I remember it in one of my friend's weddings (they are Baptists married by her father, an Evangelical Anglican priest) in 1990.  I suspect that it is more common in weddings in evangelical circles...cms

If the wife isn't there to obey, what's the point?  My sammich isn't going to make itself.

Voice heard yelling off-screen , "Get off the dang couch and make it yourself, ya slob."

This is why the "obey" part is so important.

It's Mrs Chansen's own fault.

She knew when she married him he was a non-working breed ;)

I did have one wedding where both parties kept offering to pay me extra to put obey in the other person's vow (and trying to outbid each other).  I could have made good money on that one!

HAven't heard it.  Wouldn't suggest it.  Wouldn't include it even if the couple asked.  In the same way I refuse to use language about one party being "given away".

The word "obey" in wedding vows comes out of the Anglican tradition and the 1549 Book of Common Prayer. It was carried over in the 1662 BCP. Both derive from earlier Latin rites (Sarum and York rituals).

I have an 1884 Methodist service book and the word "obey" is not present in the marriage ritual.

I have not used it in weddings in thirty years.

I'm with Gord on this one.

I've actually know a few couples who chose to have the 'obey' in the woman's vows.  To me it's creepy but if that's what they want I don't actually know if it's the minister's place to refuse.

 We had obey.  but it is also a vow tempered by MUTUAL honor, respect and trust.  Trusting that the man puts God first. If he follows HIS vows then the wife should have no fear of obeying him.

certainly it is.  I have the right and responsibility to decide what I will or will not say in a worship service.

Well now, I don't know about Canada - but in Oz dogs obey, not spouses!

The bride vowing to obey her groom is a wonderful idea since according to the Bible the wife is to be submissive to the husband. Actually it makes mention of each partner submitting to the other, but the husband is to be the dominant head of the marriage.

Stuff it, Jae

That may have worked in the days when women were seen as "property" of the dominant male, but I'm betting that even then it was on paper at best. Certainly, Roman women were extremely powerful inside the household even though the law largely put them under their husband's thumb (though they were somewhat better off than their Greek sisters in some ways). Of course, the Bible didn't come into play since it didn't exist in its modern form then.

My ideal marriage is a partnership of equals. Each has strengths and weaknesses that complement each other and expecting one to submit to the other instead of it being mutual submission to being part of a couple/family loses that to some degree. My wife is a better Chinese cook than me (natch) but I smoke her when it comes to South Asian cuisine. My wife is better at handling money than me (due to her ability to calculate interest to 5 decimal places in her head) but I can dance rings around her on anything electronic (hence my choice of career). We share out the work according to interest and ability, not based on some notion that I am the default head of the household.

Mendalla

Put simply, you're right about what the bible says.  However, this does nothing to mitigate the idiocy of the belief.

People worry too much of what that word means.  50% of marriages end in divorce because the couple breaks their vows so whats one more to break?

What if the head of the male is not dominant? Or does not deserve to be dominant? I can see it working if the man does right and doesn't take it all too seriously, and listens to his wife. Trish is no wimp! And if it works for her then I believe it.

The woman must allways have the ability to choose for herself, and to veto if he does wrong or makes poor decisions. I am the one in our family to sign documents first and do most of the talking when it comes to business, banking and real estate. Like a Viking housewife, I carry the keys and do the taxes. I have the final say on most things.

I don't mind at all the idea of being given away. I did not have that oportunity, having not had a proper wedding, nor having lived with my dad, or been supported by him, for many years prior. My dad didn't have any part in it. I would have liked for him to meet my husband first, approve of him, and walk me down the isle. As it was, he met him several months after we were married.

My wife and I are an anarcho-syndicalist collective.  It normlly takes complete consensus between us for family decisions to be made.  Such an arrangement is what God intended for marriage.  Otherwise God wouldn't have gifted men and women with equal minds and wills.  The references in scripture to patriarchal arrangments are an echo of the paternal culture in which they were written and not the last word of God.  What one needs to focus on is how early Christians were beginning to break such stereotypes down, such as when it is stated that in terms of salvation there is no "man nor women."  Reading scripture in any other way than as a record of the unfolding failed attempts at the people of God to rise to the challenge of the moral perfection of God means turning it into an arachaic stumbling block for people coming to God.  Way to go Kate and Will!

If the man who is the head of the marriage is not dominant than he needs to learn to be so if he is to fulfill his biblical responsibility of being a good husband for his wife. There are a number of excellent programs, workshops, books, courses, etc. within the evangelical church designed to instruct a man and his wife on living the Christian married life.

Yes, I agree that the woman must be free to choose. She is not a robot. The man is not the boss of the marriage. Rather, he is its servant-leader. He is to his wife as Christ is to the church. There are times when a wife should go against her husband's wishes -- those times are whenever she believes that God wants her to do one thing and her husband wants her to do another.

What if she wakes up one morning and realizes that her husband isn't so much fulfilling his biblical responsibility by being dominant, but is just your run-of-the-mill douchebag?

I had a very good friend who called off a wedding at the last minute when she came to that realization, much to my relief and the relief of many of her friends.  I imagine he was a very good Calvinist, but he was a controlling jerk to her, and it killed me to watch her spirit be crushed when they were together, and this wasn't the first boyfriend of hers she had met through church who had this effect on her.  After she called it off, she was shunned by their church friends.  Being very religious herself, it was quite a blow to her self-esteem, and it took some time for her her regain it.  I'll never forget those conversations with a remarkably bright and attractive girl who questioned her judgement and her self-worth, because she feared she may have stepped afoul of her god for doing what was clearly the right thing.

I'm obviously a tad biased on this issue, but if you're a guy who thinks some bits of useless scripture gives you the right to be the "dominant" head of the relationship, then you're not good enough or smart enough for whomever you are with, and kindly go sodomize yourself with a rusty fence post.

Chansen, sounds like your friend worked up a lot of courage to step away from that relationship. It must have taken all her strength. I'm glad too. There;s an awful lot of women out there who feel stuck and too weak to get out of bad relationships. It breaks my heart. How a man uses his dominance, and how a woman finds her strength are both such important things to be worked out. And I think natural temperment also plays a big part; people must be well suited to one another. Strong man: Strong woman. And some men need to realize that brute force does not make up for inner hurt.  It all makes me want to take up my sword against those woman oppressing bastards!

Mornign Calm, thanks for your description. Glad you agree on the second part.

She's flippin' brilliant, still is, and is now married to a great guy who probably still doesn't deserve her, but is a fantastic and accomplished person in his own right.  But the memories of a spirited girl who turned into a dispirited shell of herself when her boyfriend/fiance was around...sticks with me to this day, along with those conversations in the aftermath as she picked up the pieces.

Please note that I don't completely blame religion for this situation - I think his being a jerk was mostly independent of his being a Christian and a Calvinist.  But, as in so many other situations, being a Christian gave weight to scripture that helped him justify being a jerk of a boyfriend and fiance.

She was lucky to have you for a friend.

When I got married (early 90's) we told the minister (Methodist) that we didn't want "obey" in the vows and he said it hadn't been done in ages, at least for Methodists.