Daniel K Judd is
a professor looking for the history of the phrase: "Until death do us part." I'm also researching what the wording of the various denominations would have been in America from 1830 - 1850. Thank you for any help you may be able to provide.Anyone got any ideas/information they could share with Daniel?
[Edited: Emma Barry mentioned on Twitter that it's in the Book of Common Prayer. A quick Google turns up this, from the 1789 U. S. Book of Common Prayer:
I M. take thee N. to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth.Also via Twitter, Ros Clarke's got us back to the 11th century and the Order for Consecration of Marriage: Sarum Use:
I N. take thee N. to my wedded wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death us depart, if holy Church will it permit, and thereto I plight thee my troth.
Ros thinks " 'till death us depart' [...] was said in English not Latin, so no translation needed by Cranmer, though he put 'do part'. Don't know when that shift happened, though."]
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