Britain May Permit More Flexible Civil Wedding Rites

As the world became aware with the recent marriage of Prince Charles to Camilla Parker Bowles, British law extensively regulates civil marriage ceremonies. An article in Monday's Guardian reports that the government may soon relax existing legal restrictions on the content of civil marriage rites. Currently any readings or music in a civil ceremony must be secular in nature. The British Office for National Statistics, which regulates both civil and religious wedding ceremonies, is about to propose a change that will permit civil ceremonies to use readings or songs that "contain an incidental reference to a god or deity in an essentially non-religious context".