Since these unions did not require witnesses to form a legal union, they were the locus of much anxiety. In actual practice, however, many early modern couples who did not have the resources for a public celebration would cement their marital bond with a trothplight before participating in a public solemnization when they could better afford it. The second and third options became more frequent in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. It is well known, for instance, that Shakespeare married his wife, Anne Hathaway, after the banns had been called only once instead of the requisite three times.’ “Lawless” churches, including the Fleet prison chapels, enjoyed the most notoriety during the mid to late seventeenth century, though they were in operation by the mid-sixteenth century.” In these churches, unordained ministers operated a kind of black market in weddings, willingly marrying couples without banns or licenses. Couples could also buy licenses to marry without banns or during the restricted seasons (or to marry underage as Shakespeare did)—these licenses were the only way to avoid potential punishment in the church courts for marrying irregularly. So, while canon law dictated that consent alone was all that was necessary to make a legal match, it also dictated that, ideally, marriages should be performed during certain seasons and at certain times (clocks in the Fleet prison chapels were always set to the canonical hour to ensure compliance), and properly solemnized in a church with witnesses only after the banns had been called three times.” Clandestine marriages, therefore, were transgressive since they violated societal and religious norms, but they were not illegal.

The popularity of marriage manuals further illustrates the confusion surrounding the making of a match, since it required so much elucidation. Heinrich Bullinger’s Der Christlich Eestand, or The Christen State of Matrymonye, for instance, was published more than any other continental Protestant work during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI.” Bullinger’s emphasis on love and mutuality between spouses was especially popular. English moralists and preachers, such as William Gouge and Robert Cleaver, borrow heavily from The Christen State of Matrymonye in their own domestic treatises.” In Of Domesticall Duties, Gouge confirms the broad definition of clandestine marriage while unequivocally condemning the practice. “Contrary are clandestine mariages,” he proclaims disapprovingly, “such as are made in priuate houses, or other secret places, or in Churches without a sufficient number of witnesses, or in the night time, or without a lawfull Minister of the word.” Gouge admits that clandestine marriages did not necessarily have to be surreptitious affairs as the dictionary definition suggests. They could have been performed in a church with witnesses, simply without a “sufficient” amount. Or without a “lawfull Minister,” such as Sir Oliver Mar-Text.

As Shakespeare’s Jaques insists, a “good” or “lawfull Minister” is necessary to learn “what marriage is.” The Book of Common Prayer not only dictated types of witnesses for marriage ceremonies but also added a new reason for entering into wedlock. After the Reformation, sexual desire alone no longer constituted a valid reason to enter into a marriage. In addition to the previously accepted goals of matrimony, “the procreation of children” and a “remedy agaynste synne and to avoide fornication,” the prayer book adds a new goal stressing companionship: “the mutual societie, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, bothe in prosperitye, and adversitye.””’ Social historians have argued over whether the period actually resulted in the “companionate” marriages that the third ordinance describes (and that moralists like Bullinger and his English counterparts champion).”* Investigating fictions of clandestine marriage contributes to our understanding of this evolving marital paradigm.

In doing so, this book arrives at a counterintuitive conclusion. The Reformation’s emphasis on marital companionship would seem to encourage a couple’s agency within the matchmaking process, perhaps even encouraging clandestine marriage so as to foster the ideal of wedded love. This book demonstrates that clandestine marriages, and their association with desire rather than companionship, undermined the perceived purpose of the marital bond. Arranged marriages, particularly the contracting of children and infants, did become increasingly rare.” Preachers and moralists, however, associated clandestine marriages’ catering to matrimony’s second ordinance (sexual desire) as undermining the other goals of marriage that benefited not just the couple but society as a whole. Bullinger, for instance, claims that those who “layed together” without participating in a public church ceremony “sekest nothyng but carnall desyre” in wedlock.” To avoid suspicion surrounding their reasons for marrying, couples relied on both familial and communal approval for their marriages to go forward. Literary fictions, therefore, often portray the negative consequences of desire, or must defuse the connotations of desire associated with a clandestine marriage, for that union to be successful.

The aforementioned clandestine marriage between Lady Katherine Grey and the Earl of Hertford exemplifies how the fear of unruly desire could serve as a scapegoat when calling irregular unions into question. In 1564, Lady Katherine—Queen Elizabeth’s cousin—created scandal when she claimed that she was secretly married to Edward Seymour, the Earl of Hertford. The secret came out when the heavily pregnant Lady Katherine, alone and desperate at the time (the earl was abroad finishing his education), sought the help of Lord Robert Dudley. This was ill advised. A loyal and dutiful subject (at least in this instance), Dudley informed his sovereign; the infuriated queen promptly threw her cousin in the tower. After the hapless Seymour returned from Paris, the couple was accused of “carnall copulation.””? A commission, formed especially for the purpose, interrogated the lovers separately at length to determine if a marriage had actually taken place. Questions about minute details, such as “what did youe weare upon y[our] hedd at the tyme you lay in bedd with the said Erle,” were obviously intended to catch the couple in conflicting stories.*° The commission did not uncover any egregious conflicts, but the lack of witnesses meant that there was no way to prove a legal union. (Jane Seymour, the marriage’s only witness, had died the previous year, and the officiating minister, a real-life Sir Oliver Mar-Text, could not be found.) After the commission pronounced that the marriage had never taken place, Lady Katherine never saw the earl again. Today, no one doubts that the Lady Katherine Grey and the Earl of Hertford had a clandestine marriage, and it is likely the commissioners felt the same way. Queen Elizabeth’s underlying fear that the marriage constituted a plot to strengthen Lady Katherine’s claim to the throne, however, necessitated that the commission find the couple guilty of fornication rather than of marrying clandestinely.*?

The length of the commission’s deposition on the Hertford marriage provides fascinating insight into the kinds of details that could legitimate (or illegitimate) clandestine marriages. The commissioners were keen to determine whether a minister performed a religious ceremony and according to what rituals. As Lady Katherine recalls, a minister did preside over the solemnization, but he “ware noe surples.”** He also read from “the booke of service,” from which he took “the wordes of matrimony they both spake one to thother.”*’ Lady Katherine showed the examiners a wedding ring from the earl “conteyneinge five links of Gold” as evidence that a marriage had taken place.* Perhaps less obviously, the commission asked about aspects of the wedding day that might have connoted the sincerity of the proceedings. They asked, for instance, how long Lady Katherine spent “dressing & tyringe” herself (one can only wonder how long the commissioners expected a bride to spend on her clothing).*” They also discussed the practical matters surrounding marriage, such as whether the couple made wills and discussed financial concerns. Even though consent alone technically created a legal union, the commissioners clearly believed that there should be more to making a marriage: a ceremony conducted by a “lawfull Minister,” expressions of mutual love and affection, and even financial transactions. High-profile clandestine marriages such as this one naturally captured the imagination of early modern readers and audience members, making excellent fodder for both the page and stage.

John Webster caters to the fascination with courtly intrigue surrounding clandestine marriage in The Duchess of Malfi. The play portrays the actual clandestine marriage of the historical Duchess of Amalfi, Giovanna d’Aragona, while also capitalizing on the scandal in the Jacobean court surrounding Arbella Stuart’s clandestine marriage to William Seymour.*® One cannot find a more textbook example of a marriage via spousal vows in early modern literature. After proposing to her steward, Antonio, the Duchess states: “I have heard lawyers say a contract in a chamber, / Per verba presenti is absolute marriage” (1.2.385-386).*’ She is clearly savvy to the legal language that legitimated marriages in an early modern court. During the contracting of the marriage, the Duchess and Antonio discuss the nature of their marital bond:

Antonio: That we may imitate the loving palms,

Best emblem of a peaceful marriage,

That ne’er bore fruit divided.

Duchess: What can the church force more?

Antonio: That fortune may not know an accident,

Either of joy or sorrow, to divide

Our fixed wishes.

Duchess: How can the church build faster?

We now are man and wife, and ‘tis the church

That must but echo this.

(1.2.392-399)

The Duchess’s repeated references to the church (“what can the church force

TE:

more?”; “how can the church build faster?”) serve to stress the legality of the marriage while hinting at the Duchess’s anxiety underlying the secret contract’s religious context. One does not ask such questions if one is absolutely certain.

Indeed, the Duchess indicates that their legal marriage vows will strong-arm the church, which “must but echo” their personal choice, rather than necessarily garner its approval. In this scene, Webster underscores the tension between the legal requirements for making a marriage and the ecclesiastical ones.

Not all stories of clandestine marriage were ripped from the headlines, however, or even about the nobility. Clandestine marriage was a controversial practice at all levels of society—not just where large sums of money, titles, and the governance of the realm were at stake. When authors portray clandestine marriage, therefore, they may be catering to the demand for juicy stories about courtly intrigue, or addressing the more plebian concerns of day-to-day life: What should a father do if a daughter runs off with a suitor her family has not approved? Does the clandestine marriage of one’s neighbors indicate that they are secretly adhering to Catholic traditions? Is there recourse for a pregnant woman whose husband has abandoned her and denies that a marriage took place? How can such occurrences be prevented? Early modern authors and their readers had to navigate these issues surrounding irregular unions in their own everyday lives.

In 1601, for example, the then little-known John Donne married the seventeen-year-old Ann More in a clandestine service. The couple met while Ann was staying with her uncle, Sir Thomas Egerton, who also happened to be the twenty-nine-year-old Donne’s employer. In a clear effort to lend legitimacy to the proceedings, Donne’s friend Christopher Brooke gave the bride away, while his brother, Samuel Brooke, an ordained minister, performed the ceremony.** Despite these efforts, however, Ann’s father, Sir George More, was not happy when he learned of the union. Doubtless, Donne’s “poverty and obscurity” did not make his daughter’s choice a pleasant surprise.” The poet’s Catholic background did not help smooth things over. Donne, however, had clearly anticipated More’s anger, obtaining “expert legal advice” in advance to ensure that the marriage could not be invalidated.*° Cunningly, he preemptively hired lawyers to argue the validity of the marriage in the ecclesiastical Court of Audience. By the time his father-in-law found out about his daughter’s marriage, Donne was already anticipating a ruling in his favor. While the church courts could not invalidate the marriage, they did (temporarily) excommunicate Donne—a common punishment that the courts inflicted on those who married irregularly. The irregular union also had dire financial consequences for the young couple. While More’s father could not dissolve the marriage as he had hoped, he punished the couple personally by initially withholding Ann’s inheritance and ensuring that Donne was not able to return to his former employment. Donne’s hopes for a prestigious public career were dashed, and, while he clearly cared deeply for his wife and children, the author wrestled with suicidal thoughts during the years that followed as he struggled to provide for his rapidly growing family.“

Of course, since the canons relating to marriage existed relatively unchanged since the Middle Ages, clandestine marriage did not suddenly become a problem in the Renaissance whereas it had not been one before. Children have always married secretly against the wishes of their parents. In his Concordance of Discordant Canons, Gratian begrudgingly agrees that clandestine marriages cannot be dissolved while also claiming that they should be considered “infected.”** Henry Ansgar Kelly demonstrates that some medieval works of literature that have been traditionally associated with illicit sexual desire or the practice of “courtly-love,” most notably Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, actually depict clandestine marriages.” Irregular Unions builds on Kelly’s work by revealing some early modern literary portrayals of clandestine marriage that go unnoticed by modern readers. As a testament to the fascination with the practice in the early modern period as opposed to the medieval one, however, even the casual reader of Shakespeare can probably name several plays that feature a clandestine marriage.

The Elizabethan Religious Settlement’s groundbreaking standardization of the marriage ritual makes the period an important one in the history of clandestine marriage. Before the widespread implementation of the Book of Common Prayer, there was not a uniform solemnization of matrimony. The Sarum Missal provided the most commonly used marriage rite in pre-Reformation England, but it was not the only option. Brian Cummings informs, “There was more variation among the medieval English uses (such as Hereford and York) on matrimony than for other services.”“* The Book of Common Prayers “The Fourme of Solempnizacion of Matrimonye” does borrow heavily from pre- Reformation marriage rituals, particularly from the Sarum rite.” As in medieval marriage rituals, the calling of the banns provides an important safeguard against clandestine marriage. The prayer book, however, incorporates more severe language warning against impediments or improper solemnization. This language reflects a new “attempt to use the church service to regulate social practice.”*° The 1559 Religious Settlement, which reestablished the Act of Supremacy and set in place the Act of Uniformity, therefore, standardized the marriage ritual for the first time by requiring ministers and their constituents to adhere to the prayers and rituals set forth in the Book of Common Prayer. Theoretically, this standardization should have eliminated the problem of clandestine marriage since it legally obligated couples to adhere to every aspect of the reformed ritual (including the calling of the banns). Instead, an uneasy tension arose between the Act of Uniformity’s stance that all marriages should take place in a public ceremony according to the prescribed rituals and the canon stating that consent alone was all that was necessary to make a legal match.

An increased emphasis on the marital bond after the Reformation, as evidenced by the prayer book’s new ordinance on companionship, also naturally resulted in an increasing public concern over the prevalence of clandestine marriage. As chapter 1 will explore in further detail, the Elizabethan regime relied on communities to report violators of the new prayer book’s rituals to the ecclesiastical courts, creating an atmosphere of marital surveillance. Furthermore, social problems that had always been associated with clandestine marriage, such as poverty, bigamy, and matters of inheritance, were now viewed as destabilizing the Protestant nation, which counted on strong households to foster domestic and economic tranquility. Beginning in the Elizabethan period, therefore, the ecclesiastical courts worked not just to enforce canon law but also to enforce the new rituals laid out in the Book of Common Prayer. Any marriage that did not conform to the official Solemnization of Matrimony could be deemed “clandestine.”

Becoming “One Flesh”

The practice of clandestine marriage called into question which rituals, words, and actions resulted in a man and woman transforming into husband and wife. While Swinburne insists that vows spoken in present tense result in the transformation, the Book of Common Prayer indicates that more is necessary for the transformation to occur. Before the ceremony can even begin, the prayer book lists requirements:

First, the bannes must be asked thre severall Sondaies or holy daies, in the tyme of service, the people beyng present, after the accustomed maner.

And yf the persons that would be maryed dwell in diverse Paryshes, the bannes must be asked in both Parishes and the Curate of the one Paryshe shall not solempnyze matrimonye betwyxt them, wythout a certifycate of the bannes bying thryse asked, from the Curate of the other Parysh. At the date appoincted for solempnizacyon of Matrimonye, the persones to be maryed shal come into the body of the Churche, wyth theyr frendes and neighbours.

Only after these prerequisites does the priest begin the marriage ceremony with the familiar words: “Dearely beloved frendes, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of his congregacion, to joyne together this man and this woman in holy matrimony, which is an honorable state, instytuted of God in Paradise, in the time of mannes innocencie, signifiyng unto us the mistical union that is betwixt Christ and his Churche.”** This statement indicates that marriages occur only “in the sight of God” when couples are in their own parish churches, surrounded by their own friends and congregations. Only then can their union mimic the “mistical” one between Christ and church. The officiate pronounces the couple to be “man and wife together” immediately after their spousal vows, emphasizing the significance of these expressions of mutual consent for the transformation.” Even after this pronouncement, however, he goes on to add a blessing and preach a sermon, elaborating on “what marriage is.” This is a long way from simply stating vows, which is all the law requires. If couples were supposed to abide by the Book of Common Prayer, then, one might ask, are the couples that do not abide by the rituals actually married? Or is their marriage, to use Jaques’s terminology, “warped” in some way? Is the transformation into husband and wife somehow incomplete if all of the rituals have not been followed? Should a community feel uncomfortable accepting couples who married clandestinely into their midst for these reasons? As Gouge explains, the Book of Common Prayer leaves absolutely nothing to chance when it comes to marriage making: