Same-Sex Marriage:
Can the Church of England’s Doctrine of Marriage Change? 

Author:  Ian Wallis is Priest Theologian at St Mark's, Broomhill, Sheffield

One of the key questions emerging from much of the discussion within the ‘Living in Love and Faith’ (LLF) discernment process, proposed by the Archbishops in 2017 and commenced as a churchwide consultation in 2021, is ‘Can the Church of England’s (CofE’s) doctrine of marriage change?’ ‘Can’ in this question has both theological and procedural force. That is to say, is it doctrinally possible to change the meaning of marriage and, if so, is there sufficient support within the House of Bishops and General Synod to authorise such a change?

One reason why this question is being asked with increasing urgency is that, since the UK Government’s Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, there has been a growing lobby, within the church and beyond, calling for committed, stable and exclusive same-sex relationships to be both recognised and blessed by the church. The House of Bishops’ response to the LLF consultation recognises the worthiness of various faithful relationships, with Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF, 2023) supplying liturgical provision for their recognition and affirmation in church life. What is clear from PLF, as has been consistently maintained throughout the LLF process, is that the Church of England’s doctrine of marriage remains unchanged and, as a consequence, holy matrimony is not available to gay couples, even to those who are legally married. Here is a representative quote taken from the Bishops’ response:

These ‘Prayers of Love and Faith’ will not be the same as conducting a marriage in church. They will not alter the Church of England’s celebration of Holy Matrimony, which remains the lifelong union of one man and one woman, as set forth in its canons and authorised liturgies. (2023)

What I attempt to explore in this essay is, firstly, whether the CofE’s doctrine of marriage has ever changed and, secondly, if there are biblical grounds for such change. As a point of departure, here is the CofE’s official definition of marriage:

The Church of England affirms, according to our Lord’s teaching, that marriage is in its nature a union permanent and lifelong, for better for worse, till death them do part, of one man with one woman, to the exclusion of all others on either side, for the procreation and nurture of children, for the hallowing and right direction of the natural instincts and affections, and for the mutual society, help and comfort which the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity. (Canon B30.1)

We need to remember that when the Church of England was established in the sixteenth century, unlike many of the continental reformed churches, it retained some components of the canon law tradition of the Roman Catholic Church, although revising them significantly. The principle of annulment is a case in point, although the grounds for granting an annulment were greatly restricted (coercion, consanguinity and non-consummation). What is important for our purpose is the recognition that there was canonical provision for marital annulment, but not for divorce. Why is this distinction important? Because, whereas a divorce dissolves an existing marriage, annulment demonstrates that no canonically valid and consummated marriage ever took place. In this way, annulment reflects the conviction that a marriage covenant entered into by two persons legally, consensually and subsequently consummated cannot be dissolved by any human agency, concluded only by the death of one party. During the life of both parties, a marriage bond is indissoluble.
 
It should be pointed out for the sake of balance that despite the practice of ecclesiastical courts, key Anglican luminaries, notably Richard Hooker, following Luther and Calvin in Continental Europe, rejected the sacramental, indissolublist status of marriage. He acknowledged that marriages could fail because of human frailty and that certain acts, notably adultery, had the effect of severing the marriage bond. In such instances, the innocent party was at liberty to remarry.
 
Although we may now find it difficult to believe, the first thoroughgoing governmental attempt to formalise the registration of marriages in England was Lord Hardwicke’s Marriage Act of 1753 which established the parish church as the principal venue where marriages could be solemnised and registered legally, while granting to parishioners (Jews and Quakers excepted) the right to be married in their parish church. With this Act, the government essentially delegated jurisdiction over matrimonial matters to the Established Church which remained vehemently opposed to divorce. Although Hardwicke’s Act makes no reference to it, ecclesiastical courts could grant (and did so sparingly) a legal separation with no right to remarry, while members of the aristocracy (usually men) could obtain a private Act of Parliament which amounted to a full divorce permitting remarriage – yet, even then, few clergy were willing to solemnise the marriage of divorcees.
 
All this changed with the introduction of the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857 which vested responsibility for and jurisdiction over the handling of marital disputes in England and Wales in the State, rather than the Church, administered through a civic court. Among the new measures coming onto the statute book was civil divorce on the grounds of adultery (although wives were also required to demonstrate a second matrimonial offence) with the right to remarry in church. Unsurprisingly, the Act was strongly opposed by the Church of England with many clergy refusing to remarry divorcees (the Act included a clergy conscience clause). Then, when the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1937 extended the grounds for divorce to include not only adultery, but also cruelty, desertion and incurable insanity, the Church of England restated its doctrine of marriage at the Convocation of York in 1938, which was subsequently adopted by Canterbury in 1957 and declared an Act of Convocation the same year. Here is the relevant resolution: 

That this House reaffirms that according to God’s will, declared by Our Lord, marriage is in its true principle a personal union, for better or for worse, of one man with one woman, exclusive of all others on either side, and indissoluble save by death. Marriage is ‘a union’ of one man and one woman, exclusive, and indissoluble except by death. (3.1)

This resolution makes explicit the CofE’s doctrine of the indissolubility of the marriage bond. However, as popular attitudes changed and cases of civic divorce increased, the Church came under growing pressure to reconsider its doctrine of marriage and to make provision for the remarriage of divorcees. A number of reports ensued (Putting Asunder [1966], Marriage, Divorce and the Church [1971], Marriage and the Church’s Task [1978], An Honourable Estate [1988], Issues in Human Sexuality [1991], Marriage [1999], Marriage in Church after Divorce [2000]), leading General Synod to conclude in 1981 that there are circumstances in which a divorced person may be married in church during the lifetime of a former partner. Another two decades of discernment was required before Synod rescinded the Convocations of York and Canterbury in 2002, which had the effect of revising the Church’s doctrine of marriage away from affirming its indissolubility, thereby recognising the possibility of divorce while making provision, in certain circumstances and with clergy discretion, for divorcees with a former partner still living to remarry in church.
 
So, the answer to our first question, ‘Can the Church of England’s doctrine of marriage change?’ would appear to be ‘Yes.’ As the Act of Convocation of 1957 [1938] makes explicit, it once affirmed that a marriage covenant solemnised through the rite of Holy Matrimony and entered into by two persons legally, consensually and subsequently consummated cannot be dissolved by any human agency, concluded only by the death of one party. However, in the light of changing public practices and attitudes, through an extended process of discernment and consultation, it came to recognise that, although divinely ordained as a lifelong commitment, in practice, some marriages do breakdown irretrievably. In such cases, divorce, rather than annulment, can be pastorally expedient and, with it, in certain circumstances and after due reflection, the opportunity to remarry in church. It took a long time – far too long for many, not long enough for others, but it did arrive and, with appropriate checks and balances, managed to find a resolution that could be accommodated within existing structures and without compromising church unity. If it happened once over indissolubility, it could happen again in relation to participants. The precedent has been established.
 
Our second line of inquiry concerns whether there is any biblical precedent for such a revision. There is space here to consider only one possible instance, albeit a highly significant one, from the teaching of Jesus as recorded in the Synoptic Gospels. Although it has become a matter of debate once more, most scholars still accept that the Gospel of Mark was composed first and was in all probability used, along with other sources, by the authors of Matthew and Luke. However, before the rise of critical biblical scholarship in the eighteen and nineteenth centuries, the Gospel of Matthew was almost universally accepted as the earliest and most authoritative, with the Gospel of Mark relegated to an abbreviation. One place where we encounter Matthaean priority is during the European Reformation and, in particular, having rejected both the Roman Catholic Church’s elevation of marriage to the status of a sacrament and its lucrative trade in marital annulments, reformers turned to scripture for guidance. In Matthew, when Jesus is asked if it is lawful for a husband to divorce his wife, he cites unchastity (porneia) as the sole grounds (19.7-9; also 5.31–32). As a consequence, Martin Luther, among others, permitted divorce on the grounds of adultery, quoting Matthew 19 in support (The Estate of Marriage, Part II; also, John Calvin, Commentary of Matthew 19.9; as it happens, porneia denotes sexual impropriety more broadly, but in the context of marriage manifests as adultery).
 
However, by the late nineteenth century, Mark was generally considered to have replaced Matthew as the earliest Gospel. Significantly, in Mark’s version of the incident just cited from Matthew 19, Jesus makes no provision for divorce on any grounds. Here is the passage in full:

Some Pharisees came, and to test [Jesus] they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her (cf Deut 24.1–4).” But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female (Gen 1.27).’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh (Gen 2.24).’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another [Matthew adds: ‘except for unchastity] commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

It's worth remembering that when Jesus was ministering, divorce was permitted in Jewish circles, as indeed, throughout most of the Graeco-Roman world. That said, there was considerable debate among Jews as to the grounds for divorce, as the following reference to two schools of thought emerging from the teaching of their influential first-century BCE/CE Pharisaic founders illustrates:

‘The School of Shammai say: A man may not divorce his wife unless he has found unchastity in her, for it is written, Because he hath found in her indecency in anything [Deut 24.1]. And the School of Hillel say:  He may divorce her even if she spoiled a dish for him, for it is written, Because he hath found in her indecency in anything. R Akiba says: Even if he found another fairer than she, for it is written, And it shall be if she find no favour in his eyes … [Deut 24.1]’ (Mishnah, Gittim, 9.10)

But the principle of divorce was generally recognised, which only underlines the severity of Jesus’ absolutist stance. Some have argued that Jesus’ teaching recorded in Mark 10 does not exclude the possibility of divorce, so long as neither party remarries, but I think this fails to account for the grounds Jesus supplies for his position. He references the creation narratives in Genesis 1 and 2, concluding that the coming together of a man and a woman, presumably through sexual intercourse (although this is not spelt out), creates an unbreakable divinely-ordained communion: ‘… they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.’ And because of this heavenly bond, a couple remains married even if granted a divorce by earthly authorities.
 
So if Mark is our earliest gospel witness to the teaching of Jesus on marriage and divorce in which he underlines the life-long, divinely-ordained nature of the marital bond which cannot be broken even by divorce, how do we account for Matthew’s softening of that position by making provision for divorce on the grounds of unchastity? One theory which I find both plausible and persuasive is that the church community out of which Matthew’s Gospel emerged struggled to practise Jesus’ uncompromising teaching and, as a consequence, revised it to reflect the realities of their situation, as well as to conform to broader societal norms and cultural practices. If that is what happened, then we have a case of Jesus’ teaching on marriage and divorce evolving through time in the light of changing circumstances and through encountering different audiences.
 
At the beginning of this article, I raised the question, ‘Can the Church of England’s doctrine of marriage change?’, suggesting that the ‘can’ in this question carried both theological and procedural force. In what followed, we have attempted to demonstrate that the CofE’s doctrine of marriage has changed – at least, on one occasion – and that there is scriptural precedent for such a course of action. Whether the House of Bishops and General Synod are ready to entertain further revision to accommodate same-sex couples only time will tell. But hopefully the ongoing process of discernment will give due weight to the recognition that what is being proposed is not unprecedented.
 
Rev’d Dr Ian Wallis, 
Priest Theologian at St Mark’s Church, Broomhill, Sheffield.
October 2025

Image by Marek Studzinski published on Unsplash