The phrase
"marriage rites" refers to the specific customs, traditions, and rituals that are followed in order to perform and celebrate a marriage ceremony.
Full definition
As the traditional
marriage rite observes: «No other human ties are more tender, no other vows more sacred than these you now assume.
This, he indicated, would be in response to the daunting prospect that clergy may eventually be required by the state to conduct same -
sex marriage rites.
Cheerfully they had represented local gods of vegetation in the
sacred marriage rites and cheerfully submitted themselves to the knife when their year was up.
Yet they appealed to an uninstructed mind, who perhaps thought of
the marriage rite not as the Church's but as her own.
Whether our churches really have the will to reclaim
the marriage rite as their own is far from certain.
A «blessing of union» rite (by whatever name) could function in ways not identical but parallel to
marriage rites.