Today, Australians can choose where, when and how they celebrate their marriage. A wedding might take place in a garden, on a beach, at home or in almost any other meaningful location. For many couples, having a ceremony that reflects their values rather than a particular religion is simply part of the modern wedding landscape.
But this freedom is relatively recent.
Before 1973, couples in Australia who wanted a non-religious wedding had very limited choices. They could be married by a member of the clergy in a church, or they could go to a registry office for a civil ceremony. Because of longstanding cultural traditions and family expectations, many couples chose a church wedding even if they were not particularly religious.
The introduction of Australia’s civil celebrant program in 1973 changed that. It gave couples a new way to marry and laid the foundations for the civil and humanist celebrant movement we know today.
Who introduced civil marriage celebrants in Australia?
The person most closely associated with the introduction of Australia’s civil celebrant program was Lionel Murphy (1922–1986), who served as Attorney-General in the Whitlam Government from 1972 to 1975. He later served as a Justice of the High Court of Australia until his death in 1986.
Murphy was born near Sydney, the sixth of seven children in an Irish Catholic family. His family was estranged from the church, and he attended state schools. An able student, he went on to study science at the University of Sydney and worked as an organic chemist during the Second World War as part of Australia’s home-front effort.
After the war, Murphy received a Commonwealth scholarship to study law. He graduated with honours and was admitted to the bar in 1947. After several years practising as a barrister, he entered federal politics, becoming a Labor Senator for New South Wales in 1961.
When the Whitlam Government came to power in 1972, Murphy became Attorney-General. During his relatively short time in the role, he was responsible for a number of significant legal and social reforms, including changes to divorce law, trade practices, legal aid and racial discrimination, as well as the introduction of the civil celebrant program.
Why was the civil celebrant program introduced?
Murphy had personal experience of registry offices and understood how unsuitable they could be for something as significant as a wedding.
At the time, civil marriages were generally associated with registry offices: functional government buildings that were not designed to provide a particularly personal or meaningful setting for a wedding ceremony.
Murphy also believed it was unfair that people who could not, or did not want to, marry in a religious ceremony — including divorcees and non-religious people — could be effectively pushed towards this option.
There were practical restrictions, too. Registry office weddings generally had to take place during weekday office hours, between 9am and 5pm, and in designated locations. Couples had little opportunity to create a ceremony that reflected their personalities, relationships or values.
Murphy wanted to change this.
The introduction of civil celebrants in 1973
In August 1973, Murphy developed a proposal for a new civil celebrant program. Under the program, authorised civil celebrants could legally marry couples, a role that had previously been largely restricted to clergy and certain government officials.
This was a significant change.
By separating the legal requirements of marriage from the religious ceremony, couples were given much greater freedom over how and where their wedding could take place.
For the first time, a couple could have a legally recognised marriage ceremony somewhere meaningful to them — whether that was a private garden, a community hall, a park or, famously, a beach.
The change also created space for ceremonies that did not require religious language or beliefs. This opened the door for humanist celebrants, who could offer couples ceremonies centred on their relationship, values and shared lives rather than religious doctrine.
Humanists and the civil celebrant movement
Humanists were among the early civil celebrants appointed under the new program.
For humanists, the ability to mark important life events without religious content was particularly significant. Humanist ceremonies recognise that weddings, funerals and other milestones can be deeply meaningful without requiring belief in a god or the supernatural.
A humanist wedding can therefore focus on the people involved: their story, their commitment to one another, their relationships with family and friends, and the values they want to bring to their life together.
The civil celebrant program made this kind of ceremony possible on a much wider scale.
Murphy himself took a keen interest in the early celebrants and the weddings they conducted. He was involved in appointing the first group of celebrants and even sent congratulatory telegrams to some of the first few hundred couples married by civil celebrants.
In recognition of his contribution to creating a more secular and human-centred approach to important life events, Australian humanists named Lionel Murphy the first Australian Humanist of the Year in 1983.
The legacy of Lionel Murphy’s civil celebrant program
The civil celebrant program helped transform the way Australians celebrate marriage.
What was once a choice between a religious wedding and a registry office ceremony became something much more flexible. Couples could choose a celebrant, a location and a ceremony that reflected who they were.
The program also helped establish the place of non-religious and humanist ceremonies in Australian life. Today, civil celebrants are a familiar part of Australian society, and civil marriages have become an important alternative to religious weddings.
The original vision of the program has not always been perfectly preserved, and subsequent Attorneys-General have made decisions that some argue have diminished aspects of Murphy’s original intentions. Nevertheless, the popularity of civil marriage demonstrates just how significant the change was.
What began as a reform aimed at giving Australians greater choice ultimately helped change our understanding of what a wedding ceremony could be.
For humanists, it is an important part of our history. The freedom to celebrate life’s major milestones according to our own values — without requiring religious belief — is central to the humanist approach.
And so, every time a couple stands together in a garden, on a beach or somewhere else that has meaning to them, they are benefiting from a change that began more than 50 years ago.
A note on Lionel Murphy
Lionel Murphy made a significant contribution to Australian legislation and High Court decisions that expanded equality and justice. He was also a controversial figure, admired and criticised by people across the political spectrum.
For a detailed account of his life and political career, see Lionel Murphy: A Political Biography (1997) by Jenny Hocking.