What's the difference between betrothal and marriage?

Betrothal


Definition:

  • (n.) The act of betrothing, or the fact of being betrothed; a mutual promise, engagement, or contract for a future marriage between the persons betrothed; betrothment; affiance.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Back in London, I had word that Estella was betrothed to Bentley Drummle, a loathsome ne-er-do-well from my lunching club.
  • (2) Concomitant with the reintroduction of the ancient European betrothal system, the adolescent age of first coitus has lowered and averages two years earlier than first contraception.
  • (3) The peculiar thing about the opera is that the back story – war, slayings, the murder of the Irish princess Isolde's betrothed by the Cornish knight Tristan, her determination to kill the latter, her failure to do so, the way she healed Tristan's wounds and kept his identity secret – is more interesting than the story itself, which revolves around the pair not quite being able to make love despite drinking a love potion (substituted by Isolde's lady-in-waiting Brangäne for the poison with which Isolde intended to kill both Tristan and herself as they journeyed to Cornwall, where she was to marry boring old King Marke).
  • (4) Are Nicola Sturgeon and the majority within her party really so betrothed to the idea of the UK being part of the European Union that she is comfortable with Mr Blair sliding on to the same platform?
  • (5) Though not so much as to accept the impertinent offer of marriage from Mr Guppy, for – if it is not too much to hope – I rather think that in 500 pages or so I may be betrothed to the handsome and warm-hearted Dr Woodcourt who gave me some reason for encouragement before leaving the narrative after being nice to Young Jo.
  • (6) Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Tyrells of the Reach Margaery Tyrell has King Joffrey, her betrothed, firmly under her thumb, much to the chagrin of Cersei.
  • (7) The shrewd reader will regard the final betrothal of Emma and Mr Knightley as inevitable, from the moment we know that he is the only person ever to find fault with her.
  • (8) "There was only one saving grace," he wrote in his autobiography Dear Me (1977), which sold a million copies, "and that was that I was irrevocably betrothed to laughter, the sound of which has always seemed to me the most civilised music in the universe."
  • (9) The engaged couple were reported to have celebrated their betrothal in the hotel's bar, drinking champagne and cocktails with other guests.
  • (10) There you are, betrothed to your beloved, but something goes wrong and it is broken off in tears and recriminations.

Marriage


Definition:

  • (v. t.) The act of marrying, or the state of being married; legal union of a man and a woman for life, as husband and wife; wedlock; matrimony.
  • (v. t.) The marriage vow or contract.
  • (v. t.) A feast made on the occasion of a marriage.
  • (v. t.) Any intimate or close union.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) An intact post-injury marriage was associated with improvement in education.
  • (2) Johnson and Campion are optimistic that marriage equality will win out, and soon.
  • (3) During the couple's 30-year marriage she had twice reported him to the police for grabbing her by the throat, before they divorced in 2005.
  • (4) Movies such as Concussion , about the dissatisfactions of a bourgeois lesbian marriage, are already starting to ask these questions.
  • (5) Yet, polls have Maryland voters approving same-sex marriage by 14 to 20 points.
  • (6) He has also been a vocal opponent of gay marriage, appearing on the Today programme in the run-up to the same-sex marriage bill to warn that it would "cause confusion" – and asking in a Spectator column, after it was passed, "if the law will eventually be changed to allow one to marry one's dog".
  • (7) A federal judge struck down Utah's same-sex marriage ban Friday in a decision that brings a nationwide shift toward allowing gay marriage to a conservative state where the Mormon church has long been against it.
  • (8) "Today a federal district court put up a roadblock on a path constructed by 21 federal court rulings over the last year – a path that inevitably leads to nationwide marriage equality," said Sarah Warbelow, legal director for the Human Rights Campaign.
  • (9) It wasn't the best marriage – Jackie left me in 1962 when my first son, Paul, was 18 months old.
  • (10) The author discusses marriages in which a basically insecure husband plays a god-like role and his wife, who initially worshipped him, matures and finds her situation depressing and degrading.
  • (11) But she has struggled – quite awkwardly – to articulate her evolution on same-sex marriage, and has left environmental activists wondering what her exact energy policy is.
  • (12) Pope Francis’s no-longer-secret meeting in Washington DC with anti-gay activist Kim Davis, the controversial Kentucky county clerk who was briefly jailed over her refusal to issue same-sex marriage licenses in compliance with state law, leaves LGBT people with no illusions about the Pope’s stance on equal rights for us, despite his call for inclusiveness.
  • (13) America's same-sex couples, and the politicians who have barred gay marriage in 30 states, are looking to the supreme court to hand down a definitive judgment on where the constitution stands on an issue its framers are unlikely to have imagined would ever be considered.
  • (14) I thought she had been put out of her misery by marriage but now she is a widow.
  • (15) If we were to have a plebiscite before the end of the year, and you were to reverse-engineer that, it would make interesting speculation about the timing of an election.” Abetz said in January he would need to see whether a plebiscite was “above board or whether the question is stacked” before deciding to heed any result in favour of marriage equality.
  • (16) A case of fragile-X syndrome (the Martin-Bell syndrome) in two male half-sibs from different marriages of their mother was described.
  • (17) The ACT’s opposition leader, Jeremy Hanson, said during Tuesday’s debate that the uncertainty surrounding the new same-sex marriage regime created significant problems for couples, and he suggested the territory could be liable to compensation if it pushed ahead of the tolerance of the commonwealth, rather than waiting for the legalities to be settled.
  • (18) Same-sex marriage: supreme court's swing votes hang in the balance – live Read more The court heard legal arguments for two and a half hours, in a landmark challenge to state bans on same-sex marriage that is expected to yield a decision in June.
  • (19) The fairytales – which have been distributed by leaflet to universities around Singapore – include versions of Cinderella, the Three Little Pigs, Rapunzel and Snow White, each involving a reworked tale that relates to fertility, sex or marriage, and a resulting moral.
  • (20) It is likely that many of the girls end up working in brothels, but due to the stigma of being a sex worker they will usually report they were forced into marriage.