In the 21st century, some couples may be looking to participate in an equal opportunity feminist wedding. What exactly does this mean? The reality is that patriarchal traditions have made weddings complicated to many modern day couples. To start making a difference starting with your wedding, check out these great feminist wedding vows.
Example #1
I take you as you are, loving who you are now and who you are yet to become. I promise to listen to you and learn from you, to support you and accept your support. I will celebrate your triumphs and mourn your losses as though they were my own. I will love you and have faith in your love for me, through all our years and all that life may bring us.
Example #2
I love you unconditionally and without hesitation. I vow to love you, encourage you, trust you, and respect you. As a family, we will create a home filled with learning, laughter, and compassion. I promise to work with you to foster and cherish a relationship of equality knowing that together we will build a life far better than either of us could imagine alone. Today, i choose you to be my husband/wife. I accept you as you are, and i offer myself in return. I will care for you, stand beside you, and share with you all of life’s adversities and all of its joys from this day forward, and all the days of my life.
Example #3
Today, i promise you this: I will laugh with you in times of joy, and comfort you in times of sorrow. I will share in your dreams and support you as you strive to achieve your goals. I will listen to you with compassion and understanding, and speak to you with encouragement. Together, let us build a home filled with learning, laughter and light, shared freely with all who may live there. Let us be partners, friends and lovers, today and all of the days that follow.
Example #4
You are my best friend. I promise to laugh with you, cry with you, and grow with you. I will love you when we are together and when we are apart. I promise to support your dreams and to respect our differences, and to love you and be by your side through all the days and nights of our lives.
Example #5
Do you, ___ promise to be a loving friend and partner in marriage, to talk and to listen, to trust and appreciate, to respect and cherish _____ uniqueness? Do you promise to support, comfort, and strengthen him/her through life’s joys and sorrows? Do you promise to share hopes and dreams as you build your lives together, and to grow with _____ in mind? Will you strive to build a home that is compassionate to all, full of respect and honor, filled with peace, happiness, and love? Do you promise to always be open and honest with _____, and cherish him/her for as long as you both shall live?
Example #6
I, ____ take you, _____ to be my husband/wife. I promise to always be your biggest fan and your partner in crime. I promise to create and support a family with you, in a household filled with laughter, patience, understanding, and love. I vow not just to grow old together, but to grow together. I will love you faithfully through the difficult and the easy. What may come, i will always be there, each one believing that love never dies. As i have given you my hand to hold, so i give you my life to keep.
Example #7
I, _____, take you ____ to be the wife/husband of my days, the companion of my house, the friend of my life. We shall bear together whatever trouble and sorrow life may lay upon us, and we shall share together whatever good and joyful things life may bring us. With these words, and all the words of my heart, i marry you and bind my life to yours.
Example #8
I, ____, choose you _____ to be no other than yourself. Loving what i know of you, trusting what things i will discover. I will respect you as a person, a partner, and an equal. There is little to say that you haven’t already heard, and little to give that is not already freely given. Before you asked me, i was yours and i am devoted to you in every way. I marry you with no hesitation or doubt, and my commitment to you is absolute. Do you take me to be your lawfully wedded husband/wife?
Example #9
I choose you. To stand by your side and sleep in your arms. To be joy to your heart and food for your soul. To learn with you and grow with you, even as time and life change us both. I promise to laugh with you in good times and struggle alongside you in bad times. I promise to respect you and cherish you as an individual, a partner, and an equal, knowing that we do not complete, but complement each other. May we have many adventures and grow old together.
Example #10
Today, surrounded by people who love us, I choose you _____ to be my partner. I am proud to be your wife/husband and to join my life with yours. I vow to support you, push you, inspire you, and above all love you, for better or worse, in sickness and health, for richer or poorer, as long as we both shall live.
Example #11
I take you to be my spouse. I promise to choose you every day, to love you in word and deed, to do the hard work of making now into always. To laugh with you, cry with you, grow with you, and create with you. To honor the divinity in you, of you, and around you. To be your kin and your partner in all of life’s adventures. Loving what i know of you and trusting what i don’t yet know, i give you my hand. I give you my love. I give you myself. Will you give me yourself? Will you come travel with me?
Example #12
I, ____, do pledge you, _____, my love, for as long as i live. What i possess in this world, i give to you. I will keep you and hold you, comfort and tend you, protect you and shelter you, for all the days of my life.
Here is an interesting Ted talk from a Nigerian novelist that discusses the topic of how everyone should be feminists. Named as one of the twenty most important fiction writers in modern day by the New Yorker, this Ted talk will get you thinking.
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