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Your Marriage Provisions

offering and accepting each other as husband and wife

This is the section of the Marriage Contract in which you and yur partner declare your wish to marry one another; this is where you offer and accept each other as husband and wife. Note that these are not your 'wedding vows'. You are free to devise your own vows as part of your marriage ceremony.

I'll marry you if you'll marry me

A so-called offer and acceptance clause is an essential part of any contract. Offer and acceptance identifies the contract's moment of formation when the parties are of one mind as expressed by their willingness to enter into an agreement, without further negotiations, on clearly-stated terms.

5.1 Offer and Acceptance
5.1 In this Agreement, created lovingly, considered carefully and embraced freely, [Romeo] and [Juliet] do offer and accept each other as husband and wife.



Celebrating your marriage in public

A marriage is an agreement between a couple. But it is also, in an important sense, an agreement between a couple and others – their families, friends and the wider society. In this clause the couple invite others to give recognition to their union.

5.2 Public Witness and Recognition
5.2 In this Agreement, constituted by them as a couple and celebrated by them publicly, [Romeo] and [Juliet] do invite recognition of their mutual and loving commitments from their families, friends and the wider community.



Keeping your marriage commitments

A contract is an exchange of commitments that are enforceable in law. Who enforces the commitments? Answer: the state in which the Marriage Contract is agreed and executed. In this clause the couple invite the state, should it ever be necessary, to hold each and both of them to their commitments.

5.3 The State as Guarantor of Marriage Commitments
5.3 In this Agreement, with its binding exchange of rights and obligations, [Romeo] and [Juliet] do empower the state of [Ireland] to act as supreme guarantor, in spirit and in law, of their couple-created, mutually-exchanged and publicly-celebrated rights and obligations.



To care for and to cherish

What if one spouse is involved in a serious accident that leaves him or her in a coma? Or is disabled by a stroke? Who will make decisions about his or her personal and health care?

A document named Lasting Power of Attorney for Personal Care enables each spouse to name the person who will have authority to make decisions about their health and personal care if they are unable to decide for themselves. Note that the word 'attorney' not mean that the person appointed must be a lawyer. The 'attorney' can be anyone each spouse chooses.

5.4 Lasting Power of Attorney for Personal Care
5.4.1 [Romeo] and [Juliet] agree that, in caring for each other and as an expression of trust, in the event that either becomes legally incapacitated, the other shall act as their Lasting Power of Attorney for Personal Care.
5.4.2 [Romeo] and [Juliet] have completed the relevant Lasting Power of Attorney for Personal Care documentation, copies of which are attached to this Agreement as part of Exhibit Set D.



Changing your name or not

Couples may wish to share a common surname following their marriage. Here is a sample set of two clauses stating this intention and recording that the necessary paperwork has been completed.

5.5 Sharing a Last Name in Common
5.5.1 [Romeo] and [Juliet] agree that, following the execution of this Agreement, they shall share in common the surname of [Montague].
5.4.2 [Romeo] and [Juliet] state that the relevant documentation regarding the change of last name has been completed, copies of which are attached to this Agreement as part of Exhibit Set D.