I’m interested in writing an essay about NeoPagans and their view of marriage and I need your help. I’m looking for anecdotes and experiences from people who are married, handfasted (or the equivalent of ‘joined but not according to the State’), and/or performed such ceremonies.
- Did you get legally joined as well as go through the religious ceremony?
- What genders are you and your spouse?
- Why marriage/handfasting/joining?
Please feel free to tell me more, but the above are the key points I’m looking at for now. I am perfectly prepared to keep everything shared with me strictly anonymous and confidential; if you are comfortable with me using you/your story as an example please let me know that (otherwise, stories will be altered to make a point and not break confidentiality). Responses via the ‘comments’ feature on this blog are great, or you can write to me directly at lisa*@*cybercoven.org (remove the spambot-foiling *)
Share this message far and wide — I want to hear from as diverse a group of NeoPagans as possible.
In my state, any minister can perform legal ceremonies, so we got a license and were married at home by one of the priestesses of our local pagan church. Thus, our handfasting was our legal wedding. I’ve performed similar services for other folks myself.
We’re a man and woman. We needed to be legally married for health insurance purposes and were moving toward joining our lives for emotional and spiritual reasons, so everything came together at once.
I’m Canadian so my same sex partner and I could be legally married but have choosen not to go to a justice of the peace. We had a small non-denominational blessing about 18 years ago and that was all we needed. Declaring our intentions before our families and our God/desses was enough. We had our union blessed in 1991, before it was really okay to be out as lesbians even in our large city and it was important to us to mark our relationship as permanent and solid.
My partner is Christian and I’m an eclectic/Dianic/Celtic/pagan Witch. 🙂
If you’d like more information you can email me at ravenverde AT gmail DOT COM.
not married yet.
Live in Canada, plan on getting a legal marriage but currently handfasted.
We are male and female.
* Did you get legally joined as well as go through the religious ceremony?
* What genders are you and your spouse?
* Why marriage/handfasting/joining?
1) Somewhat. We’re registered domestic partners in California, but we live (and were handfasted) in Ohio.
2) We’re both male, as is our third.
3) We felt it necessary to have that Divine Blessing on our union. Sure, we could have just gotten rings for each other and said we’re married and all that, but we’re both strong enough in our faith that we wanted that ritual. It was important to us, and we wanted to be surrounded by the love of our chosen family when we did it. The registration as domestic partners was for legal reasons: his company wouldn’t let me be on his insurance without the legal binding of the domestic partner registration.
I got married in 2005, and had long been a practicing Pagan. My husband-to-be was raised Catholic, and later in life found a personal alignment with the Religious Science church.
His parents are Catholic and my parents are staunch Atheists. Fortunately neither were offended by our ceremony which took place in the Religious Science church. We pretty much created the ceremony ourselves with the help of the minister. There was mention of a Mother-Father God, but not Jesus or hell or anything like that. I feel we struck a nice middle ground that allowed all kinds of folks from various traditions to enjoy the ceremony.
* Did you get legally joined as well as go through the religious ceremony?
Yes
* What genders are you and your spouse?
I am female and he is male.
* Why marriage/handfasting/joining?
I did not want to live with someone again without being married. I have been screwed financially and legally in the past because people flaked out on me. I wanted a commitment and he also took our relationship seriously so there was no reason not to get married. Also there are tax benefits and if one of us should become ill, our marriage gives us legal rights.
Since we are both spiritual people we wanted to have a ceremony that would be meaningful instead of just getting married at the justice of the peace.
My partner & I are both Priestesses of the path we follow. Mine Wicca & her’s Celtic. Together, we combined and teach both paths in our coven along with our High Priest. We teach polarity. We own the local pagan shops and are very active in our community. We have been together for over 5yrs and were handfasted 1 1/2 ago. It was our commitment to each other before our community and God/desses. She has a normal job working for the county and is not out of the closet nor can be due to the nature of her job. One or the other might be acceptable, but to be pagan and a lesbian would surely cost her job. If given the opportunity, legalizing our bond would be great in many aspects, but not a demanding must.
Did you get legally joined as well as go through the religious ceremony?
What genders are you and your spouse?
Why marriage/handfasting/joining?
Legally married by a justice of the peace (no temple membership of any sort due to being in our “trying out a drastically different religion every month” phase), saw a friend’s Wicca book and had the eureka moment shortly after. Never a formal religious ceremony — without having the words to express it at the time, our original committment to each other had all the spiritual aspects of a committment before the Universe and the gods etc., plus it just seemed a bit silly after X years of marriage (now 12) and with the kids and all.
Female/male
80% we both wanted the highest possible degree of committment to each other, 10% the resume aspect (being able to say with the appropriate false modesty “I am 31, been married 12 years now”), 10% the legal safeguards.
Male & female couple legally married but wrote our own ceremony which included Wiccan (mine) and Buddhist (his)elements to it. We live in PA but choose to marry in NY state during a vacation so our service was actually at the cabin we were staying at.
My (now ex) partner and I were legally married (same-gender marriage) in Toronto in a civic ceremony. I’m a Traditionalist Witch and a Lukumi Olorisha and he is an Aborisha in the Lukumi Tradition. We did not have a religious wedding/handfasting because he wasn’t Wiccan and Lukumi/Santeria does not actually have a specific across-the-board ceremony for marriage, in particular there was nothing for same-sex marriage as most Santeros are usually married in either a secular setting or a Catholic one..
I no longer see a reason for legal marriage personally, but I would be open to a handfasting or spiritual ceremony if it came up.
Unfortunately, as a male couple our marriage is not recognized by the State of Ohio. When we successfully adjust the legal status of marriage to include the range of human partnerships (or move somewhere that does); we would pursue legal recognition.
For us, our handfasting was how we chose to share the joy of our love with our community, and to recognize the soul work that the Mysteries enjoined us to do together in the perfection of the Great Work. It was a way to focus the energy, so that it might manifest in a meanignfully directed way.
1. No, because it isn’t possible for two men to legally marry in either Missouri (where we used to live) or Pennsylvania (where we currently live.
2. Male/male.
3. We were handfasted in 1994 because it was time to stand in the presence of our gods and our folk, and let our union be acknowledged.
Minnesota is responsible in its marriage laws in that you have to wait just as long to get married as you do to own a gun. Beyond that in both cases, however, it’s kind of a free-for-all.
My wedding was done by a Blackfoot tribe member – he didn’t even have to file paperwork because of MN laws regarding tribal traditions. It was a Wiccan/Blackfoot ceremony still legally binding, or at least, binding enough that they still took our money when we filed for dissolution.
It was legal, it was a handfasting, and it was male/female. Families were present. We just didn’t stop to explain what we were doing, and Minnesotans being who they are, no one really asked any questions. (My family is Hoosiers, and they just kept quiet.)