Until the Twelfth of Never

You ask how much I need you
Must I explain?
I need you, oh, my darling

 Like roses need rain

You ask how long, I'll love you
I'll tell you true
Until the twelfth of never
I'll still be loving you

Hold me close
Never let me go

Hold me close
Melt my heart like April snow

I'll love you 'til the blue bells forget to bloom
I'll love you 'til the clover has lost its perfume
I'll love you 'til the poets run out of rhyme

Until the twelfth of never
And that's a long long time
Until the twelfth of never
And that's a long long time

 
My husband and I are celebrating our 50^th anniversary and I remember the song that was popular in our  day—“The Twelfth of Never.” It is a beautiful ballad where he pledges to love her “until the twelfth of never. . . and that’s a long, long time.” This is supposed to mean a time that can’t be counted, infinity. Many other love songs sing of eternal love, a love beyond the bounds of this earth, a never-ending love. 

When my husband and I married 50 years ago in the Logan Temple, our marriage was “sealed” not just until death parts us, but for time and all eternity. This indeed is a marriage that lasts “until the twelfth of never” or for infinity. 

What is a Temple or Eternal Marriage? Why would one want such a marriage? 

First to want an eternal marriage, you must believe in a life beyond this mortal temporal life—a life before birth and a life after death—an eternal life. As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also referred to as Mormons), we believe that our existence on the earth today is only one part of our eternal progression; that we lived as spirit beings before we came to earth; we are living on earth to obtain mortal bodies and to test us; that after death we will once again live in a spiritual realm until we are resurrected and receive an immortal body.

If you believe in life after this, (as Mormons do) then you want to preserve family ties into the next life. 

If you believe only in this life and that when you die, your existence as a soul, spirit or any kind of conscious being or entity is wiped out, then there is no need for a marriage past death; there is nothing past death. Many people believe this way, and when family members die, it is indeed a devastating thought that their existence is gone.

Many Christians do believe in life after death and look forward to rejoining deceased family members when they die. The idea of living together in family units after death is especially appealing if your family life was happy.

My mother died over 49 years ago, soon after we were married. I was very close to her, and I yearned to have a mother to turn to as a young mother for guidance and support. Several times during the years when I have needed her, I have felt my mother’s spirit and her love and know that the veil between this world and the next can be very thin. Another time when I was going through a difficult illness and felt overwhelmed, I often felt my maternal grandparents nearby—I felt they were right behind me and if I turned quickly enough I would see them; I felt that they knew of my struggle and were there to support me. Those times I felt their spirit, I was uplifted, knowing I wasn’t alone, and I felt encouraged to keep going.

A very dear sister of mine died twelve years ago of cancer. Her husband sat with her often before her death; one day they were discussing Coleen’s mother, who had also died young of cancer. Coleen’s husband asked her if she thought that her deceased mother’s spirit had been around during the busy years that he and Coleen were raising their nine children. Coleen smiled and replied, oh yes, her mother had been there watching them raise their children and her grandchildren.

Coleen’s husband asked her how she knew that. Coleen was very peaceful replied; her mother’s spirit was sitting over in the corner of the room. When he had asked Coleen that question, her mother nodded her head, indicating, yes, she had been there.

If you believe in a post-mortal life, and want to be with your family after death, you need to know how you can. Who can promise such a thing? 

I believe that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has the authority to promise a marriage union that will last beyond this life. I believe that Christ’s church was restored to the earth by Christ’s apostles, and with it the power to seal couples in heaven and on earth.

On April 3, 1836, in the newly dedicated temple in Kirtland, Ohio, the Lord Jehovah appeared to the Prophet Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery. Then Moses, Elias, and Elijah each appeared and committed the keys of vital and eternal works to earthly leaders once more.

Elijah’s appearance was in fulfillment of the prophecy made in Malachi 4:5–6:

“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord:

“And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.”

The keys and power of the priesthood Elijah restored on that day in the Kirtland Temple are described in Doctrine and Covenants 132:46: “And verily, verily, I say unto you, that whatsoever you seal on earth shall be sealed in heaven; and whatsoever you bind on earth, in my name and by my word, saith the Lord, it shall be eternally bound in the heavens.”

These sealing ordinances, which bind families together for eternity, can be performed only in holy temples by those having the proper priesthood authority.[i]

Who then would want a temple marriage? A young couple who believe in eternal life, who believe in the authority of the church which promises the power to unite them eternally, and who love each other enough to want to be sealed eternally would want a temple marriage.  A young couple who were not sure about their love, who were thinking (even unconsciously) that if it didn’t work they could always get a divorce and try again, wouldn’t want an eternal commitment that would be harder to cancel or break. 

The commitment a couple who want an eternal marriage is far more than a couple who just wants to get married. 

They must keep all the commandments of the church for a year prior to marriage, including chastity until marriage. And the commitment to keeping the commandments of the church, to be faithful in all things is a lifetime obligation. A “happily ever after” marriage only begins on the wedding day; an eternal marriage begins the same day. A wedding sealed in the temple may never become eternal if it becomes based on anger, dishonesty, unfaithfulness, or selfishness. But living the gospel, loving and helping perfect each other, working toward becoming an eternal family is worth it. It doesn’t happen overnight (it may take a lifetime), but think of the rewards.

To be sealed as a family, knowing that you will be united as a family after death is infinitely precious. In our fifty years of marriage my husband and I have lost three grandchildren and there have been several times when my husband has been so ill we were fearful that he wasn’t long for this life. My husband served two tours in Vietnam as a helicopter pilot and I worried daily if he would survive the war or not. But the confidence of the resurrection and the knowledge that we would be a family again helps make these trials more bearable. 

As we celebrate our fifty years together, they haven’t always been easy. But I love him just as much as I did when I heard that song many years ago, “Until the twelfth of never, I’ll still be loving you.” With temple marriage, even after death, we’ll still be able to love each other as a couple with our family, forever.

---

[i] Ensign, April 2007, p. 40

Marriage Customs in England

Wedding Banns 1819

I am fascinated with genealogy. When I am searching the records that document the evidence of my ancestors’ lives, I feel like a detective, tracking the confirmation of their lives to discover who they are. Yesterday I discovered my ancestor’s wedding banns.  I was so excited because I had read often about banns.

Wikipedia explains that "The banns of marriage, commonly known simply as the 'banns' or 'bans' (from a Middle English word meaning 'proclamation') are the public announcement in a Christian parish church of an impending marriage between two specified persons specified persons for three consecutive weeks." 

Wedding Registry 1754

  
“The purpose of banns is to enable anyone to raise any legal obstacle to the marriage, so as to prevent marriages that are invalid. Impediments would be such things as a pre-existing marriage that has not been dissolved or annulled, lack of consent, or the couple’s being related within the prohibited degrees of kinship."


There have always been laws concerning marriage. In 1215 Catholic Canon law enacted a law to prevent clandestine marriages. The Council of Trent on November 11, 1563 went  further; they made the law more precise; this stated that before any marriage, the names of the wedding couple should be announced publicly by the parish priests of both parties on three consecutive Holy Days (publishing the banns). This law also required each parish to keep a register of marriages; however many parishes ignored this order—only about 800 records exist from the 1500s.


Some couples did not want to wait three weeks to marry, so marriage licenses were introduced in the 14th century. However, these licenses were not cheap; the groom paid a fee, and made a written oath on that there was no "canonical impediment" to the marriage. Sometimes the groomsmen also had to post a hefty bond to ensure the legality of the marriage. 

Marriage Registry 1726

After the wedding the marriage was recorded in the parish records; sometimes the priest recorded all the names, other times the bride and groom wrote their names.


In the 1600s, many people had begun marrying without publishing banns. It was possible for eloping couples to be married clandestinely by an ordained clergyman and it became more and more common for couples to marry in “irregular” or “clandestine” marriages.

“Clandestine" marriages were those that had an element of secrecy to them; perhaps they did not take place at the home parish, without either banns or marriage license. An "irregular" marriage was one that took place either away from the home parish of the spouses (but after banns or license), or at an improper time. 

Marriage Registry 1689

A Fleet Prison marriage in London is the best-known example of a “clandestine” or “irregular” marriage; it took place in the Fleet Prison environs. As a prison Fleet Prison was outside of the jurisdiction of the church, and eventually the whole area around the Fleet Prison became a lawless area which operated under “fleet rules.”  


An Article called “Thorley’s Fleet Marriages,” (From the Thorley Archives, With acknowledgements to: - Fleet Marriages of Hertfordshire People to 1754, Jack Parker, Published by Hertfordshire Family & Population History Society 1999, Bill Hardy, May 2003) gives an interesting insight into Fleet marriages:

Fleet Marriage Certificate (NOT my Ancestor)

 “No banns or licenses were required but a record was kept by an accompanying register keeper and hence many of these records now survive in The Public Record Office. Strangely, unlike parish registers of that period, these records contain details of occupations, marital status and home locality and are therefore of interest to those trying to track down their family history in counties surrounding London.”


 Wikipedia states, “The Marriage Duty Act 1695 put an end to irregular marriages at parochial churches by penalizing clergymen who married couples without banns or license. By a legal quirk, however, clergymen operating in the Fleet could not effectively be proceeded against, and the clandestine marriage business there carried on. In the 1740s, over half of all London weddings were taking place in the environs of the Fleet Prison. . . .


“During the 1740s up to 6,000 marriages a year were taking place in the Fleet area, compared with 47,000 in England as a whole. . . It was not merely a marriage center for criminals and the poor, however; both rich and poor availed themselves of the opportunity to marry quickly or in secret.”


The government was determined to prevent these irregular marriages and Parliament passed Lord Hardwick's Act of 1753, wherein marriage was only legally valid if the banns had been called or a marriage license had been obtained. The only exception was if a bishop's license (a common license) or the special license of the Archbishop of Canterbury had been obtained. Lord Hardwick’s Act of 1753 also required a separate marriage register to record witnesses, signatures of all parties, occupation of groom and the residences of the couple marrying.
 

Gretna Green Marriage Registry--Not my ancestor

After the Act of 1753 law, elopers had to leave England and Wales in order to contract a marriage to avoid these formalities. Scotland, in particular Gretna Green, the first village over the border from England, was the customary destination, but became less popular after 1856 when Scottish law was amended to require 21 days' residence. I was excited to find an example of a Gretna Green marriage online. As an avid reader of romance novels, I was thrilled to see that it was a wedding between nobles—Lady Mary Beauclair and Lord George Wm. Coventry on 11 Jun 1811 (they are not my ancestors).


In 1763, the minimum age of marriage was set at age 16; marriage without consent of parents was set at 21 years of age. This law also stipulated that parish records should be written on lined papers with various columns for each category to make the records more readable. 


Each law made marriage more secure, made records more permanent and accessible; each law protected the rights of the wives and children of the marriage.

St. Peter's Church, Blackley, Lancashire where my ancestor's worshiped

But not everything was perfect. Most of my British ancestors are from Manchester in Lancashire County in England. However, they lived in tiny communities, Blackley, Ashton Under-lyne, Newton Heath, and Oldham. I was surprised that often they were married, and baptized in the Manchester Cathedral rather than their own parish chapels, St. Mary’s, St. Peter’s, All Saint’s, Chorlton Chapel. 

Manchester Cathedral

At first I thought that it was more romantic to be married in the great cathedral. Then I discovered the real reason—money. The Collegiate Church of Manchester (the Cathedral) was the Parish Church for the parish of Manchester. In 1421 the warden and fellows of Manchester Cathedral decided that under their charter they could claim fees for any marriage within the geographical parish of Manchester. Therefore, anyone married in their own parish (such as Blackley) had to pay marriage fees to their local church, plus the Manchester Cathedral.  However, if a couple married only in the Manchester Cathedral, they only had to pay one marriage fee. 

Free BMD Index 1838

Also, the Manchester Cathedral often conducted many “irregular” marriages, and couples would not have to schedule a wedding, but just appear and get married. One report also indicates that they did multiple marriages of poor people in the Manchester Cathedral in the 1800s.

  

In July 1837, the government Introduced General Civil Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths in England and Wales. This is the basis of all “FreeBMD Indexes” that Genealogists love; these record all civil birth, marriages and deaths from the year 1838 and after. These are government records, not parish records and very reliable. Note, its index is by three-month period. From these you can locate the original record.

1851 Census of Newton township, Lancashire

Censuses, beginning with 1841, tried to document families and individuals for many purposes. If you are a genealogist, censuses are a great way to find names and information. 

Censuses list all those who live in each house, their names and their ages, sometimes their occupations, and where they come from. This gives you an idea which year someone was born and how many children there are at that year so you can locate information about the children.

But today marriage is becoming less and less an option for people. Many are not marrying at all; the government records their birth and death, but those are the only official records of their life. No marriages, children with no fathers, same-sex couples with marriages recognized in some states and not in others. Marriage vows that are not official, but merely made up, and dissolved as easily. Couples that live together as long as it convenient and then move on with or without the children they had with that individual. 

People move so much today that no census can track them. When I was researching my ancestors near Blackley, I could tell which were mine because they were at Blackley. If someone with the same name were from Yorkshire, I knew he was not related. But now, although we’ve lived in the same place for 23 years, the census has recorded us here for only one of those censuses. In 1990, we didn’t move here until after the census, so we were recorded in California; in 2000, we were recorded here; in 2010, the census recorded us in Los Angeles where we were living while Ed received his new lung. So how could any census track anyone in a society as mobile as ours?

Can you imagine a genealogist of the future trying to make sense of the chaos of family situations in the future? I’m just glad I’m researching my past—and not the future generations.