Editing Vow

{{Short description|Promise or oath}}
{{About|a promise|other uses}}
{{Multiple issues|
{{More citations needed|date=January 2017}}
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A '''vow''' ([[Latin language|Lat.]] ''votum'', vow, promise; see [[vote]]) is a [[promise]] or [[oath]]. A vow is used as a promise that is solemn rather than casual.

==Marriage vows==
{{main article|Marriage vows}}
Marriage vows are binding promises each partner in a couple makes to the other during a [[wedding ceremony]]. Marriage customs have developed over history and keep changing as human society develops. In earlier times and in most cultures the consent of the partners has not had the importance now attached to it, at least in Western societies and in those they have influenced.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://claireelisephotography.com.au/writing-wedding-vows/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160828102845/http://claireelisephotography.com.au/writing-wedding-vows/ |url-status=usurped |archive-date=August 28, 2016 |title=Writing your own wedding vows |author=Claire Elise Campton |date=17 August 2016 |publisher=Claire Elise Photography |access-date=17 August 2016}}</ref> [[Protestantism|Protestants]], for instance, consider marriage vow as an unchangeable [[divine law]] since it needs not only "conciliar assertion" but also the support of the [[Religious text|Scripture]], making [[marriage]] a form of divine ordinance.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Hermeneutics of Tradition: Explorations and Examinations|last=Hovey|first=Craig|last2=Olsen|first2=Cyrus|publisher=Cascade Books|year=2014|isbn=9781625644985|location=Eugene, OR|pages=134}}</ref>

==Divine vows==
Within the world of monks and nuns, a vow is sometimes a transaction between a person and a [[deity]], where the former promises to render some service or gift, or devotes something valuable to the deity's use.  The vow is a kind of [[oath]], with the deity being both the [[witness]] and recipient of the [[promise]]. For examples, see the [[Book of Judges]] or the [[Bodhisattva vows]]. In the Roman Catholic [[1983 Code of Canon Law|Code of Canon Law]], the vow and the oath are not considered acts of worship (''cultus'') like the liturgical celebration. However, they are considered acts of religion due to their sacred character, including the religious obligations they entail.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law|last=Beal|first=John|publisher=Paulist Press|year=2000|isbn=0809140667|location=New York|pages=1416}}</ref> Here, an important characteristic of the vow involves the manner by which non-Catholics are recognized to be capable of making a vow, which must also be fulfilled by reason of the virtue of religion.<ref name=":0" />

The god is usually expected to grant, on entering into contracts or covenants with man, the claims his vow establishes on their benevolence, and valuing of his gratitude. Conversely, in taking a vow, the petitioner's piety and spiritual attitude have begun to outweigh those merely ritual details of the ceremony that are all-important in magical rites.<ref name=EB1911>{{EB1911 |wstitle=Vow |volume=28 |page=219 |first=Frederick Cornwallis |last=Conybeare}}</ref>

Sometimes the old magical usage survives side by side with the more developed idea of a personal power to be approached in prayer. For example, in the [[Maghreb]] (in [[North Africa]]), in time of drought the maidens of Mazouna carry every evening in procession through the streets a doll called ghonja, really a dressed-up wooden spoon, symbolizing a pre-[[Islam]]ic rain-spirit. Often one of the girls carries on her shoulders a sheep, and her companions sing the following words:<ref name=EB1911/>

Here we have a sympathetic rain charm, combined with a prayer to the rain viewed as a personal [[goddess]] and with a promise or vow to give her the animal. The point of the promise lies of course in the fact that water is in that country stored and carried in sheep-skins.<ref>Professor A. Bel in paper ''Quelque rites pour obtenir la pluie'', in ''xiv<sup>me</sup> Congres des Orientalistes'' (Alger, 1905).</ref><ref name=EB1911/>

Secondly, the vow is quite apart from established [[cult]]s, and is not provided for in the religious calendar. The [[Ancient Rome|Roman]] vow (votum), as [[W. W. Fowler]] observes in his work ''The Roman Festivals'' (London, 1899), p.&nbsp;346, "was the exception, not the rule; it was a promise made by an individual at some critical moment, not the ordered and recurring ritual of the family or the State.' The vow, however, contained so large an element of ordinary prayer that in the [[Greek language]] one and the same word (<span title="eúchḗ">{{langx|grc|εύχή}}</span>) expressed both. The characteristic mark of the vow, as the ''[[Suda]]'' and the Greek [[Church Fathers]] remark, was that it was a promise either of things to be offered to God in the future and at once consecrated to Him in view of their being so offered, or of austerities to be undergone. For offering and austerity, sacrifice and suffering, are equally calculated to appease an offended deity's wrath or win his goodwill.<ref name=EB1911/>

The [[Bible]] affords many examples of vows. Thus in [[Book of Judges|Judges]] xi. [[Jephthah]] "vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou wilt indeed deliver the children of [[Ammon]] into my hand, then it shall be that whosoever cometh forth out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, it shall be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt-offering." In the sequel it is his own daughter who so meets him, and he sacrifices her after a respite of two months, granted so she could "bewail her virginity upon the mountains." A thing or person thus vowed to the deity became holy<ref name=EB1911/> and sanctified to God. (Jephthah could not have lawfully burned his daughter in sacrifice as it would constitute human sacrifice - something that God explicitly forbade.{{Citation needed|date=January 2013}} Some {{Who|date=January 2013}} have suggested that his daughter remained unmarried and was given to serve the Lord in the temple.) It belonged to once to the sanctuary or to the priests who represented the god. In the [[Judaism|Jewish religion]], the latter, under certain conditions, defined in [[Leviticus]] 27, could permit it to be redeemed. But to substitute an unclean for a clean beast that had been vowed, or an imperfect victim for a flawless one, was to court with certainty the divine displeasure.<ref name=EB1911/>

It is often difficult to distinguish a vow from an [[oath]].  A vow is an oath, but an oath is only a vow if the divine being is the recipient of the promise and is not merely a [[witness]].  Therefore, in [[Acts of the Apostles|Acts]] 23:21, over forty men, enemies of [[Paul of Tarsus|Paul]], bound themselves, under a curse, neither to eat nor to drink till they had slain him. In the Christian Fathers we hear of vows to abstain from [[meat|flesh]] diet and [[wine]]. But of the abstentions observed by votaries, those with no relation to the barber's art were the commonest. Wherever individuals were concerned to create or confirm a tie connecting them with a god, a shrine or a particular religious circle, a hair-offering was in some form or other imperative. They began by polling their locks at the shrine and left them as a soul-token in charge of the god, and never polled them afresh until the vow was fulfilled. So [[Achilles]] consecrated his hair to the river [[Spercheus]] and vowed not to cut it until he should return safe from [[Troy]]; and the Hebrew [[Nazarite]], whose strength resided in his flowing locks, only cut them off and burned them on the altar when the days of his vow were ended, and he could return to ordinary life, having achieved his mission. So in Acts 18:18 Paul had shorn his head in [[Cenchreae]], for he had a vow. In Acts 21:23 we hear of four men who, having a vow on them, had their heads shaved at Paul's expense. Among the ancient [[Chattus|Chatti]], as [[Tacitus]] relates (''[[Germania (book)|Germania]]'', 31), young men allowed their hair and beards to grow, and vowed to court danger in that guise until they each had slain an enemy."<ref name=EB1911/>

In Christianity, the vow has more weight than an oath when approached from the view that it binds one to God whereas the oath binds one to man.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=Summa Theologica, Volume 3 (Part II, Second Section)|last=Aquinas|first=Thomas|publisher=Cosimo Classics|year=2007|isbn=9781602065574|location=New York|pages=1578}}</ref> This was explained further by St. Thomas Aquinas, who said:<blockquote>The obligation both of a vow and of an oath arises from something Divine; but in different ways. For the obligation of a vow arises from the fidelity we owe God, which binds us to fulfil our promises to Him. On the other hand, the obligation of an oath arises from the reverence we owe Him which binds us to fulfil our promises to Him.<ref name=":1" /></blockquote>

==See also==
{{Portal|Society}}
* [[Albanian sworn virgins]]
* [[Marriage vows]]
* [[Religious vows]] (or monastic vows)
* [[Heitstrenging]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* {{Wikiquote-inline}}
* [https://www.wishnwed.com/blog/seven-vows-of-marriage/ Seven Vows of Marriage]

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Oaths|*]]