Can I get a witness?

Shopgirlove will serve tomorrow as a witness at a dear friend's wedding.
It is very small and very low key and for whatever reason seems even more meaningful because of the intimacy of the ceremony. She knows she will cry--she cries at everything. But she is overwhelmed by a sense of responsibility to this couple. Once upon a time, every marriage had enormous impact on each member of the newlyweds' community. A new economic unit had been formed. The future offspring could change the direction of a village or a dynasty. Weddings were, in other words, public property.
Now, however, they are private acts more suitably held within the privileged sphere of family and friends. Perhaps that should read friends first, then family, the first being often closer than the second. Dick and Jane, Dick and Dick, Jane and Jane. These unions today are acts of personal faith; two persons in defiance of their lack of cultural relevance, deciding to commit to each other despite history, convention, and even common sense. These are acts of bravery, really, in the face of the collapse of the institution of marriage and the institutionalization of individualism. Community, that is a group invested in the individual and vice versa, is rarely found outside of cults these days. It is something we create amongst ourselves or never find at all. Hence Shopgirlove's sense of responsibility. By standing witness to this union, she shoulders a burden that would once have been spread across many backs.
She is honored.