This parallel to “What‘s in a name?” from Shakespeare‘s Romeo and Juliet was raised by one of my students near the end of the past school year. The young man asked whether it is really so important to have a wedding ceremony, and whether we must go through that formality of signing a piece of paper. Is it the formality that really makes a marriage, or should the relationship between husband and wife really start long before the wedding? After we had the opportunity to sit down and discuss these matters for awhile, we were able to come to grips with some of the real issues underlying his questions.

We agreed, first of all, that the ceremony is, in a sense, not all that important. That is to say that there is no specific dress, or program, or sequence of events which, in itself, is indispensable or mandatory before a wedding is properly constituted. To be more specific, it is equally valid to perform a two-minute ceremony before a civil magistrate as it is to engage in a one hour service in a Christian church or a one-day ceremony of exchanging gifts and pledges in a Central American Indian tribe. The form of the ceremony is not crucial, although, for a Christian couple, it should be Christ-centered.

At the same time we sensed that it seems mandatory that we use the general format for the wedding ceremony which is current in the culture in which we live. One should have very definite and good reasons to change radically from the culturally established way of starting a new family relationship.

The relationship of a husband and wife should grow out of a solid understanding and mutual love and respect for each other, starting long before the wedding ceremony, and it should be anchored in a common faith in Christ as their Redeemer and Lord. But this relationship does not start until the wedding ceremony has been completed. At its completion, the relationship between bride and groom changes quite radically. Before the wedding there is the expectation that marriage will follow in due time, although the engagement can be broken. But after the wedding ceremony their relationship has acquired a permanency which did not exist before. They are now officially husband and wife before the Lord God, and this relationship, which God deems biding, may not be resolved at will by either of the marriage partners.

Once the wedding ceremony has taken place, and the two people have become husband and wife, a new aspect in their relationship has come into existence which carries with it various responsibilities as well as privileges which only then may be assumed. Only after the wedding is the husband. rather than her father, fully responsible for providing materially for his bride. Only after the wedding is it right to express one’s love through sexual relations. Only after the wedding is the bride primarily responsible to her husband, rather than to her parents. And only after the wedding can the groom sign a hospital form authorizing surgery for his bride.

TIle real beginning, and ending, of a marriage does not depend on some undefined personal commitment to each other by the two parties involved. A wedding ceremony is necessary. Of course, the entire relationship between these two persons does not start at the wedding. Neither does the wedding necessarily make that relationship meaningful. What the wedding ceremony does is to make the new, husband–and-wife relationship official before God and man.

After the wedding, the new dimension of being married adds further avenues and opportunities to grow together, on the basis which they have been building so far. It makes it possible for them to grow much beyond what they were able to before the wedding.

To be truly one, a husband and wife have to be one in Christ. And in that shared relationship to the Lord, many marvelous possibilities lie before them. It will then be possible, through much patience, love, understanding, and prayer, to grow together, and to build and maintain a beautiful marriage. And the problems and difficulties which are bound to come, need then not be insunnountable, but can be resolved, and used to knit them closer together.

But this is possible only through hard work and daily vigilance and prayer. And when it does happen, we must admit that, after all, it is only through God’s grace. Let us thank Him for all such marriages.