Which wedding traditions are biblical? Should you take your husband’s name or even wear a ring?

Writer Michelle Tant looks at someone of the wedding traditions we hold dear, and asks what God thinks about them.

When I got married in 2001, I didn’t think twice about the social convention of taking my husband’s name nor the ring he gave me on our engagement. It is only now, as I pay increasing attention to the patriarchal structures woven into the fabric of our society that I have stopped to think why, and then, to wonder what God thinks about it too.

Recent studies have demonstrated a growing shift in the ways that people observe the traditions associated with engagement and marriage. Where marriage is seen to be a predominantly Christian practice, we assume that the traditions such as the exchange of rings or the taking of the husband’s name must also have their roots in Christianity and therefore, in the Bible.