Marriage

Marriage was the union of persons. It was usually made formal by a wedding service. Divorce was the dissolution of marriage.

On Gallifrey, marriages served to strengthen alliances between the Great Houses, and to maintain the Chapters' power. Andred was the first Time Lord to marry an outsider, Leela of the Sevateem. (AUDIO: Spirit)

Marriage Rituals[]

Humans[]

In the 21st Century in England, marriage typically took place in a church. The father of the bride would walk the bride up the aisle, where the groom was waiting (TV: The Runaway Bride).

Time Lords[]

The short version of a Time Lord wedding, according to the Eleventh Doctor, involved both parties each wrapping a strip of cloth, about a foot long, around one of their hands and holding it out to the other person. Then, both parents of at least one of the parties said "I consent and gladly give." Then at least one of the parties is meant to whisper their name in the other's ear (TV: The Wedding of River Song).

Notable Marriages[]

The Abzorbaloff claimed that Bliss had left LINDA to be married, when, in actuality, the Abzorbaloff had absorbed her (TV: Love & Monsters).

Donna Noble's marriage to Lance Bennett was prevented when the huon particles within her caused her to vanish while walking up the aisle (TV: The Runaway Bride). She later married Shaun Temple and received a lottery ticket from the Tenth Doctor as a wedding present (TV: The End of Time).

After Amy Pond and Rory Williams were married, Amy remembered the Eleventh Doctor back into existence. (TV: The Big Bang)

The Trickster arranged for Sarah Jane Smith to meet and fall in love with Peter Dalton. Once they were married, she would forget about defending the Earth and the Trickster could feed on the chaos. Peter revoked his deal with the Trickster, thus defeating it. (TV: The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith)

Sarah's son, Luke Smith, later married Sanjay, approximately five years before Sarah's death. (WC: Farewell, Sarah Jane)

Madame Vastra and Jenny Flint described themselves as married. (TV: The Snowmen, Deep Breath)

In 19th century Ireland, the churches wouldn't sanction a marriage between two women, so Brianna and Roisin bound their wrists with dandelions and jumped the brooms, with the carnival they were part of serving as their congregation. (AUDIO: Feast of Fear)

Jack Harkness married at least one woman in his long lifetime, Lucia Moretti. (TV: Children of Earth: Day Three)

When the Eleventh Doctor and Clara Oswald investigated Sweetville, the two pretended to be married. (TV: The Crimson Horror) On their next adventure, Clara received a wedding proposal from Emperor Ludens Nimrod Kendrick Cord Longstaff XLI (a.k.a. "Porridge"), but she declined his offer. (TV: Nightmare in Silver) During a shared dream with the Twelfth Doctor, Clara Oswald once stated that other than Danny Pink, she could only imagine marrying one other man, "but he was impossible". (TV: Last Christmas)

Several of the Doctor's companions are known to have married following their TARDIS travels. Examples include Peri Brown marrying King Yrcanos; (TV: The Ultimate Foe) Martha Jones and Mickey Smith; (TV: The End of Time) Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright; (TV: Death of the Doctor, COMIC: Hunters of the Burning Stone) Ben Jackson and Polly Wright; (TV: Death of the Doctor) Jo Grant and Clifford Jones; (TV: The Green Death, Death of the Doctor) and Vicki Pallister to Troilus. (TV: The Myth Makers) By the time he encountered the Seventh Doctor in the 1990s, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart had finally married his longtime girlfriend, Doris. (TV: Planet of the Spiders, Battlefield)

The Doctor was known to have been married at least four times. (TV: Death in Heaven) This list included Scarlette, Elizabeth I, Marilyn Monroe, Cleopatra and River Song. (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street, TV: The Day of the Doctor, A Christmas Carol, The Husbands of River Song, The Wedding of River Song) The Ninth Doctor once implied he married Lady Mary Wortley Montagu for love, but left it ambiguous. (PROSE: Only Human) River engaged in polygamy during her marriage with the Doctor, marrying Ramone, Stephen Fry and King Hydroflax, though the marriage to Hydroflax was part of a scam to retrieve a rare diamond he contained within his body armour. (TV: The Husbands of River Song)

The Aplans engaged in self marrying until the church enacted laws against it. (TV: The Time of Angels) River Song also stated she married herself on every planet where self marriage was allowed. (AUDIO: Someone I Once Knew)

In some times and places, there were certain limitations on whom a person was allowed to marry. In the United States in 1969, President Richard Nixon was willing to allow Canton Everett Delaware III to marry his black partner, saying he was more "liberal" than people would think. He quickly changed his mind, however, upon learning said partner was a man, his reason being "I think the moon is far enough for now". (TV: Day of the Moon) By the 21st century, at least in the United Kingdom, these restrictions were rarely an issue; Donna Noble and Shaun Temple - a white woman and a black man - were married in 2010, (TV: The End of Time) and same-sex marriages had become commonplace. (TV: The Power of Three; WC: Farewell, Sarah Jane)

Marriage between people of differing faiths have also been the target of disapproval or outright hatred. During the Partition of India in 1947, Prem, a Hindu who intended to marry Umbreen, a Muslim, was killed by his own brother over the planned union. Bhakti, the holy man that was to officiate the marriage, was also killed. (TV: Demons of the Punjab)

The Hoppiqon culture, or at least the one to which Venn belonged, had a concept of marriage entirely divorced from romance — a purely practical contract undertaken between families, usually to settle the raising of the children once a pregnancy was noticed. Most had more than two partners, and there was a custom of "bundling" robust marriages with shakier ones in the hopes that the overall polycule would be more stable than the weak marriage would have been on its own. (PROSE: The Bloodletters)

Felicity and Sophie were a young newly-married lesbian couple, who ran away together to escape the dominating influence of Felicity's father, who disapproved of their relationship and even went so far as to hire Brian the Ood to try and kill Sophie. After the Eighth Doctor defeated Brian, Felicity and Sophie decide to stay on Atharna, where a honeymoon suite was prepared for them. (AUDIO: He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not)

Behind the scenes[]

Although there have been many occasions in which married couples have been involved with Doctor Who and related productions in front of and behind the lens or microphone, a few real-life marriages worth noting include Jon Pertwee and Jean Marsh (who were married in the 1950s, years before either appeared on the series); Tom Baker and Lalla Ward (who wed during a break in production on TV: The Keeper of Traken but divorced a year and a half later); and David Tennant and his TV: The Doctor's Daughter co-star Georgia Moffett (also the daughter of Peter Davison). Caroline John was also married to Decayed Master actor Geoffrey Beevers until her death.