Plighting of Protest

Folk Singer-Pacifist Joan Baez, 27, got married last week in a ceremony that was as much a demonstration of dissent as a plighting of troth. The lucky man was David Harris, 22, ex-president of the Stanford student body who, like his bride, did time in jail after participating in last winter's antidraft demonstrations in Oakland; Harris is also under indictment for refusing induction into the armed forces.

The scene was Manhattan's St. Clement's Episcopal Church, which is in the theatrical district and whose congregation, according to a church spokesman, is "concerned with the same things that Joan and David are." The nuptials were performed by the Rev. Thomas Lee Hayes, 35, executive director of the Manhattan-based Episcopal Peace Fellowship. Hayes chose the Anglican Church of Canada's Book of Common Prayer instead of the American text. The Canadian version, Hayes explained, "has some phrases that I consider more beautiful, and also it was a nice way of remembering those in exile in Canada" --presumably U.S. draft dodgers hiding out north of the border.

Sleep of a Flower. The Canadian service, Hayes added, "also was expressive of Joan and David." Where the American version of the ring blessing simply states, "With this Ring I thee wed: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," the Canadian text puts it, "With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee honour, and all my worldly goods with thee I share." Unlike the American version, the Canadian goes into the purpose of marriage. Said the Rev. Hayes: "Matrimony was ordained ... for the procreation of children ... and for the mutual community, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, in both prosperity and adversity."

The Canadian book also offers a place for a hymn or poem. Hayes inserted a poem by Kenneth Patchen, The Character of Love Seen as a Search for the Lost, which includes the lines:

You, the woman; I, the man;

this, the world:

And each is the work of all.

How smoothly, like the sleep

of a flower, love, The grassy wind moves

over night's tense meadow.

Afterward, everybody stood up and sang gospel songs. But true to the spirit of the occasion, there was little time for a honeymoon. At week's end bride and bridegroom resumed a campus tour protesting the Viet Nam war.

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