Getting vestments (and other things liturgical) wrong in TV and Movies

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  • Indeed - the Cadfael books were quite well rendered on TV, even though some of the actors didn't really resemble (physically) the characters as described. But that's a personal (and rather subjective) POV.
  • One strange omission from the Call the Midwife screenplay was any reference to a pre-existing Episcopal congregation or priest. I doubt if any community (even one with a leader as idiosyncratic as Mother Mildred) would set up a branch house without access to eucharist or sacraments, even if she wasn't bothered abut episcopal or ecumenical agreement.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    Cathscats wrote: »
    Arched “Tommy’s Honour” on BBC Scotland. Not bad. But when Tommy Morris is getting married he is told “you my kiss the bride” - in a Church of Scotland in the 1870s? I doubt it, I doubt it very much. ...
    That irritating bit of extra addition to the ceremony - not in the service books - is a very recent innovation for which Hollywood bears the guilt. People see it in films and therefore think that's what ought to happen at a wedding. I don't know whether it was a folk custom in California before that, and I don't know about C19 Scotland, but it was as good as unknown in England until the last 20 or so years.

    Unless it was specifically a Hollywood invention, which I suspect, I can only imagine somebody got it from the notion that the couple are (or should be) forbidden to touch each other at all until that moment. That was a fiction even in the days when marriages weren't pre-consummated.
  • Yes, it is still not in the Marriage ceremony as written in the Church of Scotland "Common Order" - but as that book is not prescriptive I usually give couples the option to have it - after the blessing, after they are pronounced husband and wife. I cant remember any who have opted not to kiss! But Hollywood has a lot to answer for.
  • Enoch wrote: »
    That was a fiction even in the days when marriages weren't pre-consummated.
    Theoretically, at least.

  • Enoch wrote: »
    That was a fiction even in the days when marriages weren't pre-consummated.
    Theoretically, at least.

    Yeah, the number of health premature babies in previous centuries bears some serious scrutiny. :p
  • I seem to recall research in the US (I think in the 1960s ?) that showed something like 20% of all first children born in a marriage couldn't be the biological children of their "father" (this was before the days of DNA testing).
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    edited December 2019
    That sounds damned unlikely, as the only testing they could have done would be blood groups--and that implies that the "real" incidence of non-paternity events among firstborns was considerably higher than 20% (as some lovers and future husbands would have had the same blood type, and thus the cuckoldry would have gone undetected). So say 30 to 35%. Plus, this implies that 20% or more of women-on-the-verge-of-marriage-or-shortly-afterward would be unfaithful to their fiance or new husband--at the exact point when we would expect faithfulness to be highest. (Again, the 20% of cheaters detected does not include those women who cheated and did NOT get pregnant, implying a much higher number of actual cheaters. Let's be conservative and guess a one-to-one correspondence--which would make 40% of new brides cheaters during the previous year.)

    And bringing in rape as a possible explanation doesn't do much to alter those figures. I call bullshit--not on you, theOrganist, but on whatever study author came up with that crap.
  • I seem to recall research in the US (I think in the 1960s ?) that showed something like 20% of all first children born in a marriage couldn't be the biological children of their "father" (this was before the days of DNA testing).

    FWIW, a couple of more recent British and European reports (so a different culture and a different generation, and looking at all children rather than just first born) suggest rather lower rates:

    Daily Telegraph 2016; One in 50 British fathers unknowingly raises another man's child (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.telegraph.co.uk/family/parenting/one-in-50-british-fathers-unknowingly-raise-another-mans-child/amp/)

    Guardian 2005: One in 25 fathers is not biological parent - study (https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2005/aug/11/childrensservices.uknews)
  • The US report was produced by the same institution that boasted Kinsey among its stars.

    The incidence of "not fathered by father" was always likely to be higher in an era when use of contraception by women was not widespread: something to do with women choosing men as "father" someone likely to be steady and reliable, rather than the more exciting type they had also slept with.
  • The US report was produced by the same institution that boasted Kinsey among its stars.

    The incidence of "not fathered by father" was always likely to be higher in an era when use of contraception by women was not widespread: something to do with women choosing men as "father" someone likely to be steady and reliable, rather than the more exciting type they had also slept with.

    Not only that it was likely to be higher in an era where men were likely to be out all day, women's time was more flexible (though not necessarily easier) and there was a stigma attached both to cohabitation before marriage and divorce making clandestine affairs the preferred solution to marriages felt to be lacking.
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