Watch the Words!

Watch the Words!

Ban: summons; command to assemble; in old English and civil law, a proclamation; a public notice; the announcement of intended marriage.

Banns: more commonly \banns of matrimony.\ Public notice or proclamation of a matrimonial contract and the intended celebration of the marriage. The object is to afford an opportunity for any person to interpose an objection if he knows of any impediment or other just cause why the marriage should not take place. Also a proclamation of marriage; the plural of ban.

Betroth: prefix be (to make) plus troth. See troth.

Betrothal: mutual promise of marriage; a plighting of troth; a mutual promise or contract between a competent man and woman to marry at a future time.

Betrothed: one who has exchanged promises to marry. The term may be synonymous with \intended wife.\

Bride: a newly married woman; also bespoken or promised woman.

Bridal: see wedding; from Middle English: composed of bride and ale, the latter being a common name for a feast. There were, in England, leet-ales, scot-ales, clerk-ales, bid-ales, and bride-ales.

Connubial: from come (together) and nubial (to cover, veil, marry); from connumium, in the civil law of the Romans, a lawful marriage as distinguished from \concubinage,\ an inferior marriage.

Groom: a lad; a servant; a servant in waiting; sometimes a laborer or shepherd; a valet; a small heap.

Husband: the master (or goodman) of a house; the male head of a household; a married man. According to Saxon ideas and institutions, the man — \house bond\ — held around him the family, for whom he was in law responsible.

Marriage: to join in or enter into wedlock. From the Indo-European mer- or mor- represented by various words meaning \young man,\ \young woman.\ Marriage is the legal status, condition, or relation of one man and one woman united in law for life, or until divorced, for the discharge to each other and the community of the duties legally incumbent on those whose association is founded on the distinction of sex. Marriage is also a contract, according to the form prescribed by law, by which a man and woman capable of entering into such contract, mutually engage with each other to live their whole lives (or until divorced) together in a state of union which ought to exist between a husband and a wife. In old English law, marriage, maritagium, was the feudal right enjoyed by the lord or guardian of disposing of his ward in marriage.

Marry: to give or take a woman in marriage; provide with a husband; join to a male.

Matrimony: is used in legal and religious terminology; in the Roman Catholic, Eastern, and Anglican churches it denotes one of the seven sacraments. This word should only be used when a religious ceremony is meant. From Latin Matrimonium, from matri-, mater (mother). Marriage was allowed only to Roman citizens. The effect of marriage was to bring -the wife into the manus, or marital power, of the husband, and to create the patria potestas over the children.

Nuptials: is the more formal and stately term. Also, to love, woo; to connect. It also implies an elaborate religious ritual.

Spousal, espousal: more commonly spousals, espousals are archaic terms applying rather to the exchange of marriage vows rather than to any ceremony; mutual promises to marry.

Spouse: a betrothal, a husband or wife; a promised person.

Troth: truth, fidelity,

Union: concord, harmony, confederation in one; oneness; a single pearl of a large size.

Wed: to covenant or agree.

Wedding: is the popular and literary term to denote the ceremony of uniting two persons as husband and wife.

Wedlock: a gift given as a pledge and in token of pleasure; a gift given to the bride. It was usual to make a present to the bride the morning after marriage. Wedlock can also refer to the ceremony or state of marriage or status of husband and wife. In its legal application, it denotes marriage as a state or relationship sanctioned by law.

Wife: a woman; a married woman; to waver; be irresolute; to quiver, tremble; a woman united to a man by marriage, who has a husband living and undivorced.