Secular Weddings in Canada: An Examination of a Humanist Response to the Evolution of Marriage

Abstract

Despite increasing societal secularization, little research has been undertaken on the needs of non-religious people to engage in marriage ceremony or the means by which such needs are met. Using a jurisdictional scan, focus groups, and an on-line survey, this exploratory survey examines the provision for and use of secular legal marriage in Canada's regions from a humanist perspective. It is postulated that marriage ceremonies have persisted among the non-religious due to needs to authenticate or recognize transitional changes to the self, but these needs have been met through ad hoc strategies as opposed to a uniform demand for humanist services. Implications for humanist organizations are discussed along with recommendations for further research.

Male Stigma: Emotional and Behavioral Effects of a Negative Social Identity on a Group of Canadian Men

“…17 The rationale that men are secondary to women in child care because they are necessarily absentee providers is no longer operative in these countries. A narrative that men are potentially abusive, malevolent, and irresponsible may be viewed as a new rationale justifying such post-Industrial Revolution norms ( Robertson, 2017 ). Men in this study who experienced alienation from their children reported an expectation that they should continue to be providers regardless of the circumstances leading to that alienation or their earning power in relation to that of their ex-spouses.…”

“…The men in this study reported they were excluded from nurturing roles and relationships even while in the role of financial provider. As Robertson (2017) noted, the notion of the absentee father who is none-the-less the financial provider dates back to the Industrial Revolution when men were driven from feudal agricultural industries and forced to work in more distant mills and factories. Further, with universal conscription justified by nationalism, 15 qualities that make for good soldiers such as the respect for hierarchy and the repression of emotions became identified with the male psyche (Sanchez-Lopez, Cuellar-Flores, Liminana, & Corbalan, 2012).…”

“…The 1960s appropriation of the term “gender” from the study of grammar was justified by the notion that one learns to be male or female 16 (Carbone & Brinig, 1990) with male infants arbitrarily selected to form a dominant ruling class (Fausto-Sterling, 1992; Pinker, 2002). With this ruling class narrative, marriage was seen as an instrument for the continued oppression of women (Ferree, 1990; Mohr, 1984), and Canadian divorce laws were liberalized with increased entitlements to property, assets, and child support for women choosing this alternative (Robertson, 2017). Fault, defined as the failure to comply with the terms of the marriage contract, was abolished as a prerequisite for divorce (Carbone & Brinig, 1990), common-law cohabitation was granted marital status for the purposes of taxation and the equitable division of property, laws were passed prohibiting discrimination in education and employment on the basis of sex, and affirmative action programs were implemented to ensure women had the opportunity to access career opportunities formerly dominated by men.…”

Graphing the Self: An application of graph theory to memetic self-mapping in psychotherapy

“…For example, Robertson (2017c) demonstrated that in Canada people were as likely, over the course of their lifetime, to marry despite legal changes reducing the economic advantages of marriage, outlawing discrimination on the basis of gender, elevating the status of common-law unions, and increased economic support for single-parent mothers over the course of four decades. Since common law unions predominate in the younger adult cohort (age 21-31) and since social stigma associated with non-traditional unions had also been reduced in Canada (Bouichard & Lachance-Grzela, 2016), he reasoned marriage is not, primarily, a response to social pressure nor a rite of passage.…”