Reality. More specifically, I got it from Dutch law: Art. I:68 of the Civil Law (which reads in Dutch that no religious ceremony is to be taken place before the marriage has been performed before a civil servant. ). There is even a fine if a priest or something does perform a marriage ceremony before this has been done.

Bert

bert wrote:Reality. More specifically, I got it from Dutch law: Art. I:68 of the Civil Law (which reads in Dutch that no religious ceremony is to be taken place before the marriage has been performed before a civil servant. ). There is even a fine if a priest or something does perform a marriage ceremony before this has been done.

Bert

What a ridiculous notion.

Direct from the Burgerlijk Wetboek:

Titel 5. Het huwelijk
Afdeling 4. De voltrekking van het huwelijk
Artikel 68
Geen godsdienstige plechtigheden zullen mogen plaats hebben, voordat de partijen aan de bedienaar van de eredienst zullen hebben doen blijken, dat het huwelijk ten overstaan van de ambtenaar van de burgerlijke stand is voltrokken.

Well it is the law as I always understood it.

Plenty of catholics when I came here would marry a year at the town hall before they had a religious bun feast and wear their rings on the right hand and changing over at the bun feast.

I know it's the law, I just don't see the point of it.
If religious ceremonies aren't legally binding anyway, who cares whether a couple has had one prior to registering at the city council?

Personally I think it is a good thing. Religious people have a tendency to think of their own religion as more important than the law. After all, they're following their god's laws, instead of some puny national law.

Bert

bert wrote:Personally I think it is a good thing. Religious people have a tendency to think of their own religion as more important than the law. After all, they're following their god's laws, instead of some puny national law.

Bert

They can believe the earth's flat for all I care. Their religious ceremony still will have 0 impact on the validity of their marriage as far as the government's concerned.

I think it is a way of preventing the bun feast having more importance when the civil ceremony could even be forgotten about.

Scot Dutchy wrote:I think it is a way of preventing the bun feast having more importance when the civil ceremony could even be forgotten about.

See, that seems rather petty and insecure to me.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:I know it's the law, I just don't see the point of it.
If religious ceremonies aren't legally binding anyway, who cares whether a couple has had one prior to registering at the city council?

I suppose the thinking was originally that authority comes from the state not from God.

No. Humanists should have more rights than the religious, by virtue of their superior brains. Libertarian humanists should have the most rights of all.