When we ministers perform a wedding we not only serve as an agent of God --we are a representative of the state. Though we all believe we are doing something in the sight of God, what we actually say is something like, "By the power vested in me by the State of Indiana, I pronounce…" Marriages are not only a moral matter--they are a legal transaction involving matters of inheritance, property and other economic issues more related to the courtroom than the church altar. Nowhere is this more obvious than the process of dissolving this legal bond--divorces are the domain of the courtroom, and are more about money than morals.

Of course, the Christian church was so slow to get into the wedding business. The early church had nothing to do with performing weddings--these were family matters not the church's business. But gradually the church was drawn into these legal arrangements between two families--especially as the Roman notion of marriage prevailed in the church. It became increasingly important to establish legal childhood to enable rightful inheritance. The local priest, being able to read and write, was then gradually pulled into recording marriage contracts as legal agreements.

At first these contracts occurred at the door of the church where many other legal transactions of the day occurred. Eventually, at the end of the ceremony the couple followed the priest indoors to the altar for Holy Communion. But it took 1000 years fo