Abstract
In this contribution the authors explore notions about the origin and destiny of bridal couples' relationships from participants' views of church marriage rituals. A church wedding can be a pivotal moment in a bridal couple's life, and on these occasions people tend to contemplate the past and the future. Using the time and memory philosophy of M. Halbwachs and J. Assman, the authors outline a temporal perspective that consists of four dimensions: a transcendental perspective on the past, a transcendental perspective on the future, an immanent perspective on the past and an immanent perspective on the future. During a church wedding ritual, the past is contemplated as the origin of the bridal couple's relationship. The future is interpreted as the destiny of this relationship. Based on this conceptualisation the authors have constructed a measuring instrument consisting of sixteen notions. In the questionnaire, which has been distributed amongst many participants in church wedding rituals, the respondents have been asked to express the extent of their agreement with each notion. Statistical analyses reveal that the participants do indeed make distinctions between the four dimensions which have been discerned. It has also been possible to measure to what extent the participants agree with the four factors regarding the origin and destiny of the bridal couple's relationship.
