Did you promise to obey your husband?

[peace654]

I had an interesting discussion with my 90 year old nan about the royal wedding. She said she was surprised Meghan didn't promise to obey Harry, and the whole point of marriage is to follow tradition.

I was surprised - she's 90 but always been a feminist for her age at least, she believes in women working outside the home and not putting up with any bullshit. She's always pushed me to be strong and independent. She's not religious either. She definitely wore the trousers in her marriage too!

I've only been to a handful of weddings and didn't take much notice of the bows, so I wondered if it was usual for women to promise to obey their husbands nowadays? Do people still do it in order to be traditional?

I did! But not intentionally,....,....

Our marriage was conducted in a small chapel by dh uncle, we had chatted about the ceremony and hadn't even discussed obey as when he conducted the service for his daughter obey was not used and hasn't been standard for years. On the day he included obey, dh and I just exchanged a surprised look and I vowed to obey! I just couldn't stop the service!!! It is a running joke between me and dh,.........we never told his elderly uncle!
I expected comments from family and friends but no one said a word.

I think we promised to "love, honour and cherish" one another (church wedding).

We got married 2 years ago and the vicar told us that if we wanted the "obey" bow we had to have 121 counselling with him to explore why and make sure it was right for us... I advised him I wasn't promising to obey anyone!

Hell no!

Ugh, no. Can't remember my vows but I remember being asked if I wanted to say obey and said no way. We didn't have a church wedding.

registry office has been 'cherish' on both side for years. and I dont think Diana Spencer said obey and thats a while back too.

Np obeying in my vows.

No. Just...no! Why the hell anyone would still use those antiquated vows is beyond me. No woman should ever state that they will obey a man!!!

Oh - and I wasn't 'given away' and I made a speech. Fuck all that patriarchal crap.

It was "love, honour and cherish" when i got married in church, in 2014 !

No way was in saying obey!

No. We chose the wording of our vows very carefully because they meant a lot to us - we were making promises to each other for the rest of our lives and we try our best to live by them.
Obeying each other was not one of them.

Friends of ours got married at a similar time, so early 2000s and they did the obey stuff for religious reasons. My friend said it made her feel relieved of stress as the man would have to make all the important decisions. They took the 'wives, obey your husbands' literally.

I didn’t. My husband wrote our whole ceremony and didn’t include it.
Also when holding hands during the ceremony we each had one hand on top so that it was equal (if that makes sense?)

No idea. Got married 15 years ago in Gretna and have no recollection of whether obey was in the vows or not. Not as if it would change anything whether it was or wasn’t in the vows.

Married in 1963, religious ceremony, promised to obey,

I did but I don't!

I got married in 1983 and didn't want the words 'to obey' in the vows. But when I told the vicar who was conducting our wedding,he got a bit narky about it,and said that I was wrong to want them left out! When I told DM,to my surprise she was adamant that I should stick to my guns. She had had 'to obey' in her wedding vows (in 1949 you didn't really get given a choice) and had resented it ever since! I told the vicar that I definitely did not want the words 'to obey' in my vows,and he said (with some relish,I thought) that in that case,my husband would not say that he would 'worship me'. I think he thought it would change my mind. I just thought 'fair enough'.

Can't remember, but if I did I hope I had my fingers crossed as it turns out to be a lie :)

No - we're Jewish, so we've never had that bit anyway!

Yes I did but didn't take it literally. I interpreted it in the context that I trusted DH absolutely and that he would never ask me to do anything unreasonable and our de cision would be negotiated ones

But why does nobody apply the same reasoning to a man saying obey? Why does he get the casting vote?

Over the years I've frequently heard women explain the obey thing to me as though I'm hard of understanding, they have been fed the line that's it doesn't really mean obey, it's something about trusting your husband to make good decisions or some such crap.

We all know what it means. If it was such a mealy-mouthed toothless promise then the man would be keen to make it too.

No. It was 'love, honour and cherish' for us.

I went to my niece's wedding last year and she promised to obey her husband

They are in their 20s and both Christians.

No, we both chose to remove it.

We didn't have vows. It was a registry wedding and we chose the shortest. I can remember reading some kind of legal-sounding sentence but that was it.

I didn't say in my vows in 2015 because I won't obey anybody