I'll buy a vow, please

Something about Bob and Mary Alice's wedding has captured Aidan's imagination. Suddenly weddings are figuring prominently in his animal friends lives, and he even did up his gibbon in a veil and train. This has lead him to a number of important questions about weddings and marriage: Can a man marry another man? Can a wedding be undone? What, exactly, are they promising to do?

I find these especially telling questions, because sometimes I think Aidan is thinking more seriously about them than the people taking the vows these days. I think the matter is more complicated by the fact that most anybody who opts for a non-church wedding is put in the position of having to write their own vows. I think this would be a fine thing, except that most people see this as an exercise in love poetry rather than the crafting of a vow to be taken seriously and literally. (Bob's and MA's vows were, by the way, just fine.) I am amazed at how few self-composed vows actually mention the really important things: fidelity ("foresaking all others"), permanance ("'til death us do part"), and constancy ("for richer or poor, in sickness and in health"). I don't believe these are poetic sentiments of love; they are literal, specific promises. As gender roles evolve and societal norms blur, it is even more important that people really understand exactly what they are promising to do.