YOUR FRIENDS' ACTIVITY

    Will Kate Middleton vow to 'obey' her prince?

    By | Work + Money – Mon, Mar 28, 2011 11:08 PM EDT

    When Lady Diana Spencer married Prince Charles in 1981, she promised to love and cherish her new husband-but not to obey him.


    At the time, it was usual for brides and grooms to recite vows from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, which calls for men to promise "to love and to cherish, till death us do part," while women are asked to pledge "to love, cherish, and to obey." Prince Charles' mother, Queen Elizabeth, recited the traditional vows during her marriage to Prince Philip in 1947; his sister, Princess Anne, did as well when she married Mark Phillips in 1973.

    But Prince Charles and Lady Diana chose to break from tradition after the then-Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, half-joked that "It's a bad thing to start your marriage off with a downright lie." Instead, they read from the 1928 Series I Alternative Marriage Rite of the Church of England, in which the vows are more egalitarian, and don't include the word "obey." The trend didn't last-In 1986 Sarah Ferguson opted to obey Prince Andrew, and Sophie Rhys-Jones also used the old-fashioned vows when she married Prince Edward in 1999.

    Now, Kate Middleton may be following in Princess Diana's famous footsteps. Rumor has it that the princess-to-be might not vow to obey her prince, either.

    Though the couple plans to keep their vows a secret until the big day, The Daily Mail reports that the current Archbishop, Rowan Williams (who will preside over Prince William and Kate Middleton's Westminster Abbey ceremony), has offered up a clue: A 2006 report published by the Archbishops' Council and backed by Archbishop Williams warns that "A promise to obey was in the past part of different standards and expectations of women and men within marriage, for example the fact that women had no standing in law until 1926."

    Or, as a source told The Daily Mail: "The word 'obey' did become outdated and that's why they produced the report."

    "Marriage is the kind of relationship where there should be two equal partners and if there is a dominant partner it won't be settled by this oath," said Dr. Edward Carpenter, the Dean of Westminster Abbey. Not saying obey "is much more Christian."

    Neither the Church of Scotland nor the Catholic Church include "obey" in the marriage vows. History has it that the traditional vows are rooted in the Middle Ages, when wives had to promise "to be bonny and buxom in bed and at board."

    Many modern brides are reluctant to promise to obey their spouses, but religion isn't the reason. "I think the concepts of 'obey" or "submit' are extremely offensive. EXTREMELY. On many levels," writes a user named crayfish on the Weddingbee.com discussion boards. "Marriage should be an equal partnership. Not a situation where one person has to obey or submit to the other one."

    "I don't feel like I could respect him if we had a relationship where I was expected to submit to him and allow him to make the decision for both of us," points out a bride calling herself veganglam. "I could only respect him if we had a true partnership of equals, where he acknowledged my intelligence, sensibility, and unique interests and perspective, and we took them into account in every decision where it was important to do so (which is most decisions). There's no submission or obedience there."

    But as The Right Rev. Peter Nott, who officiated the wedding of Prince Edward and Sophie Rhys-Jones, explained just before their 1999 ceremony: "It is a mistaken assumption that when a bride says she will obey it means she is going to be subservient."

    "It is to do with trust, and with listening, and to recognize that in a family you have different functions," he said at the time. "There are times when the husband will rightly obey the wife because she knows better and is the lead in that area. The partnership is equal and leadership in a good marriage always shifts. I think 'obey' means, 'I trust you ultimately to make decisions that are for the good of the family.' It's no big deal."




    Also on Shine: