On Children At Wedding Ceremonies

When a Veteran Ringbearer Does Philosophy

When I was four I didn't know what hobbies were. But suppose you asked me then and I managed to retrieve what constitutes hobbies from my previous life, I may have answered that my hobby is being a ringbearer at weddings. So would I have honestly answered as a four-year-old. Still, supposing I was going to be four forever; and I was to make a profession and a career, I might have opted to become a professional ringbearer. And I would have been a good one.

I remember crying once when my sister was the little bride somewhere and by providence I was not the ringbearer. My little heart was broken. I loved my job.

Even now I think I love the role of best man. And I am strongly considering making a career out of being a best man. Unfortunately, I don't have the skills yet — I am not yet the best swordsman I know. Shame.

Nevertheless, there is something to be said about seeing children actively participate in, and run around at wedding ceremonies. It is the biggest argument, to my mind, against the desacralisation of marriage as an institution —with the ceremony as an enactment of the institution. Where largely, something can be said of every participant at a wedding ceremony and feast. There are many things to be said of all the elements involved in a wedding enactment: the best man, the ring-bearer, the bridesmaids, the bride to the left of the groom, the little bride, the bride’s train, the guests, the family members, and all the other things I neither know nor can recall.

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Of these enactments and elements I have two thoughts. First, they contain meaning; meaning beyond the merely decorative. Second, how these meanings, being so lost or concealed, or receded, or just never appearing to common understanding speaks to how beautiful traditions go ignored via our mindlessness. And a bonus thought: these enactments are wonderful to observe and contemplate, with the wonder teaching us something about the nature of the institution. But once more, especially of children being active participants in this enactment, something has to be said.

For as the parasite that infects dogs, that thing called cynicism, infects more minds now to view marriage as nothing more than common selfish contracts that bear no sacred import aside being the government stamping a selfish sexual union, the presence of children at the enactments sober the minds and temper our growing malady, giving us the right view of things. Even if it is for a moment.

As more people, in principle but not in deed, fancy elopements day after day, where they see their marriages as removed from the continuity of community; seeing the marriage as involving just them and their myopic passions over the common and absolute good, it becomes more necessary for children to increasingly join in the wedding enactments. To keep the ceremony from being a strictly adult affair. (Especially where “adult” increasingly takes on a synonym for “lewd.”)

The subject of the ringbearer and the little bride especially—among other participants—become important for us at a time when weddings are increasingly looked on as the enactment and celebration of selfish contracts between two consenting adults; a contract that excludes the procreative notion of matrimony; that curves in on itself without any consideration for the community that assents and ratifies the new family to be established by the wedding. It is not uncommon to hear these days that “marriage is a contract, the wedding certificate a mere piece of paper; you can just leave when you feel like the contract has overstayed its day.”

I know not many of us consider them inevitable in these ceremonies. More people perform these ceremonies without these able participants. Yet it takes nothing away from the ringbearer’s role and the little bride’s drama. For they represent the future of the couple about to be wedded: they represent the children we expect this couple to bring someday into the world—ideally. Therefore, the ringbearer bearing the wedding bands and the little bride bearing confetti and her little bouquet are symbolic of a union and its expected flourishing.

Quite often we think of the family institution as starting with the husband and wife. Who eventually when the children come, become father and mother. But this is not true. For the ceremony is called “Solemnization of Holy Matrimony” to the end that, at the point of their joining, they become father and mother. Where “Matrimony” taken from the Latin mater meaning mother, and combined with monium meaning obligation, speaks of making one into a mother as well as a wife. This is to say that implicit in the marital vow is the demand of parentage. A wife is not a mother when the child comes. Nor is the man a father when the child comes. They are simply fathers and mothers whose children haven’t arrived yet.

But suppose we become a little more dramatic. And say that, rather than a family being father, mother and child, we say a family is child, mother, and father. Dramatic as it may look, this is the more accurate —albeit mythical—character of a true family. And a trivial demonstration is at hand.

We only need to put our imaginations on the laboratory slab to verify this myth of which I speak. For it is not uncommon to find that in the first gush of romance that wells in the mind at the sight of a crush, we find ourselves imagining all sorts of things. It is no hidden secret that once our imaginations are pollinated with the thoughts of our crush, we, right there, produce petals of imagination, living out entire lives in our fancy where we are married to our crush and we bear children by them, as the butterflies flutter in our bellies. Who can say that they have ever truly been in love with someone without imagining the babies they would have together? Can we not then say, rather dramatically of course, that children are not an afterthought of love but the culmination of it? The reason? And if the culmination; if the end; if the reasonable telos, is it not okay to start from the end and derive it backwards?

As such, the presence of running, giggling children merely rehearses the day when the children finally arrive. Once more, we may imagine all the children running about the wedding scenes as “types and shadows” of the offspring to come. Children running in the reception hall is just a one-day rehearsal of children running around the home.

And I have experienced this myself —speaking as an expert veteran professional ringbearer—that children participating in the ceremony both actively and running around makes for a more tempered atmosphere at a wedding. Tempered first, by regulating what sort of entertainment can be had. Where children will actively be and not be stifled, perverse and lewd entertainment must be barred. This is good for the children as well as the adults. For very often the adults open themselves up to degeneracy and pollution under the guise that they are mature. This is especially true of wedding parties themed “21+” which might entertain nudity and perverse speaking. But knowing that children will be present, it is unwise to bring polluting arts into the arena. This way, all participants are spared the scandal that comes with lewdness of whatever sort. Children are a buffer at a wedding ceremony; the utmost fortification against pollution, the unsung heroes. I sing their praise.

The second temperance is not far from the first. For running children keep the parental guard up and working. The children, having the time of their lives, chasing each other, giggling, will achieve two things: they will forget to eat and they will very likely harm themselves when they trip and fall. But this is no excuse for a tyrannical embargo from running. No. It merely shifts the responsibility to the parents and caregivers to feed them as and when due, as well as to look out for potential pitfalls. This is to the parent’s benefit. Yes it is. For with such guards up, it is impossible to curve into oneself selfishly and begin to imagine bliss without children. It helps them to become better people by coming out of themselves to serve the needs of the young ones. For as the children run self-forgetfully, the adults look to them with care —self-forgetfully as well. In the overflowing of self-forgetfulness, true love is re-established, and the lifeblood of the community is renewed, flowing fresh again. It is not only then the bride and groom who have learned something but everyone else as well. Once more, children save the day and renew the life of the human community. What shall we say about the blushing little brides who love the scenes of kissing? Go find out.

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Yet, at the same time, the children represent the couple’s past. The childhood innocence that loves to play love just until it grows up and tastes a little corruption. Should the page boy and little bride have such humour as to simulate being man and wife in that innocent way, it will no doubt portray the spark of non-sexual love that is as important as the sexual type in the marriage. “Let the children come to me” becomes real at that moment. The couple should learn this lesson from the giggling children for their marriage going forward: “In malice be children but be mature in your understanding.” No lewd entertainment ought to be entertained that will sacrifice the children’s ability to actively participate in the wedding. 

This is merely one element of an elaborate enactment. But you must not misquote me as saying they are inevitable or that an enactment is incomplete without them. However, wherever they are present, I hope the reader finds that an unintentional statement has been made against the widening tendencies for elopements. An affront to the reductive idea of the wedding as a mere transaction is produced. So far I have used the term “actively participate” without saying what I mean. Here is what I mean. 

By “actively participate” in the ceremony, I mean that the pageboy, being the ringbearer, ought to be thoroughly educated on his duties. That he should march forward briskly and smartly bearing the rings. For he is page to a knight and must comport himself as servant worthy of a knight. This way, he reminds the groom of his past as a young lad. At the same time, by presenting the ring upon request, he enacts the yet unborn son of the couple to be wed as mythically setting up the scene for his parents’ union, thereby preparing the way for his coming. He offers the material for their binding —the wedding bands.

The little bride must hold her confetti with diligence. Spreading these petals, she reenacts the idea that the marriage ought to flourish. Not for the couple only. But for those who will come through and after them. The petals of the imagination becoming real and let us know that what was once in the mind is now reality.

With both of them —little bride and ringbearer—marching at the head of the bridal procession, they tell us quite loudly in their marching steps, the message of the couple’s unborn children, that “we were here first, and it was because of us that they —the bride and the groom—came. We have called from a mystical realm and this union was their answer.” 

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