Quaker weddings are the traditional ceremony of marriage within the Religious Society of Friends. Quaker weddings are conducted in a similar fashion to regular Quaker meetings for worship, primarily in silence and without an officiant or a rigid program of events, and therefore differ greatly from traditional Western weddings. Quaker marriage in history After the local meeting had approved the couple's intention, an announcement would be made and posted in the market on market day. Afterward, the wedding could take place. Outsiders sometimes criticised Quaker couples for living in sin because they married each other without priests or ministers. George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends, and Margaret Fell married using a modification of that procedure in 1669. Two years later, when Fox was in Barbados, he sent out an epistle in which he advocated giving women's meetings the initial responsibility to pass on a couple's intentions when the couple had expressed a desire to be wed. That advice became quite controversial for those who did not want to see women's roles expanded. Quaker marriage today When a couple decides to get married they declare their intentions to marry to the meeting (either in writing or in person). In many Yearly Meetings, the meeting then appoints a clearness committee to talk with the couple and make sure that they have properly prepared themselves for marriage. If the committee is clear that this couple is ready, it recommends that the monthly meeting should take the wedding "under their care" and appoint a committee to ensure the couple makes all the needed arrangements for the wedding ceremony. The duties vary but may include helping schedule the date, finding premarital counseling, making the Quaker marriage certificate, making sure the couple knows how to acquire and file any legal documents. In other Yearly Meetings, clearness committees are an option the couple can choose. In America, some couples choose to marry within the meeting without registering their marriage with the government, a tradition dating back to Quakerism's earliest days. Meetings generally encourage couples to seek legal advice before undertaking this option. Common-law marriage, also called "marriage by habit and repute," by which a couple is legally married simply through cohabitation and by holding themselves out to the world to be husband and wife, is no longer a valid method of marriage in most American jurisdictions. If a couple later needs to prove that