Your answers
How would the marriage service have to be amended if it
were to be used for gay couples?
This question of liturgical revision in order for same-sex
marriages to be conducted in church would require far more
explication than can be managed in a short letter.
The first issue is the difference in theologies of marriage
between the Prayer Book and Common Worship. In the former,
no alteration is legally possible, and a complete rewrite of the
introduction would be necessary. Arguably, the consents and vows,
pretty much common to both orders, would require little altera-tion
- although which of the couple is the "husband" and which the
"wife" raises difficulties. Gender-neutral language would be
needed.
The key issue is children. Some contend that same-sex marriages
are analogous to marriages of people who are past child-bearing,
sometimes second marriages - hence the reference to "family life in
which children are [born and] nurtured", in which the bracketed
words are optional (in Common Worship. This also covers
couples who have completed their child-bearing before marriage.)
The wording allows both those circumstances, and, by implication,
cases of adoption or IVF by donor.
"Family life", of which marriage is said to be the foundation,
would have to have a somewhat stretched sense, though one with
which some people will be happy. It makes one realise how far the
modern marriage service differs in its theology from that of 1662,
in which the first purpose of marriage is given as the procreation
of children, and the second as a remedy against sin, remembering
"men's carnal lusts". Some people will argue that things have not
changed much.
Possibly the divide between the BCP and CW will have
become an unbridgeable chasm. It does seem plain that, if both
liturgies remain legal, two distinct institutions, both called
marriage, would have come into being, one requiring consummation,
and the possibility of children of whom both parents are natural
ones, and the other not.
It is a reminder that the part played by children has changed
dramatically over the past century. Whether that change is so
durable as to require the social engineering proposed, I hope that
the Church is wise enough to discern.
(Canon) R. H. W. Arguile
Wells-next-the Sea, Norfolk
Your questions
At my local cathedral, at choral evensong, an anthem is
sung, while, at the sung mass, it is a motet. From recent services,
I realise that I have been wrong to assume that the length of the
piece determined its description. What is the difference - or is it
on the Precentor's whim? R. W. C.
Address for answers and more questions: Out of the Question,
Church Times, 3rd floor, Invicta House, 108-114 Golden
Lane, London EC1Y 0TG. questions@churchtimes.co.uk
