Wedding reading
The Art of a Good Marriage
Wilferd Arlan Peterson
“The Art of a Good Marriage” by Wilferd Arlan Peterson 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 still in copyright, so the words are not reprinted here — the reader brings a printed copy.
Why the words are not printed here
Wilferd Arlan Peterson wrote it for the "Words to Live By" page of This Week magazine and collected it in The New Book of the Art of Living (Simon & Schuster, 1962) — and it is still in copyright, which surprises people, because it reads like something much older. It is very widely credited to Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward instead. That credit is wrong: print Peterson’s name on the order of service, and say his name when you introduce it.
Pieces still in copyright are listed by title and author only — we name them and tell you where to get them, but we do not reproduce the words. Public-domain text is printed in your script in full.
What it is about
The classic — and it usually arrives with the wrong name on it. Peterson wrote it.
Read at a wedding ceremony. Themes: the art of a good marriage · the small daily things · standing together · a classic wedding reading · commonly misattributed.
Questions about reading it aloud
How long does “The Art of a Good Marriage” take to read aloud?
“The Art of a Good Marriage” 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 “The Art of a Good Marriage”?
Usually a guest reader rather than the officiant. “The Art of a Good Marriage” 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 “The Art of a Good Marriage” be printed in a ceremony script?
Not by us. It is still in copyright, so we name it and point you at a copy rather than reprinting the words. Wilferd Arlan Peterson wrote it for the "Words to Live By" page of This Week magazine and collected it in The New Book of the Art of Living (Simon & Schuster, 1962) — and it is still in copyright, which surprises people, because it reads like something much older. It is very widely credited to Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward instead. That credit is wrong: print Peterson’s name on the order of service, and say his name when you introduce it.
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 Obergefell v. Hodgesa minute and a halfJustice Anthony Kennedy
- from the Symposium — the speech of Aristophanestwo minutesPlato, tr. Benjamin Jowett
- from Jane Eyre — ten years marrieda minute and a halfCharlotte Brontë
- from a letter to Fanny Brawne, 13 October 181925 secondsJohn Keats