The Solemnization of Matrimony in the Book of Common Prayer
The Solemnization of Matrimony is the marriage office of the Book of Common Prayer, providing the public liturgical form by which a man and a woman enter Christian marriage in the Anglican tradition. The rite is both a civilly significant act, because marriage creates a recognized social bond, and an ecclesial act, because it is performed before God, the minister, and the congregation. In classical Anglicanism, the marriage office expresses the Reformation settlement's concern for intelligible public worship, moral instruction, and ordered pastoral discipline.
Place in the Prayer Book
The marriage rite appeared in the first English Book of Common Prayer of 1549 and was retained, with revisions, in later Prayer Books. In the 1662 Prayer Book it is titled The Form of Solemnization of Matrimony and is placed among the occasional offices, alongside baptism, confirmation, visitation of the sick, and burial. This placement reflects the Prayer Book's role not only as a Sunday service book but as a manual for the pastoral ordering of Christian life.
The rite presumes that marriage is entered publicly and lawfully. The minister is instructed to ask whether anyone present knows a just impediment to the marriage, and the couple are required to declare their consent. These features connect the service with the older practice of publishing banns of marriage and with the church's responsibility to prevent unlawful or clandestine unions. The Prayer Book office therefore treats marriage as a covenantal, public, and accountable state rather than a private arrangement.
Structure of the Rite
The classical Prayer Book marriage service opens with an exhortation explaining the dignity and purposes of matrimony. In the 1662 form, matrimony is described as ordained for the procreation of children, as a remedy against sin, and for the mutual society, help, and comfort that husband and wife ought to have of one another. The wording is characteristic of Prayer Book pastoral theology: doctrine is presented in direct liturgical speech so that the congregation hears the meaning of the action being performed.
After the opening charge, the minister asks the man and the woman whether they will take one another as husband and wife. The vows follow, using a form that has become one of the best-known parts of English liturgy. The exchange includes promises of fidelity and perseverance in differing conditions of life. The giving of a ring is retained as an outward sign of the covenant, accompanied by words that interpret the action as a pledge of union.
The minister then pronounces the couple to be husband and wife and offers prayers for God's blessing. The rite includes scriptural and devotional material that frames marriage as a holy estate ordered toward faithful life. In the traditional form, a psalm and further prayers may follow, and the service may be associated with Holy Communion when appropriate. The result is a rite that combines consent, vow, symbolic action, proclamation, and prayer.
Theological Emphases
The Prayer Book office presents marriage as a gift of creation and a disciplined Christian vocation. It is not listed among the two dominical sacraments recognized in Article XXV of the Thirty-Nine Articles, but it is treated as a holy estate requiring divine blessing and moral seriousness. The service therefore illustrates a common Anglican distinction: not every sacred rite is a sacrament of the Gospel in the strict formularian sense, yet many rites remain important means of pastoral formation and ecclesial order.
The vows emphasize covenantal faithfulness rather than romantic sentiment alone. The couple's promises are made before God and the gathered community, and the minister's role is to witness, bless, and declare the marriage according to the church's order. The congregation's presence reinforces the social and ecclesial character of the bond.
The rite has also shaped English-speaking Christian culture beyond Anglican churches. Its cadences influenced later marriage services in many traditions, while Anglican revisions in different provinces have adapted the office to local canon law, pastoral practice, and contemporary language. Even where modern Prayer Books revise the wording, they often retain the basic pattern of public consent, vows, exchange of rings, pronouncement, prayers, and blessing.