182 INVALID VOWS

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INVALID VOWS

A District Court in the city of Zwolle, the Netherlands, has invalidated a wedding ceremony held last April. Despite the married couple’s pleas, the Court decided that their marriage had never legally existed because the wording of their wedding speeches, which had been written by ChatGPT, did not include certain mandatory phrases.

The Dutch couple had chosen a friend to officiate as a temporary city official, known as an “eendagsbabs” in the Netherlands, and he decided to have ChatGPT create more romantic speeches for the newlyweds than the usual vows.

The bot came up with a relaxed version of the usual wedding speech but one that did not include a mandatory question: “Do you promise that today, tomorrow, and all the days to come, you want to stand by [name of the man/woman]?”

Instead, the man was asked at the wedding ceremony: “Do you promise to laugh together, grow together, and love each other, no matter what life brings?”

The woman was asked: “Do you promise to continue supporting each other, teasing each other, holding on to each other, even when life gets tough?”

Under the Dutch Civil Code, a marriage is only legally formed when the spouses declare, in the presence of the registrar and their chosen witnesses, that they “accept each other as [husband/wife] and will fulfill all duties attached to the married state by law.”

Unfortunately, the AI-generated speech included no such declarations.

Upon reviewing the ceremony, the Court noticed the lack of the mandatory declaration and notified the public prosecutor’s office which, in turn, asked the city that the marriage certificate be canceled, because the marriage was illegal.

The couple contested the invalidation of their marriage over something as trivial as wedding-vow wording, asking the Court to at least acknowledge the date of their wedding, because of the date’s significance to them, but their request was denied.

The couple pointed out that a real city official had actually been present to supervise their wedding ceremony, but he had made no complaints at the time.

“The Court understands that the marriage date recorded on the certificate is important to the man and the woman, but we cannot ignore what is laid down in the law,” the Court said in a statement, ruling that no marriage had come into existence between the parties.

Next time, get married in Las Vegas—wedding chapels there are eager to help and easy to please.

Graphic by “Pete” (to atone for his bad vows?)

For an interesting second opinion on what the graphic for this story should look like, here is Gemini’s interpretation of it: