Confused about personal “vows”

View Quoted Comment But, all that being said, that still in no way addressed my original post LOL I was simply observing that people do not seem to understand the definition of vows, which is “a solemn promise to do a specific thing; one by which a person is bound to an act, service or condition”. I was just curious if anyone else had noticed how many couples these days say they are writing personal vows, but then don’t actually write VOWS. It wasn’t a judgment or a put down… simply an observation of a word that many couples do not seem to understand the meaning of.

I get what you're saying, and you're absolutely right in the sense that these "vows" are not by definition actually vows. Does it bother me, absolutely not. The ceremony is probably the most personally part of the day, and I can't imagine being bothered by the way that a couple chooses to express their love for one another in front of their family and friends. Their not any less married because they didn't say "traditional" vows.

View Quoted Comment Wait, I'm sorry but shouldn't the general concepts of marriage be the same whether you are religious or not? Genuinely curious. I used to be a church-every-Sunday-Catholic until I realized that the ideals of today's church had strayed so far away from my own. And I don't think that means that I 'don't understand what marriage is or what it means to be married".

View Quoted Comment Tiger Bride please correct me if I’m wrong… but I think what she is trying to say is that people have different concepts of what marriage is to them. For example, some people feel that marriage is a religiously sanctioned joining of two people in front of God. Other people feel that religion should not enter it at all, and that marriage is simply a legal joining. Many Middle Eastern marriages are built on the concept that the woman is submissive and subservient. Where in many western cultures, marriages are regarded as an equal partnership. Some people feel that marriage is a lifelong commitment of fidelity to their partner, while other married people engage in polyamorous relationships. I have a close friend who says her and her bf probably will never get married because they view it simply as a means to protect a future family. And since they have no desire to have children, they don’t see a point in entering into marriage. As TB pointed out, over time the concept of marriage has changed a lot (plus with travel and people relocating to other countries and bringing with them their cultural/religious takes on marriage) and people are less likely to have a common conception of what a marriage is or what it entails.

View Quoted Comment Well, that's a good example. The Catholic Church teaches that one of the primary ends of marriage is having and raising children in the faith. A Catholic couple that adheres to this teaching has a fundamentally different conceptualization of marriage than a couple who says that marriage and children are completely separate ideas.


Most people would agree that marriage requires you to be emotionally and sexually faithful to one person. Some people, however, have "open marriages" and do not regard monogamy as part and parcel of marriage.
These are just a couple of examples.

View Quoted Comment Yes yes yes!!! You get what I'm saying 100%.

View Quoted Comment Katie, in case my language was unclear, I used the phrase "lack of common understanding" to mean "lack of consensus or agreement". Not that people don't understand, but that people don't have a commonly shared definition.

View Quoted Comment I understand what you're saying here. Every religion/culture has different values regarding marriage, and I agree.


However, it's the phrase from your first post that being non religious "leads to a lack of common understanding what marriage is and what is means to be married" that is kinda judgemental.

View Quoted Comment I clarified this above, but because I can't tag you I'll share it here too - I used the phrase "lack of common understanding" to mean "lack of consensus or agreement". Not that people don't understand, but that people don't have a commonly shared definition. I'm pretty sure that is the correct idiomatic usage of that phrase.


This is a minor point, but I was not calling out nonreligious people specifically, but rather the overall cultural shift towards nonreligiosity.

View Quoted Comment Again, correct me if I am wrong TB… the way I interpreted this is that way back in the day the U.S. was predominantly Christian. So there was a general consensus throughout the country of what the definition marriage was and exactly what it entailed (ceremonies included the same things, vows were all standard, and expectations of the marriage were basically uniform). Now, however, we have every cultural and religion you can think of represented in the U.S., so there are tons of different views of what constitutes a marriage. Thus, the lack of predominantly one religion within the country has lead to a “lack of common understanding what marriage is and what it means to be married”. Not that people who are not religious do not understand marriage, simply that there is no longer a COMMON understanding (ie, there is no one singular definition that everyone subscribes to)

We did two things: First was the statement of intent: "Do you, Florida Marlins, take Mr. Florida Marlins as your husband?" "Yes" Then I recited old school vows: To have and to hold, to love and to cherish, etc.......

Love it. I don't care for self written vows, as....I don't know.....a lot of folks like them, but I am old, I guess!

I agree that most of the customized personal statements couples make about/towards their SO are not vows or promises per se, but I've also heard officiants call them words of affection, statements of love, or names other than vows.

I personally think a list of promises sounds more like a legal contract than a statement of love for ones partner, so like when "vows" are not simply a list of all the things you swear to do once married, but also contain words from the heart, personal anecdotes, and other sentiments. My own were only about a quarter promises.

View Quoted Comment I agree, I enjoy when the couples share sweet sentiments leading up to their vows

That kind of bothers me, in our vows we are saying "I promise to..." and keep going and have a free line at the end.