SIMPLER MARRIAGE.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4718, 30 June 1924, Page 4

SIMPLER MARRIAGE.

AN ENGLISH CHURCH PROPOSAL,

A SENSIBLE RECOMMENDATION, The Lower House of Convocation of Canterbury, at Church House, .Westminster, has adopted a proposal that a certificate of the publication of marriage banns in the prescribed parishes should enable the parties to be married anywhere in the Province of Canterbury and not only in those churches in which the banns weie published (states the “Daily Mail’’). This, it was explained by an ecclesiastical authority, is an attempt on the part of the Church to ensure that marriages shall take place in church and not .in register offices. The Church wants ail marriages celebrated by the Church if possible. As the marriage regulations are framed at present, banns have to be called for three Sundays in the respective parish churches of the intending bride and bridegroom, and then the marriage can be celebrated only in one of those two churches. The new proposal is that the banrs shall be published as at present, but a certificate may be issued enabling the marriage to take place in another church in the Province of Canterbury, and that this certificate shall not be necessary if one of the’parties is a parochial elector of the parish in which it is desired the wedding shall take place. These recommendations will come before Church Assembly, but before they can become operative they will have to be approved by Parliament,