Originally posted by Ushgarak
To be fair, you asked about the ceremony, not the person. You were referring to ceremonies of purely decorative value as used in some countries; I was informing you that this was not the case here. Religious institutions CAN marry people in most jurisdictions because they are part of a country's legal marrying process.
Evidently, I was referring to the power of the church to celebrate a legally binding contract. I was surprised by the fact that religious wedding would have actual legal power instead of the strictly decorative value and that is why I was asking if that really was the case. I dont see how that could have been unclear. I understand you were pointing out that sometimes the registrar is there along witht the priest to make things official, and therefore the church is part of the legal marrying process in a way, but seen as he's not a cleric, the power to marry people legally in this situation isn't the churche's.
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It's not as if a registrar just comes along to any old celebration. A person cannot have a party at a friend's house and invite the registrar to get married.
Well, it is where I live. You just pay a fee for a house visit. this is what people who are only getting a civil marriage (the real one in the eyes of the law) do.
But you could also seek out the registrar in a public office of some kind and get married there couldn't you? So his service, even if he doesn't answer house calls, remains basically independent from a religious cerimony.
It is specifically part of a religious marrying ceremony in the majority of western countries that it has legal force, which makes it one of only two ways (the other being purely civil) to do so. The religious ceremony simply would not take place without the legal side.I think this point is important to understand
I'm still skeptical about the majority of western countries, maybe in the common law nations, but certainly not in mine or the rest of Latin America and I doubt that it's the case in most Civil Law nations. In fact, while I looked up the status in France as they are so concerned with laicité, I found this:
"In some countries, such as France, Spain, Germany, Turkey, Argentina, Japan and Russia, it is necessary to be married by government authority separately from any religious ceremony, with the state ceremony being the legally binding one. In those cases, the marriage is usually legalized before the ceremony. Some jurisdictions allow civil marriages in circumstances which are notably not allowed by particular religions, such as same-sex marriages or civil unions." Same goes for Brasil where I live and Im certain there many others following this pattern.
The religious cerimony would probably still take place without the legal side, it just wouldn't have legal validity. Like it doesn't in a crap load of places.