Those 'Something Old' Wedding Vows

 

Scene of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert's wedding, c1840

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Those 'Something Old' Wedding Vows

{Part Two of “Marriage and the ‘Prospect of Happiness’”}

A bride is a woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her. -Ambrose Bierce, 19th century journalist

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After years of badly-behaved Hanoverian kings, their niece, nineteen-year-old Princess Victoria, became the queen of England in 1838. “The emphasis upon Victoria’s sheltered upbringing, her maidenly modesty and her dependence on her first prime minister,” historical novelist Philippa Gregory explained, “emphasized the subservience of all women — even a queen.” Although Victoria was a feisty, strong-willed, smart, determined young woman, she believed her own second-class status because of her gender.

This inequality had been deeply embedded in the patriarchal-controlled culture for centuries, reinforced at every traditional “Westernized” wedding ceremony. Women promised “to obey” their husbands when saying their marriage vows — vows written in the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer from 1549. And vows repeated into the twentieth century.

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“On her marriage to Prince Albert in 1840,” Gregory continued, “Victoria signaled her obedience to her husband as master of the household, her deference to him as an advisor and her role as domestic woman: a wife and mother, supporting the idea that a happy marriage was created and nourished by female submission, however important the wife might be.” So even with a woman on the throne, a married woman’s “prospect of happiness” remained in question.

However, Victoria became queen at a time of robust social activism that put attention on women’s rights in both England and the United States, including a move to change marriage laws. As the most powerful woman in the world, Queen Victoria’s example in marriage was influential and far-reaching. This may have hindered, but it did not stop the growing movement for women’s autonomy. Plus, there was another feisty woman on the other side of the Atlantic. Susan B. Anthony, who chose not to marry so she’d be free to dedicate her life campaigning for a woman’s right to vote in the U.S., declared: “No man is good enough to govern a woman without her consent.”

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...the future is love...

 

A Divine Destiny

 

Orchid named for Diana, Princess of Wales

“The people asserted their deep longing to feel at one, if only for today,” Warren Colman wrote about the days following Princess Diana’s death as crowds gathered in London parks and along city streets. “Tomorrow we will assert our differences, tomorrow we will return to the struggle to live together…. For today, just for today, we will take the opportunity to feel what it might be like to be together, to feel at one, to share an experience with everyone else.” It was the final days of summer in 1997, and the world was evolving, moving into a new millennium full of remarkable revelations. A future was emerging that would demand our attention.

For the woman who once declared that she “leads from the heart,” Diana’s death pierced our own. Perhaps this was Diana’s biggest gift to us: To give humanity a taste of feeling related and connected through the heart, to experience something tenderly shared, to have an opportunity “to feel at one” in a divided, divisive world. And to long for more.

Colman told of listening to many interviews during those days between Diana’s death and her funeral service, as people came together in public spaces simply to be together. “I think that the people who have come to be a part of it are part of it,” shared a local, fifties-something man who had congregated with thousands of others outside Westminster Abbey during Diana’s funeral. “Whereas before it always felt as though you were pure spectators to something else — it was what belonged to someone else.” The idea of being a part of something, a sense of belonging, intimately connected, was deeply present here — just as it was for me watching on television from over 4000 miles away. “Royal occasions were royal occasions,” the man in the park continued while balancing a baby on his shoulders, “and we were just subjects to stand by. But this, I think, has been different insofar as people haven’t just been spectators, they’ve been there taking part in it….”

“Diana’s death seemed to offer possibilities for reflection and perhaps even transformation,” Josephine Evetts-Secker wrote, also in When a Princess Dies, with people not feeling a need to be “exceptional or individual” but simply to be together. “‘I just had to be here, to take my place in the crowd,’” Evetts-Secker shared about one young woman interviewed amongst the peaceful, orderly masses of people assembled around central London that week. (“The mobilization of police, in anticipation of serious disturbances, proved unnecessary.”) “Some mystery had taken hold of the nation and beyond, with a palpable but inchoate sense of spiritual need,” Evetts-Secker added.

Something unfamiliar was indeed developing here. What appeared to have “taken hold” of people was the desire to go inwards, perhaps soothe an old ache stuck there and breathe in new life, then move back out into the world more open and available to connect with others. Diana’s death had shaken loose centuries of bottled-up emotions, new awarenesses were emerging.

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...love...

 

"...fullness of love..."

"...thank God, a wedding!"

 The R/evolution Is Love (2011)

It was 2011 and things simply felt different. There was a buoyancy to the world’s energy. Even with disruption and strife, when I really listened in, there seemed a harmony inside it all, as though something else was becoming available, life being retuned. It felt true, like a sacred portal opening.

…………………….

I don’t remember when I first heard of the ancient Mayan calendar with its revelations that move beyond our sense of time, space, and beliefs, but I was intrigued by its historical accuracy. Developed by the highly advanced thinkers of Mexico’s Olmec civilization from the fifth century BCE, the calendar system is a complicated series of inscriptions, codes and glyphs. As Dr. Carl J. Calleman explained, it is a timeline marking the evolution of consciousness, in nine “waves,” from the beginning of time, 16.4 billion years ago, into the future.

The last phase of that future, the “Ninth Wave of Consciousness,” was activated in 2011 according to Dr. Calleman’s calculations. It marked the end of “old time,” signaling the age of new beginnings and based on this ancient almanac of sacred time, we are now living in that long-awaited future. And this “new time” arrived riding on a wave of dynamic energy — boisterous, open-hearted, and centered in unity.

In addition to major Earth events in 2011 (including a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami in Fukushima, Japan), “a massive protest movement began against the ruling order all over the world,” Dr. Calleman wrote, creating a tumultuous push for liberty, self-determination and freedom of expression. “The Arab Spring began with protests erupting over the globe, including the Occupy Movement in the United States and other countries.”

And there was a royal wedding! Or as Allison Pearson wrote in Newsweek that spring: “In a world gone to hell, thank God, a wedding!”

Throughout history, royal weddings have often been harbingers of change, seen as a unifying moment of coming together in gratitude and appreciation. But this royal wedding in Great Britain in 2011 marked a break in dutiful tradition with a message for the future: a future king of a thousand-year-old monarchy married for love. Instead of a business arrangement to acquire property, power, and prestige (and historically women were considered part of the property), this marriage was about a man and woman making a choice together — through love.

Even so, in these changing modern times, what was the big deal about a royal wedding in an outdated monarchy? The world was roiled in conflict between those attempting to bring a peaceful message of equality and those committed to a hierarchy of haves and have nots. And because we were all connected through a vast digital hook-up, discontent had a global voice. Therefore, some thought the universal excitement of a royal wedding seemed the year’s biggest anachronism.

Nevertheless, since royalty can be archetypal in nature, affecting change for the masses, the wedding and the relationship that emerged was revolutionary in its own right. As over two billion of us witnessed this grand yet intimate event celebrating the marriage of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, the wedding rite of passage acted as an opening to bring people together, to feel more connected to each other in a divided world.

[...the article continues on Medium]