"Wife of" or "Married to" - what's the difference?

[Uncle John]

I've just got the register entry for a Scottish death in 1918. In the name column it says Wife of (crossed out) Married to xxxxxxx.
There's an entry in the left-hand margin referring to the amendment.

The informant was her widower, a minister of religion aged 69 who died of Parkinson's disease a year later. Was he just being pernickety or is there a distinction?

Apropos of nothing, she died of bulbar paralysis, which made me feel ill just reading about it. Goodness knows how her husband felt.

[Olde Crone Holden]

UJ

Was it an odd-ish sort of religion? The only distinction I can think of is a very fine one indeed, where wife is interpreted in a biblical sense as a help-meet.

As she was paralysed, she was presumably unable to perform any wifely duties (being those laid down by god and man, as it were) but she was still a married woman.

A bit unnecessary to make this remark on a death cert, I think!

OC

[Little Nell]

sounds a bit of a pointless correction. I'm wondering if "married to" meant who she was married to at the time - perhaps she had been a wife to someone else first?

[Guy]

Could be due to common-law marriages being accepted in Scotland.
Was he making the distinction between a wife, after a "legal" marriage and married to, after a common-law ceremony?
Cheers
Guy

[Olde Crone Holden]

Oooh, Guy, but he was a minister of religion! The bold strap!

OC

[Uncle John]

He was a minister of the Church of Scotland from the age of about 30. They were married (bachelor and spinster) when he was 32 and she was 27. I very much doubt there was anything pre-marital. Her father was also a C of S minister and performed their marriage at his own manse.

So it may just come down to precise biblical terminology in an unhappy situation. She must have had quite a lingering decline, being unable to eat or drink. These days she'd be fed by tube.

[Olde Crone Holden]

I do think that is the most likely explanation, Uncle John, but it does speak of a rather spiteful resentment.

After all, she must have been a proper wife to him at some point, and what about the "in sickness and in health" bit.

Poor woman.

OC