Kavatica wrote...
Silfren wrote...
Kavatica wrote...
motomotogirl wrote...
People always bring up the Chantry whenever anyone mentions marriage. Maybe it's because I'm not religious, but when I think of the characters getting "married," I think of them holding their own private ceremony, which may or may not involve religion, or perhaps just a ring exchange, or token exchange, or hell they could even hold it at the Hanged Man lol
It's true. Most definitely the Dalish do not involve the Chantry in their wedding ceremonies. Neither would the dwarves. Although the only wedding I have seen in game is the City Elf wedding, and that wasn't in the Chantry, but it was overseen by a Mother (or Sister?). Doesn't mean other marriages don't occur in Thedas, it just means that's the only one we've seen.
Since neither Anders nor Hawke are either Dalish or dwarven, this is irrelevant. I made my statement in context of the fact that both are humans living in Thedas, wherein the Chantry holds legal sway in every known country. I also made it based on the fact that we do know that the Chantry officiates marriages, but as far as I know there is no lore suggesting that there are non-Chantry officiated marriages. So it stands to reason that people who want to get married have their marriages carried out by Chantry clergy. You pointed out yourself that the one wedding we've seen was undertaken by a Chantry clergywoman. (Whether or not a marriage takes place INSIDE a Chantry has nothing to do with the Chantry being the organization that carries out marriages.)
I don't know - who says they couldn't get married in a Dalish or Dwarven ceremony? Especially given Hawke and Varric's friendship, I could see him pulling some strings there. I still think that if Anders and Hawke really wanted to get married (although honestly, I don't think any of my Hawkes would give two figs about marriage) they would be able to find a way to do so.
I was addressing the posts complaining about people bringing up the
Chantry in regards to Hawke and Anders getting married. Somepeople apparently find this mindset bizarre.
The whole
reason people assuming the Chantry when they bring this up isn't strange or unusual at all, but based on marriages are typically carried out. Even if you
are not yourself religious--which I am not.
The
world of Thedas--speaking of the human world, not the Dalish or the
Dwarves of Orzammar, is governed nearly exclusively by the Chantry,
from what we've seen, in ways that mirror the political power and
authority of the Catholic Church from the medieval period. Chantry dictates are "the
law of the land" in many respects, and we see
that the secular governments of Thedas often concede authority to the
Chantry, or else govern according to the political situation put in
place by the Chantry's existence.
In this view of human Thedas,
we have seen that the Chantry officiates marriages. We
have NOT seen that any non-Chantry organization does. On top of that,
this, again, mirrors real world situations in which it is very common
for people--even those who are not especially religious--to get married
within the walls of a church, by a church official. It is common
enough, in fact, that the setting of a church and a presiding-over by a
church officiaL is very often the default assumption.
This is
what I was trying to explain: This is why people assume that Hawke and Anders
would not be married, because the likelihood of their being able to
waltz into a Chantry and find a Chantry sister willing to legally marry
them, are slim to none.
We simply do not know what the general views are of people living as a married couple without having been legally bound. There is no existing lore, as far as I recall, about any sort of recognized "common law" marriage. In fact, I think the lore is specifically silent on the subject of the culture surrounding Thedosians who live together as married partners without ever having had an official ceremony.
This is the other thing that is tripping up a lot of people: not everyone views non-official marriages--i.e. those not brought about through official, legally-recognized means--as marriages at all. Whether this is an "accurate" assessment or not is altogether beside the point. For many people, if you weren't officially married in a legal ceremony, then you aren't actually married, whether or not you live together and have for a few decades, whether or not you have children, and whether or not you TELL people you are married.
This is the source of the confusion, right here, because some people figure what makes a marriage is the partnership itself, insisting that if people live and behave as if they are a married couple, then they are married. Others insist that it requires a legally-recognized (or religious-recognized) ceremony.
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Once again, I reiterate that "marriage" does not have to have a jot to do with religion; Hawke and Anders could simply exchange rings and promises after a night of awesome sex LOL Think outside the box, people!
