"[Merseians] set more store by ceremony and tradition, even that of aliens, than latter-day humans did."
-CHAPTER ONE, p. 198.
Indeed, when Djana wants to give Flandry Christian burial, Ydwyr says:
"'It would not be right to forbid your giving your dead their due.'"
-CHAPTER SEVENTEEN, p. 333.
The Merseian attitude accords with the best human practice. Everyone but a few sectarians takes for granted that we attend weddings and funerals of friends and colleagues, irrespective of tradition.
Someone in the South of Ireland tried to organize a boycott of a wedding when their cousin, brought up like them in Catholicism, married in the Church of Ireland. They succeeded in organizing a boycott of themselves. When the Pope said it was ok for Catholics to attend non-Catholic weddings, he was authorizing what anyone with any sense, including my mother, was already doing.
I attended a handfast (Pagan wedding) where the appropriate deity was invoked for each of the two people. Since one was Christian, her deity was "the Lord Jesus." It would have been wrong to leave him out.
(A bit waffly but I'm having to switch off.)
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