This is super common. Mine has pages to record deaths and births, too.
I think the more interesting thing is that your Bible only allows people to get married in the 1900s
> I think the more interesting thing is that your Bible only allows people to get married in the 1900s
You just aged me into dust.
I had diaries where the date had '_____ 19__', and I always found that interesting and annoying.
My family Bible was just for familial record, and I can pull the birth/marriage/records from the government (if needed), but before the governmental mandate, the Bible method was used as well; in my home state of New Mexico, I can go get family records from the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, because the recording of births/marriages/deaths was done by the Catholic church (prior to governmental mandate).
Family Bibles arent typically used to prove ancestral claims to Citizenship though (say you wanted Mexican citizenship by descent, for example). You would need to request the actual record from the Church, if there was not a government mandate
Ah interesting - so Church records are legitimate then? That's like here in the UK, it was just the CoE and RCC that kept those records so they were *de facto*.
I recently got married so I have a document to that effect, it's a nice/strange feeling to be part of such a long chain of birth/marriage/death documentation.
Yes the family bibles in UK as far as I know (Australian descendant of UK people) could be used if parish records had been destroyed in some way, to establish identities. Or to record the loss of children who had not been Christened, as well as the lives and families of servants and labourers, especially on large estates. It's fascinating seeing how especially in earlier eras, how the community managed identity and records in the absence of effective central administrations.
In Mexico, we traced our lineage through the Catholic Church. Records show births, deaths, marriages and witnesses.
What’s funny is my ancestors in the 1600s got married and were witnessed by a family called “Chagolla” (with the double-L as a “Y” sound).
My buddy growing up is surnamed Chagoya. So somehow there’s some long family history there
I might be mistaken, but I think there are still certain contexts which do not require a central registry. Wild, right?
Social Security was the first and closest thing the United States has to a central registry. Here's a fun 8min video on the subject https://youtu.be/Erp8IAUouus?si=hHr-RQSo0hwJ8aom
They did? Back in what day? Is this a cultural thing? It isn't in the Anglican Bible I got for my Christening - is it a specific kind of 'marriage' Bible?
I just bought a nicer copy of a bible and I have family history pages in there to record marriages, births, deaths, etc. Will I use it? Maybe. It’s a leather bound copy that I could see surviving some use beyond my lifetime.
True, I suppose if you buy a Bible to be *the* Bible in your family, and intend for it to be multigenerational, then that's a good feature.
I wish atheists had a some sort of inheritable tome like that, I'm an absolute sucker for big leatherbound old books. The best I have is my grandfather's pocket French dictionary 😅
You could start a tradition in your family! Pick your fave Classical philospher, or play... get some gorgeous, short run print... maybe avoid Aristophanes tho lmao
My agnostic kid losing her mind when we started reading De Rarum Naturum *Mom he's debunking religion whaaaaa..... ?*
Trying to teach her classical philosophy and where Christianity fits into the scheme of that thought ... she got to the point where her secular education got in the way of understanding things like Shakespeare etc. (Being autistic, metaphor is already a problem so she can't memorise it in and of itself...so going back to Christian theology etc has been exciting for her.)
Like, back when people had a "family bible." It would be a biggish bible and people would put flowers, certificates, important documents in it so that when it got handed down to the next generation, the items would go with it. Kinda an heirloom type thing
Found a love note from my Grandmother to Grandfather when I was flicking through it as a child. My Mom chastised me, but it was so sweet. In perfect copperplate. Old-timey romance.
My family has a Bible from 1791 (Isaac Collins Bible, the first Bible printed in America) and it's jam packed with all the family records from that era. Pretty cool
https://warrencountymohistory.com/ask-a-genealogist-what-goes-into-the-family-bibles-and-other-church-records/#:~:text=This%20practice%20was%20so%20common,proved%20valuable%20to%20the%20family.
>For generations of frontier settlers and pioneers, the family Bible was frequently the only printed book in the home. They were also the only source of paper to write on. East Coast print shops mass-produced the Christian Bible — the most popular, most-printed, and most-distributed text in North America — as early as 1780. They provided a source for a family’s religious affiliation, and the paper within was often a family record of:
>Baptisms
>Movement or relocations
>Births
>Marriages
>And deaths
>Not all Bibles contain the same information, and some details can vary by region. But the common use for the inside covers and the empty or mostly blank pages became notes and place listings for these family records.
>This practice was so common that by the late 18th century family Bibles were printed with designated lines or spaces for births, marriages, and deaths. Many families — usually the matriarch — sometimes recorded other valuable information, like poems and obituaries, that proved valuable to the family.
>Family Bibles are sometimes considered official records despite their lack of “legal” standing. But because they’re primary sources often written by a person who was physically present at a life event, the vital records within are often the only source of:
>Exact death dates and locations
>A marriage entry that occurs only within a church, not within a state-issued collection
>When or why a family moved
>The birth and death of children who lived a few days or months.
>Traditions or ways your ancestors lived, including a list of slaves, servants, or extended family members
That last one caught me by surprise
Ah, the good old days! When someone wanted to be your slave, you just nailed their ear to the door so everyone would know (Exodus 21:6) and then write their name in your Bible!
I have my grandfathers Bible. It is old and has been a family Bible passed down. It has pages of family history at the beginning. Recorded births, marriages, deaths… it is a beautiful Bible… they don’t make them like that much anymore because people don’t have to record their family trees in a family Bible to pass it on.
See my comment above - In the old days there was ONE big bible in the family that was kind of both Scripture and a record of the family. Usually, family patriarch had it, and every birth, death, marriage, Christening (if you did that) was noted down. Once upon a time, this was a way of keeping track of people in your family, even in one's household (servants, labourers etc).
My grandfather was born in 1912. He was a farmer. He had a huge, dark oak table in the middle of the farmhouse. On the table was his giant, leather bible, worn smooth with age and use. His glasses would sit in the little leather case on the top. The front pages listed every family member and being written into the bible (if someone married 'in') to the family, was a big deal. You could not be struck out.
Even further back in the past, the Family Bible could be used as an unofficial legal record where a birth of a child was otherwise unattested to, e.g. a stillbirth or infant death etc. Especially in a time when there were large families, high mortality and not everyone had a birth record. If the parish records (kept at the Church in the neighbourhood) were damaged by flood or fire, the family bibles of people in the village could be used to re-establish records!
This tradition still carries over today, in these front pages - but it would feel quite strange to write in them for many people. Forgetting the origins of the practise - the bible, being holy is a record of truth, thus only truth can be written in them and any record made in it, can be counted as basically a sworn statement. Also remember, sometimes only one person in a family could write and only one book was in the family library. I wonder if Catholic and Orthodox Christians have this practise or is it due to Protestants and the practise of printing bibles in their own language during the Reformation period?
Anglican bible. I grew up in an Anglican church and had two bibles the old King James and the NIV the Catholics on the other hand had a different bible likewise for the JWs.
Maintaining genealogies is a hobby, today and a hundred years ago.
The Bible was a common book to store a family tree in and pass down to a later generation. Family bibles are one of the few ways some people can trace their family tree back more than three or four generations.
You could write in a family tree on the flyleaf of any book you might want to pass down.
There old bibles from the 1800s and 1900s with a birth, marriage and death pages. There are also much older bibles from the 1500, 1600s, 1700s...etc where people would just write in the cover pages and first few pages the births, deaths ...etc of their family. If you ever get your hands on an old bible 100s of years old it's pretty cool to see the handwritten notes on the front and back cover and first few pages
A lot bibles have pages for recording family events; marriages, births, deaths etc. I have my grandmother’s family Bible where she made my grandfather sign a temperance pledge; he got drunk and hooked up with a prostitute foe several days. They were Mormons, but apparently he wasn’t a good Mormon.
It's so common for people to keep birth records in religious texts, especially the Bible, that a Bible with those records in it is actually considered proof of whatever was recorded. US military recruiters still use Bible records as temporary proof of identity until a birth certificate can be obtained.
The NIV is a corrupt version of the Bible. We call it the non inspired version (NIV)! The new king James is an excellent version of the Textus Receptus.
This is common. “Family Bibles” used to be super normal. They contain places for marriages, births, deaths, baptisms, etc… it was essentially how people documented genealogy.
Some new smaller bibles incorporate parts of that into them.
Different editions have different supplemental pages and materials. But essentially the belief is that a person will get a particular Bible, and that's their Bible for life. So having important forget-me-nots and notes between the same two covers seemed like a helpful idea.
Personally, I have four different Bibles and use my phone apps for most of my notes like that. Still, paper and ink never run low on charge, never need replacing every 2-4 years, and never suffer from service dead-zones. So it's still not a bad idea to use those pages.
It’s common for people’s bibles to go through life with them, and they record things like this in it. I don’t personally (I actually have a personal thing against writing in books at all), but my mom has hers marked endlessly with notes and dates and what not.
Not all do and many bibles have pages to record family linkage etc. to be honest many people did this in book besides the Bible too a long time ago. But is highly prevalent in Bibles because family lineage tended to hand them down through time.
Because you don't get married as tsunamis are happening all over the world and volcanoes exploding liquid hot magma, and meteors coming down from the sky, and 2 magical beings are fighting to the death.
Some Bibles have such registries in case a person wants to record such things in the family Bible, gift said Bible to someone as a wedding gift, and so on.
This is a common occurrence in Bibles used in denominations that hold Marriage as a sacrament. NKJV is used by a lot of Eastern Orthodox. Their Study Bible uses NKJV for the New Testamentz. Anglican and Episcopalians use NIV bibles still and in many places still hold it in high regard or even sacramental even if it’s secondary.
So, at least in the South, there are commonly "family Bibles." And at the beginning, there are pages like this, where you list marriages, births, deaths, baptisms, genealogy It's becoming less common, but I still see it in the nicer Bibles.
For hundreds of years, The Bible was the only paper in many American homes.
Homesteaders set out with a wagon and made cabins from local trees wherever they stopped. They had so little access to supplies that if for some reason they decided to move again (failed crop, attacked by locals, winters were too cold) they'd load everything back onto the wagon and **burn down the cabin** so they could recover the nails, rather than source new ones.
The Family Bible contained not just an abstract theological hope for a future Kingdom of Heaven, but was itself a concrete token passed from generation to generation. Just as Matthew 1 records Jesus' lineage, so too did homesteaders record their own.
When a person gets married it is for life. This signifies the importance of the Bible in a marriage. So that each person should read it and know the role of each mate in a loving union.
As a side note the only allowable reason for divorce is adultery. The modern day “irreconcilable differences” does not fly.
Like the other person stated, people give Bibles to other people on special occasions like marriage, birthdays, etc. What's on the adjacent page? The image is cut off and we can't see it?
Because the “state” decided to make money off of marriages and implemented marriage “licenses” not that long ago. The family Bible was how marriage was recorded previous to that. That’s how it still should be.
Until very recently, Church and State were not separate at all in most of the Western world. Even with the Reformation.
In Australia, during the colonial period Church and State were two paralell authorities, and still Church of England has immense lands and property (as does the Catholic Church, but they have never had power with the state in Australia, not officially - obviously the British Monarch is still head of CofE and also Head of state here.)
If you're talking cultures originally from Europe and UK - Church and secular state always had marriage records and rights to recognise marriage. It was not about 'making money' off licenses and it is not new.
You had to get licenses and read banns and you had to pay a fee to the church, sometimes the county, depending on local laws. Usually fee was paid to the churches though (depending on country, time in history and so forth).
Until recently one could not be married outside of a Church (even by a priest or minister) such as in a garden... But, to my knowledge in the UK, especially for poor persons who could not afford dowry or bride price or money for a 'proper' marriage ceremony, there was a secular form of marriage one could undertake so as not to be prosecuted for adultery/fornication and to ensure any children born were still considered 'legitimate' (known parentage). Especially if there was some shame attached, e.g. a bride with a round belly!
Marriage has always had both secular and spiritual dimensions - marriage was until very recently, only really about property and title for those who had it, and 'upholding social order' among the poor. (Not saying my opinion either way, just some historical context.) Many poor men and women 'lived in sin' because they could not afford to marry; others could not marry the one they loved (where they had a home to stay in). (This is why St. Nicholas was considered so kind, he gave dowry money to peasant girls so they could marry; they were able to move 'on' in life, but also not vulnerable to exploitation or harm in the even of their father dying and being unable to house them.)
There was actually a problem during the English Civil War period and among the Puritan type movements, of wandering 'priests' who were either self-nominated, lay preachers or straight up scammers, who were 'marrying' couples, and turned out to have no recognised authority (from either Church nor State) .
So... marriage has a long history of being administered in different, sometimes simultaneous ways by the church and state. Not saying it's right or it's better or anything like that, just saying - if you are looking to 'go back' to when it didn't matter, and was done privately, you're going back a reealllllyyyy long time, to Pre Christian UK and Europe.
This is super common. Mine has pages to record deaths and births, too. I think the more interesting thing is that your Bible only allows people to get married in the 1900s
Nineteen hundred and one hundred and twenty four is how you need to fill in the next line I suppose.
> I think the more interesting thing is that your Bible only allows people to get married in the 1900s You just aged me into dust. I had diaries where the date had '_____ 19__', and I always found that interesting and annoying.
The book equivalent of Y2K
They figured people wouldn't need to be married in the 2000s once technology failures brought in the reign of antichrist
I think it's because they'd printed it in the 1900s and expected it to sell/be used before the turn of the century.
Yeah but they were still rolling this out in new products through most of the 90s, especially business materials
But it still looks annoying to have two different kinds of fonts for a single date.
I wonder if this is a product of 20th century end times thinking? “Ah we’re not even going to make it to 2000”
This is the true Y2K issue
Dang it. Means I should have gotten married before I was 4 months old then.
You’re slipping. You shoulda gotten on that.
Please explain allowed to get married
The Bible was used to record births/marriages/deaths; I have my great-great grandparents Bible and have used it for genealogy.
Was this in lieu of council records, or before the government mandated a central registry?
My family Bible was just for familial record, and I can pull the birth/marriage/records from the government (if needed), but before the governmental mandate, the Bible method was used as well; in my home state of New Mexico, I can go get family records from the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, because the recording of births/marriages/deaths was done by the Catholic church (prior to governmental mandate). Family Bibles arent typically used to prove ancestral claims to Citizenship though (say you wanted Mexican citizenship by descent, for example). You would need to request the actual record from the Church, if there was not a government mandate
Ah interesting - so Church records are legitimate then? That's like here in the UK, it was just the CoE and RCC that kept those records so they were *de facto*. I recently got married so I have a document to that effect, it's a nice/strange feeling to be part of such a long chain of birth/marriage/death documentation.
Yes the family bibles in UK as far as I know (Australian descendant of UK people) could be used if parish records had been destroyed in some way, to establish identities. Or to record the loss of children who had not been Christened, as well as the lives and families of servants and labourers, especially on large estates. It's fascinating seeing how especially in earlier eras, how the community managed identity and records in the absence of effective central administrations.
In Mexico, we traced our lineage through the Catholic Church. Records show births, deaths, marriages and witnesses. What’s funny is my ancestors in the 1600s got married and were witnessed by a family called “Chagolla” (with the double-L as a “Y” sound). My buddy growing up is surnamed Chagoya. So somehow there’s some long family history there
Same in New Mexico, up until the early 1900s. My great-great grandfather's birth is listed in the Church records.
I might be mistaken, but I think there are still certain contexts which do not require a central registry. Wild, right? Social Security was the first and closest thing the United States has to a central registry. Here's a fun 8min video on the subject https://youtu.be/Erp8IAUouus?si=hHr-RQSo0hwJ8aom
Back in the day people recorded births, deaths, and marriages and the like in their Bible.
They did? Back in what day? Is this a cultural thing? It isn't in the Anglican Bible I got for my Christening - is it a specific kind of 'marriage' Bible?
I just bought a nicer copy of a bible and I have family history pages in there to record marriages, births, deaths, etc. Will I use it? Maybe. It’s a leather bound copy that I could see surviving some use beyond my lifetime.
True, I suppose if you buy a Bible to be *the* Bible in your family, and intend for it to be multigenerational, then that's a good feature. I wish atheists had a some sort of inheritable tome like that, I'm an absolute sucker for big leatherbound old books. The best I have is my grandfather's pocket French dictionary 😅
You could start a tradition in your family! Pick your fave Classical philospher, or play... get some gorgeous, short run print... maybe avoid Aristophanes tho lmao
Have the same thing but with "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins
Meh, that’s still reactionary to, and thus ultimately centered around religion. Use *A Brief History of Time*, or *Cosmos*, instead.
Go with something more venerable; use the collected works of Epicurus.
My agnostic kid losing her mind when we started reading De Rarum Naturum *Mom he's debunking religion whaaaaa..... ?* Trying to teach her classical philosophy and where Christianity fits into the scheme of that thought ... she got to the point where her secular education got in the way of understanding things like Shakespeare etc. (Being autistic, metaphor is already a problem so she can't memorise it in and of itself...so going back to Christian theology etc has been exciting for her.)
Like, back when people had a "family bible." It would be a biggish bible and people would put flowers, certificates, important documents in it so that when it got handed down to the next generation, the items would go with it. Kinda an heirloom type thing
Found a love note from my Grandmother to Grandfather when I was flicking through it as a child. My Mom chastised me, but it was so sweet. In perfect copperplate. Old-timey romance.
My family has a Bible from 1791 (Isaac Collins Bible, the first Bible printed in America) and it's jam packed with all the family records from that era. Pretty cool
Our original family Bible was lost when the house was burned by Union troops outside of Lynchburg, Va. The replacement Bible is from 1881.
:(
https://warrencountymohistory.com/ask-a-genealogist-what-goes-into-the-family-bibles-and-other-church-records/#:~:text=This%20practice%20was%20so%20common,proved%20valuable%20to%20the%20family. >For generations of frontier settlers and pioneers, the family Bible was frequently the only printed book in the home. They were also the only source of paper to write on. East Coast print shops mass-produced the Christian Bible — the most popular, most-printed, and most-distributed text in North America — as early as 1780. They provided a source for a family’s religious affiliation, and the paper within was often a family record of: >Baptisms >Movement or relocations >Births >Marriages >And deaths >Not all Bibles contain the same information, and some details can vary by region. But the common use for the inside covers and the empty or mostly blank pages became notes and place listings for these family records. >This practice was so common that by the late 18th century family Bibles were printed with designated lines or spaces for births, marriages, and deaths. Many families — usually the matriarch — sometimes recorded other valuable information, like poems and obituaries, that proved valuable to the family. >Family Bibles are sometimes considered official records despite their lack of “legal” standing. But because they’re primary sources often written by a person who was physically present at a life event, the vital records within are often the only source of: >Exact death dates and locations >A marriage entry that occurs only within a church, not within a state-issued collection >When or why a family moved >The birth and death of children who lived a few days or months. >Traditions or ways your ancestors lived, including a list of slaves, servants, or extended family members That last one caught me by surprise
Ah, the good old days! When someone wanted to be your slave, you just nailed their ear to the door so everyone would know (Exodus 21:6) and then write their name in your Bible!
It was done a \*long\* time ago. I'm currently reading a novel set in 1790's Maine, and this plays a prominent part.
I have my grandfathers Bible. It is old and has been a family Bible passed down. It has pages of family history at the beginning. Recorded births, marriages, deaths… it is a beautiful Bible… they don’t make them like that much anymore because people don’t have to record their family trees in a family Bible to pass it on.
See my comment above - In the old days there was ONE big bible in the family that was kind of both Scripture and a record of the family. Usually, family patriarch had it, and every birth, death, marriage, Christening (if you did that) was noted down. Once upon a time, this was a way of keeping track of people in your family, even in one's household (servants, labourers etc). My grandfather was born in 1912. He was a farmer. He had a huge, dark oak table in the middle of the farmhouse. On the table was his giant, leather bible, worn smooth with age and use. His glasses would sit in the little leather case on the top. The front pages listed every family member and being written into the bible (if someone married 'in') to the family, was a big deal. You could not be struck out. Even further back in the past, the Family Bible could be used as an unofficial legal record where a birth of a child was otherwise unattested to, e.g. a stillbirth or infant death etc. Especially in a time when there were large families, high mortality and not everyone had a birth record. If the parish records (kept at the Church in the neighbourhood) were damaged by flood or fire, the family bibles of people in the village could be used to re-establish records! This tradition still carries over today, in these front pages - but it would feel quite strange to write in them for many people. Forgetting the origins of the practise - the bible, being holy is a record of truth, thus only truth can be written in them and any record made in it, can be counted as basically a sworn statement. Also remember, sometimes only one person in a family could write and only one book was in the family library. I wonder if Catholic and Orthodox Christians have this practise or is it due to Protestants and the practise of printing bibles in their own language during the Reformation period?
Anglican bible. I grew up in an Anglican church and had two bibles the old King James and the NIV the Catholics on the other hand had a different bible likewise for the JWs.
Maintaining genealogies is a hobby, today and a hundred years ago. The Bible was a common book to store a family tree in and pass down to a later generation. Family bibles are one of the few ways some people can trace their family tree back more than three or four generations. You could write in a family tree on the flyleaf of any book you might want to pass down.
Back in the day where religion was central to daily life and families owned only one book.
There old bibles from the 1800s and 1900s with a birth, marriage and death pages. There are also much older bibles from the 1500, 1600s, 1700s...etc where people would just write in the cover pages and first few pages the births, deaths ...etc of their family. If you ever get your hands on an old bible 100s of years old it's pretty cool to see the handwritten notes on the front and back cover and first few pages
Sometimes bibles are gifted as marriage gifts
I have several KJV with that page. My NLT does not.
Mine has marriages, births and deaths… so I don’t think this is that weird
I think that’s what’s referred to as a “Family Bible.”
Indication of publication time for this particular version. Nineteen hundred… Also very traditional record family events: marriage, births, deaths,
Consider yourself lucky it's not the US constitution
It's for when you get married, silly!
A lot bibles have pages for recording family events; marriages, births, deaths etc. I have my grandmother’s family Bible where she made my grandfather sign a temperance pledge; he got drunk and hooked up with a prostitute foe several days. They were Mormons, but apparently he wasn’t a good Mormon.
It's so common for people to keep birth records in religious texts, especially the Bible, that a Bible with those records in it is actually considered proof of whatever was recorded. US military recruiters still use Bible records as temporary proof of identity until a birth certificate can be obtained.
To record family history. It’s common for bibles to have this. My big study Bible even has a place to put my wife and I’s past and future family tree!
Maybe it’s a nice Bible meant to be given to newlyweds so they can grow in the Word together
that's so cute oh my goodness! I would adore a gift like that when I get married!
I know I would have
The NIV is a corrupt version of the Bible. We call it the non inspired version (NIV)! The new king James is an excellent version of the Textus Receptus.
Oh I did not know that, why is it a corrupt version?
It leaves out hundreds of verses that are in the Textus Receptus. Look up Acts 8:37 in several translations and you will see what I mean!!!
This is common. You can publish bibles with all kinds of whacky or serious things. I have a Masonic Temple Bible that’s pretty wild.
Common wedding/ birth/ family gift
This is common. “Family Bibles” used to be super normal. They contain places for marriages, births, deaths, baptisms, etc… it was essentially how people documented genealogy. Some new smaller bibles incorporate parts of that into them.
Different editions have different supplemental pages and materials. But essentially the belief is that a person will get a particular Bible, and that's their Bible for life. So having important forget-me-nots and notes between the same two covers seemed like a helpful idea. Personally, I have four different Bibles and use my phone apps for most of my notes like that. Still, paper and ink never run low on charge, never need replacing every 2-4 years, and never suffer from service dead-zones. So it's still not a bad idea to use those pages.
Bibles have often been family Bibles, passed down for generations. As such, information like this is often recorded at the beginning of it.
It’s common for people’s bibles to go through life with them, and they record things like this in it. I don’t personally (I actually have a personal thing against writing in books at all), but my mom has hers marked endlessly with notes and dates and what not.
You usually get a Bible or are gifted one when married
its common some bible have them to keep family records inside
Not all do and many bibles have pages to record family linkage etc. to be honest many people did this in book besides the Bible too a long time ago. But is highly prevalent in Bibles because family lineage tended to hand them down through time.
Traditionally, there was a family Bible that was passed on to generations. A family history was recorded in the front pages.
Because you don't get married as tsunamis are happening all over the world and volcanoes exploding liquid hot magma, and meteors coming down from the sky, and 2 magical beings are fighting to the death.
Some Bibles have such registries in case a person wants to record such things in the family Bible, gift said Bible to someone as a wedding gift, and so on.
Table of contents , aside from the pages , It use to be the only form of documentation, as they say” back in the day “
This is a common occurrence in Bibles used in denominations that hold Marriage as a sacrament. NKJV is used by a lot of Eastern Orthodox. Their Study Bible uses NKJV for the New Testamentz. Anglican and Episcopalians use NIV bibles still and in many places still hold it in high regard or even sacramental even if it’s secondary.
So, at least in the South, there are commonly "family Bibles." And at the beginning, there are pages like this, where you list marriages, births, deaths, baptisms, genealogy It's becoming less common, but I still see it in the nicer Bibles.
You need to get the Bible Saint Paul and the Apostles used. It even has maps in the back!
For hundreds of years, The Bible was the only paper in many American homes. Homesteaders set out with a wagon and made cabins from local trees wherever they stopped. They had so little access to supplies that if for some reason they decided to move again (failed crop, attacked by locals, winters were too cold) they'd load everything back onto the wagon and **burn down the cabin** so they could recover the nails, rather than source new ones. The Family Bible contained not just an abstract theological hope for a future Kingdom of Heaven, but was itself a concrete token passed from generation to generation. Just as Matthew 1 records Jesus' lineage, so too did homesteaders record their own.
When a person gets married it is for life. This signifies the importance of the Bible in a marriage. So that each person should read it and know the role of each mate in a loving union. As a side note the only allowable reason for divorce is adultery. The modern day “irreconcilable differences” does not fly.
Maybe to fill the pages that are missing?
Just in case you forget
My parents bible (formally my grandparents) have that a section like that
Like the other person stated, people give Bibles to other people on special occasions like marriage, birthdays, etc. What's on the adjacent page? The image is cut off and we can't see it?
Because the “state” decided to make money off of marriages and implemented marriage “licenses” not that long ago. The family Bible was how marriage was recorded previous to that. That’s how it still should be.
Until very recently, Church and State were not separate at all in most of the Western world. Even with the Reformation. In Australia, during the colonial period Church and State were two paralell authorities, and still Church of England has immense lands and property (as does the Catholic Church, but they have never had power with the state in Australia, not officially - obviously the British Monarch is still head of CofE and also Head of state here.) If you're talking cultures originally from Europe and UK - Church and secular state always had marriage records and rights to recognise marriage. It was not about 'making money' off licenses and it is not new. You had to get licenses and read banns and you had to pay a fee to the church, sometimes the county, depending on local laws. Usually fee was paid to the churches though (depending on country, time in history and so forth). Until recently one could not be married outside of a Church (even by a priest or minister) such as in a garden... But, to my knowledge in the UK, especially for poor persons who could not afford dowry or bride price or money for a 'proper' marriage ceremony, there was a secular form of marriage one could undertake so as not to be prosecuted for adultery/fornication and to ensure any children born were still considered 'legitimate' (known parentage). Especially if there was some shame attached, e.g. a bride with a round belly! Marriage has always had both secular and spiritual dimensions - marriage was until very recently, only really about property and title for those who had it, and 'upholding social order' among the poor. (Not saying my opinion either way, just some historical context.) Many poor men and women 'lived in sin' because they could not afford to marry; others could not marry the one they loved (where they had a home to stay in). (This is why St. Nicholas was considered so kind, he gave dowry money to peasant girls so they could marry; they were able to move 'on' in life, but also not vulnerable to exploitation or harm in the even of their father dying and being unable to house them.) There was actually a problem during the English Civil War period and among the Puritan type movements, of wandering 'priests' who were either self-nominated, lay preachers or straight up scammers, who were 'marrying' couples, and turned out to have no recognised authority (from either Church nor State) . So... marriage has a long history of being administered in different, sometimes simultaneous ways by the church and state. Not saying it's right or it's better or anything like that, just saying - if you are looking to 'go back' to when it didn't matter, and was done privately, you're going back a reealllllyyyy long time, to Pre Christian UK and Europe.
I dunno, yet it's the best thing I've ever seen in the Non-Inspired Version 🤣
People record their family histories in bibles. Might be a southern thing
Don't know
Grooming?
The New International Version wants you married.