Manhattan Marriage

A swarthy, stocky young man and a pretty young girl entered Manhattan's Municipal Building one day last week, went up to the second floor, marched into the marriage license room.

Names?

"Hamad Obadie. Stocking merchant. Born in Bagdad."

"Mary Yvette Nadeau. Born in Que-bec."

Paying $2 for a license, Mr. Obadie took his fiancee up to the third floor. There they found an official seated at a desk under a dingy cupid. Whipping through the marriage service at top speed he pronounced them man & wife in less than a minute.

Thus one flesh to the satisfaction of the New York State law, Mr. & Mrs. Obadie had still to go through a ceremony according to the gentle tenets of their religion --Baha'i. This loosely organized faith, to which some 5,000 U. S. believers adhere, has no priesthood, is not recognized by civil law as qualified to perform marriages. Nonetheless Mr. & Mrs. Obadie asked a friend to read them the Baha'i service. He was Mirza Ahmad Sohrab, Persian poet and a U. S. Baha'i leader. Two nights later they met for the ceremony with friends at the home of Lewis Stuyvesant Chanler, onetime (1907-09) Lieutenant Governor of New York, member of a famed old family.*

Wearing a green shirt, Poet Sohrab stood behind a small table upon which were three candles signifying: The Bab, martyred prophet of the Baha'i Movement; Baha-U-Llah, the Founder; Abdul Baha the Expounder & Promoter.

Said Mr. Sohrab to Mr. Obadie:

"Man must consider the woman of his choice as his partner for the period of his existence."

To Mrs. Obadie: "The intellectual and spiritual ideals of the woman must be in harmony with those of the man."

The three chanted: "Verily, we are content with the will of God.

"Verily we are satisfied with the desire of God."

Mr. Sohrab adjured the couple: "When God gives you sweet and lovely children, exert yourselves in their education that they may become imperishable flowers in the divine rose garden, nightingales in the ideal paradise, servants of the world of humanity and fruits of the Tree of Life."

Kneeling in prayer the Obadies were now one, with emphasis on the fact that as man and woman they were equal.

This was the second Baha'i wedding to take place under the auspices of Socialite Mrs. Chanler, her daughter having been similarly married four years ago (TIME, March 10, 1930). A seasoned Baha'i follower like the late Mrs. Edith Rockefeller McCormick of Chicago, Mrs. Chanler currently busies herself with the Green International, an organized anti-war group claiming 2,000 members in the U. S., 1,500 abroad. Its adherents wear green shirts. Originally a green blouse which looked Russian and was inconvenient for street wear, the shirt is now of standard cut in a special olive shade.

*His late brother Robert Winthrop ("Sheriff Bob") Chanler was a swashbuckling artist (TIME, Nov. 3, 1930). Brother John Armstrong, who spells his name Chaloner, was committed to Bloomingdale Asylum in 1897, escaped to Virginia in 1900, later sent a famed cable to Paris, when Artist Bob married Singer Lina Cavalieri: "WHO'S LOONY NOW?"

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