Why the 1662 Prayer Book says marriage helps 'avoid fornication'

What does the 1662 marriage service actually say?

The 1662 service, called The Form of Solemnization of Matrimony, opens with an exhortation that says why marriage exists and what it requires of those who enter it. The minister tells the congregation that matrimony was instituted by God in Paradise, that it signifies the union between Christ and the Church, and that Christ adorned it with his presence at the wedding in Cana of Galilee ^[2][3]. Only after this introduction does the text list three “causes” for which marriage was ordained.

The second cause is the one that gives the page its subject. The Great St Bartholomew parish text of the 1662 service gives it as matrimony ordained “for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication” ^[3]. The Church of England's own online edition of the Prayer Book carries the same wording, and adds that this applies to “such persons as have not the gift of continency” ^[1]. The sentence therefore has two halves: a purpose (a remedy against sin) and a condition (for those who lack the gift).

The service goes on to warn that marriage is not to be undertaken lightly, and it asks anyone who knows a lawful impediment to speak. Those features, together with the vows and the ring, make up the rest of the rite. A modern reader who meets only the fornication clause misses the surrounding emphasis on faithfulness, companionship and the seriousness of the promise.

The Internet Shakespeare Editions text, labelled as the 1559 version, gives the same three causes in the same words as the 1662 service, with the same phrase about continency ^[2]. That comparison shows how stable the formula remained across the Elizabethan and Restoration settlements. Before 1559 the prayer book had already been through two Acts of Uniformity, in 1549 and 1552 ^[4].

The purposes of marriage in three Church of England texts

Purpose	Book of Common Prayer (1662)	Common Worship introduction (2000)	Canon B 30
Children	Procreation of children, to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord	Children, with the blessing of caring for them and bringing them up	Procreation and nurture of children
Sexual desire	A remedy against sin, to avoid fornication, for those without the gift of continency	Bodily union that strengthens the union of hearts and lives; no mention of fornication	Hallowing and right direction of the natural instincts and affections
Companionship	Mutual society, help and comfort	Marriage described as a gift of God in creation and a means of his grace; companionship is not itemised as a separate purpose in the lines read	Mutual society, help and comfort
Order of the three	Children, remedy, companionship	Presented as a single description of God's gift: creation and grace, bodily union, children	Children, instincts and affections, companionship

What are the three 'causes' for which matrimony was ordained?

The three causes are the procreation of children, a remedy against sin and the avoidance of fornication, and mutual society, help and comfort. The first is that marriage was ordained for the procreation of children, to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord ^[1][3]. The third is its ordination for the mutual society, help and comfort that husband and wife ought to have of each other ^[1][3].

The order matters to historians. In the 1662 text, children come first, the remedy second and companionship third. This was not always read as a ranking of importance, and sermons of the period often stressed affection and partnership. A study of early modern wedding sermons notes that the third cause was only implicit in the pledges made before and after the Reformation, and that preachers such as Thomas Humphreys in 1742 gave marriage a more companionate emphasis ^[5].

The second cause is the only one that mentions sin. It does so in the language of remedy, as if marriage were a medicine for a problem. Medieval theologians had spoken of marriage as a remedy for desire, and the Prayer Book wording belongs to that tradition, though the Prayer Book itself does not discuss desire at length. The text does not call all sexual intimacy sinful. It presents marriage as the legitimate place for it.

Because the wording describes why marriage exists rather than defining a legal offence, it should not be mistaken for a statute. The Prayer Book belongs to the Church's liturgy and doctrine, not to the criminal law. Fornication was handled in a different setting, through the church courts and, later, civil law; our page on the meaning and origin of fornication follows the word's history.

What did 'continency' mean to Tudor and Stuart readers?

Continency meant sexual self-restraint, the ability to live without marriage and without sexual relations. The phrase “the gift of continency” in the marriage service refers to people who possess that ability ^[1][2]. Those who do not have the gift are told, in effect, that marriage is the right course for them.

The idea is rooted in the Bible, in St Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. In the Authorised (King James) Version, chapter 7 says that “to avoid fornication” each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband (verse 2), and that if people “cannot contain, let them marry” because it is better to marry than to burn (verse 9). Paul also writes that each person has a gift of God, one after this manner and another after that (verse 7). The Prayer Book's phrase “gift of continency” compresses those three verses into one clause.

This reading gave the Reformation a practical argument against compulsory clerical celibacy. A study of wedding sermons notes that English preachers treated marriage as the right state for most people and celibacy as suited to a few, and that they rejected the Roman requirement of clerical celibacy by appealing to 1 Timothy 4 ^[5]. The same source does not discuss the “remedy” cause directly, so the link between the sermon tradition and the fornication clause is an inference, though a natural one.

To a Tudor or Stuart reader, then, “continency” was not a vague moral word. It named a specific, God-given capacity, and its absence was the reason marriage was recommended. Our page on chastity and continence traces how these two words and their meanings drifted apart in later English.

Where did the wording come from?

The wording was assembled by Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the first English Prayer Book of 1549, drawing on the medieval Sarum rite. According to the encyclopedia account of the 1549 book, the marriage service was largely a translation of the Sarum rite, and the Sarum rite named two purposes of marriage: procreation and the avoidance of fornication ^[4]. The same account says Cranmer added a third, “for the mutual society, help, and comfort,” as a new element ^[4]; that point rests on a general reference work and was not checked in a scholarly edition of the Sarum Manual.

Specialist work on early modern preaching agrees that Cranmer rearranged and expanded Sarum material and that the preliminary reminder of the three causes was a notable addition ^[5]. That study does not identify a specific source for the three-causes formula. It is therefore safest to say that the formula was Cranmer's arrangement of inherited ideas rather than a quotation from a single earlier text.

The book itself went through several versions. According to the same account, Parliament passed the first Act of Uniformity on 21 January 1549, and a revised book was authorised by an Act of April 1552 for use from 1 November of that year ^[4]. The Elizabethan book of 1559 and the Restoration book of 1662 followed. The two texts that this article compared, the 1559 version and the 1662 service, agree on the exhortation's three causes ^[2][3].

The same account says Cranmer also reshaped the vows, adding “to love and to cherish” to the husband's promise and “to love, cherish, and obey” to the wife's ^[4]. These changes sit alongside the three causes in a service that was meant to teach as well as to bind. The point for this article is that the “avoid fornication” clause was inherited, not invented, and that the English Reformation kept it while widening the purposes of marriage.

How do modern Anglican wedding services phrase it?

Modern Church of England wedding services no longer speak of fornication, though they still present bodily union as part of the gift of marriage. The Common Worship marriage service, as transcribed on Oremus, opens with an introduction that describes marriage as a gift of God in creation and a means of his grace ^[6]. It says that husband and wife may know each other in love with delight and tenderness, and that through the joy of their bodily union they may strengthen the union of their hearts and lives ^[6]. It also mentions children, who may be a blessing to them as they care for and bring them up ^[6].

Compare that wording with the Church's marriage canon. Canon B 30, as summarised in the Diocese of Oxford's guidance of March 2026, calls marriage a permanent, lifelong union of one man and one woman and lists three purposes: the procreation and nurture of children, the hallowing and right direction of the natural instincts and affections, and mutual society, help and comfort ^[7]. It is a fair reading that the second purpose preserves the idea of the old “remedy” in gentler terms, but neither the Canon nor the guidance says so.

What the modern texts drop is the language of sin and the word fornication itself. Canon B 30 keeps a three-part structure of children, natural instincts and affections, and companionship, while the Common Worship introduction describes one gift of God with several dimensions. The table above sets the three texts side by side. For the Church's current position on sex outside marriage, see what the Church of England teaches about sex outside marriage.

Is the 1662 service still used today?

Yes, the 1662 service is still available and still used. The Church of England publishes the 1662 text online as part of its Prayer Book pages ^[1], and parishes such as Great St Bartholomew in the City of London reproduce the full service for couples who want it, with optional wording marked in brackets ^[3]. It remains an authorised form of service alongside the modern Common Worship rite.

The two rites differ in tone and vocabulary. The 1662 service uses seventeenth-century English and keeps the exhortation on the three causes ^[3], while Common Worship uses modern language and an introduction that does not mention fornication ^[6]. Parishes and couples choose between them, and some mix elements. This article did not find national figures for how many weddings use each form, so no percentage is given.

For a couple marrying today, the legal right to marry in a given parish rests on residence, regular worship, baptism or another qualifying connection, not on the choice of rite ^[7]. Whichever form is used, it sits inside the law of England and Wales on marriage. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own marriage laws, and their churches use their own service books.

Frequently asked questions

Is the 1662 wedding service still used in England?

Yes. The Church of England still publishes the 1662 text, and parishes can use it for weddings ^[1][3]. It sits alongside the modern Common Worship service, and couples choose between them with their minister.

Does the Prayer Book call sex outside marriage a sin?

It does not say so in those words. The marriage service says matrimony was ordained as a remedy against sin and to avoid fornication, which implies that marriage is the right setting for sexual union ^[1][3]. The Church's modern teaching on sex outside marriage is set out in other documents.

What does 'the gift of continency' mean?

It means the ability to live without sexual relations, in other words sexual self-restraint. The service says marriage is for those who do not have this gift ^[1][2]. The idea comes from St Paul's discussion of marriage and single life in 1 Corinthians 7.

Do couples still hear the word 'fornication' at weddings?

Only if the 1662 form is used with its opening exhortation ^[3]. The Common Worship introduction, the usual modern text, speaks of the gift of marriage, bodily union, children and mutual comfort and does not use the word ^[6].

Who wrote the Prayer Book marriage service?

Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, compiled the English marriage service for the first Prayer Book of 1549, working from the Latin Sarum rite ^[4]. He added the third purpose, mutual society, help and comfort, and expanded the vows ^[4].

Did the 1662 book change the 1559 wording?

Not on the three causes. The 1559 text on Internet Shakespeare Editions and the 1662 text from Great St Bartholomew give the same exhortation, including the remedy against sin and the avoidance of fornication ^[2][3]. Other parts of the 1662 book were revised in 1662, but this passage was kept.