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 think people should investigate the original meaning of obey before jumping on this particular bandwagon.

No. My vicar refuses to do weddings with those vows. She openly says if you want that I'm not your vicar and you'll have to go elsewhere.

Am I allowed to keep it out of my one but added into his one?

I got married recently in a very traditional church, and the reverend said they don't use that word in vows anymore. Instead they change it to 'cherish '. At least I could promise to cherish DH, we both new there was no chance I'd obey.

I did not promise to obey.

I wonder how it works into the new criminal offence of coercive control. If she's (or he's) agreed to obey you does that change the case?

@Xenia interesting question!

It wouldn't change the legal position - a man who had coercively controlled his wife couldn't use the fact that she had promised to obey him as a defence.

It might, however, be evidence that coercive control was occurring. If a couple were very religious and set a huge amount of store by the teachings of the church and followed that hierarchy very closely, the fact that a woman had promised to obey her husband and felt obliged to fulfil that vow might be illustrative of the fact that she was in a controlling marriage. It would be tenuous as a standalone point, but in conjunction with other examples it could help to build a picture.

I did not promise to obey 31 years ago.

Married 26 years ago in a church and vow tampering was not something I'd ever heard of, so I suppose I did. I don't in reality though! He does as much as I do in any obeying I'm our house, which is zilch.

In good times and bad, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others - have all definitely applied.

No way !
No way was I being "Given Away " either

No, and neither did my mum in 1969.

My mother didn't in 1953 either as far as I remember. As her mother and her granny were both widowed with small children the concept that the woman was not in charge and obeyed a man would have been alien to that family even back in 1917 actually when my great granny was widowed (for the second time)!

“I think it would also work if paired with a husband who will lead in a way that he puts the interests of the family before his own”

I would not have married H if he were not the type of man who put the interests of the family before his own, and he would not have married me had I not been that type of woman too. But no one promised to obey anyone else

“I think people should investigate the original meaning of obey before jumping on this particular bandwagon.”

Go on then ginuser, now is the opportunity to educate us all

No. Do people still do that?

No and neither did my mum.

In fact she said she would refuse to marry my dad unless that particular command was dropped because she obeys no one.

My granny (her mum) was not at all impressed but oddly enough my rural Irish Catholic nana didn't mind at all (and was actually on her side)

No, we had a registry office with pagan handfasting and wrote our own vows.

@GinUser I think people should investigate the original meaning of obey before jumping on this particular bandwagon.

Ok, how does this change things?

obey (v.)
late 13c., from Old French obeir "obey, be obedient, do one's duty" (12c.), from Latin obedire, oboedire "obey, be subject, serve; pay attention to, give ear," literally "listen to," from ob "to" (see ob-) + audire "listen, hear" (from PIE root *au- "to perceive").

Absolutely not. The entire church would have wet themselves laughing if I’d promised to obey anyone.

I got married 2 weeks ago and was really laid back about the whole thing but both my DH and I were totally insistent the obey would not appear in our vows.

No but my dm did. The vicar told her that df's vows meant he should never ask her to obey anything she was uncomfortable with/wouldn't want to do so it balanced out.

The thing about the “it doesn’t really mean obey in the modern sense” argument is that it still doesn’t explain why it tends to only be the woman saying it...

(Or rather, that “obey is a mistranslation” - the point is still why aren’t men saying it?)

No! But we had a civil ceremony, the church was not for me as I am not religious in the slightest.

It was an option, but I opted out. I have heard it said at at least 2 weddings in the last 10 years.