Wedding reading
from Jane Eyre — ten years married
Charlotte Brontë
“from Jane Eyre — ten years married” by Charlotte Brontë is a prose reading read at a wedding ceremony. It takes about a minute and a half read aloud, usually by a guest reader. It is in the public domain, so the full text is printed on this page and goes straight into a ceremony script.
The full text
I have now been married ten years. I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I love best on earth. I hold myself supremely blest—blest beyond what language can express; because I am my husband's life as fully as he is mine. No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am: ever more absolutely bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. I know no weariness of my Edward's society: he knows none of mine, any more than we each do of the pulsation of the heart that beats in our separate bosoms; consequently, we are ever together. To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company. We talk, I believe, all day long: to talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking. All my confidence is bestowed on him, all his confidence is devoted to me; we are precisely suited in character—perfect concord is the result.
Public domain, so these words can be printed in a ceremony script or an order of service.
What it is about
Jane at the end of the book, describing the marriage from inside it. The rare reading that is about being married rather than about getting married.
Read at a wedding ceremony. Themes: ten years married · bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh · an equal partnership · what a marriage turned out to be · a couple who already live together · a second marriage · talking all day long · a long reading.
Questions about reading it aloud
How long does “from Jane Eyre — ten years married” take to read aloud?
“from Jane Eyre — ten years married” takes about a minute and a half read aloud at a ceremony pace, which is slower than conversation — roughly 130 words a minute. That is the figure the run-sheet uses when it works out the timing for the whole service.
Who usually reads “from Jane Eyre — ten years married”?
Usually a guest reader rather than the officiant. “from Jane Eyre — ten years married” runs about a minute and a half, which is a manageable amount to hand to a friend or family member. Give them a printed copy of their own, in a size they can read without their glasses, and tell them where to stand and how you will introduce them.
Can “from Jane Eyre — ten years married” be printed in a ceremony script?
Yes. It is in the public domain, so the full text is on this page and can be printed in a script or an order of service.
Where this text was checked
Checked word for word against a full-text edition that is itself the authority — a Project Gutenberg or Wikisource transcription, a publisher’s own edition, or the issuing body’s page.
Checked
A reading is two minutes of the hour.
The rest is the welcome, the vows, the ring exchange, the pronouncement — and the timing that holds them together. Answer some questions about the couple and get the whole ceremony, written out, with this reading in its place.
Other readings that suit the same service
- On Marriage, from The Propheta minute and a halfKahlil Gibran
- On Becoming Real, from The Velveteen Rabbit55 secondsMargery Williams
- from the Symposium — the speech of Aristophanestwo minutesPlato, tr. Benjamin Jowett
- from Les Misérables — the supreme happiness15 secondsVictor Hugo, tr. Isabel F. Hapgood
- from Obergefell v. Hodgesa minute and a halfJustice Anthony Kennedy
- from a letter to Fanny Brawne, 13 October 181925 secondsJohn Keats