My Mum and Dad often held hands. Not just at the beginning of their courtship but right through to their Golden Wedding Anniversary and several years beyond. People sometimes remarked about it, for plenty of married couples don't hold hands much anymore.
Perhaps the most significant thing is this though: they were holding hands at the end of their marriage.
Just about everyone holds hands at the beginning. As the old Prayer Book has it -
Then shall they give their troth to each other in this
manner. The Minister, receiving the Woman at her father's or friend's hands,
shall cause the Man with his right hand to take the Woman by her right hand, and
to say after him as followeth.
Even a humanist celebrant in the Registry Office will instruct similarly.
There are no such instructions for the end of a Marriage though. Many marriages in my parents' lifetimes have ended with a shout, an angry letter, a slammed door or at the very best a formal handshake as the solicitors finish their mediation of a tolerable settlement.
As my Dad lay dying, thus ending his marriage as he vowed he would - 'til death do us part - my Mum was kindly brought to his bedside and there, at the moment of his death (and the death of the marriage) she was holing his hand.
Of course it is fanciful to imagine that such a beautiful ending can always be secured in a world of sudden accidents and striking illnesses. But for all of us who have made those vows as we held hands on our Wedding Day it is far less fanciful to hold to the determination that at least we should want to hold hands when our marriage ends. That was what the vow meant, wasn't it?
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