Quaker Marriage in History
After the local meeting had approved the couple's intention, an announcement would be made and posted in the market on market day. After this the wedding could take place. Outsiders sometimes criticized Quaker couples for living in sin because they married each other without priests or ministers. George Fox, founder of the Society of Friends, and Margaret Fell married using a modification of this procedure in 1669.
Two years later, when Fox was in Barbados, he sent out another epistle. In this epistle, Fox advocated giving women's meetings the initial responsibility to pass on a couple's intentions when the couple had expressed a desire to be wed. This advice became quite controversial among those who did not want to see women's roles expanded.
Read more about this topic: Quaker Wedding
Famous quotes containing the words quaker, marriage and/or history:
“this old Quaker graveyard where the bones
Cry out in the long night for the hurt beast
Bobbing by Ahab’s whaleboats in the East.”
—Robert Lowell (1917–1977)
“Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient.”
—Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)
“The basic idea which runs right through modern history and modern liberalism is that the public has got to be marginalized. The general public are viewed as no more than ignorant and meddlesome outsiders, a bewildered herd.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)