Men-Wives and Performative Theory

I was writing a paper for Brit Lit last week on discourse in George Eliot's Silas Marner when I came across an interesting bit of theory gold in a scene that I'd almost forgotten. Discussing a peculiar wedding, one of the townspeople at Raveloe's local pub takes an issue with the minster's mis-utterance. Presiding over the ceremony, the minster makes a syntactical error and asks: "Wilt thou have this man to thy wedded wife?" (Eliot 40). This sends poor Mr. Macey into a tailspin, for the mis-utterance makes him wonder, "Is't the meanin' or the words as makes folks fast i' wedlock?" (Eliot 41).

This scene is interesting for a number of reasons and is notable, I think, for the attention Eliot pays in regards to performative utterances a century before the theory-system's procedures were codified (at least by J. L. Austin). Yet, we need Austin's work to get to the heart Mr. Macey's quandary. As Austin writes: "The various ways in which a performative utterance may be unsatisfactory we call, for the sake of a name, the infelicities; and an infelicity arises—that is to say, the utterance is unhappy—if certain rules, transparently simple rules, are broken (Austin 1292). 

In the case of the wedding ceremony (which Austin uses as a primary example in his discussion on performative theory), there is obviously a rule which has been broken (which would could call the man-wife, woman-husband conundrum). Yet, as Mr. Macey points out, nobody at the ceremony takes notice of the performative transgression (Eliot 40). This means what, exactly? Obviously, Austin would propose that meaning is intrinsically locked into the words of the performative utterance. Yet, at the same time, is the performative act achieved if there exists in it a mis-utterance that nobody (expect Mr. Macey) notices? 

Given the rules of performative theory (i.e. it must exist, be accepted, and be appropriate for its invocation), I believe Austin would state that the ceremony Mr. Macey observed was null. As the theorist writes: "If, for example, the purported act was an act of marrying, then we should say that we 'went through a form' of marriage, but we did not actually succeed in marrying" (Austin 1292). This is particularly troubling when we consider the fact that the minister reassures Mr. Macey by stating that the "regester" is what solidifies a marriage (Eliot 41). While he may very well be trying to cover for his mistake, the minister's assertion sends us into the age-old debate of writing versus spoken utterances.

Of course this last point is one that can be discussed at a different time. With this post, I merely wished to point out an interesting dialogue on performative utterance that occurs in a Victorian text. I am still interested, though, in the minister's claim. So what do you, reader, think? Is the marriage ceremony a mere "form" as Austin proposes? Or, does the act of registering the marriage through writing solidify the performance (despite its flaws)?