Changes to the monitum - "A union between two people"

This weekend I am celebrated my first wedding where I said the monitum and did not cringe inside. Where I didn’t have to include extra words to convey the support the couple and I felt about same sex marriage. Finally, legislation has changed!

The most provocative part of a wedding, until yesterday, was the monitum. The monitum is one of the few compulsory requirements during a ceremony that a celebrant must say at the wedding before the vows to ensure it is legal.

Before this past Saturday, the monitum was:

“I am duly authorised by law to solemnise marriages according to law. “Before you are joined in marriage in my presence and in the presence of these witnesses, I am to remind you of the solemn and binding nature of the relationship into which you are now about to enter. “Marriage, according to law in Australia, is the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.”

No longer will I be embarrassed to say the monitum, as the Attorney General has ammended the Marriage Act and released the change to “Marriage, according to law in Australia, is the union of two people to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life”.

Well done Australia!! We finally got here.