C.S. Lewis married Joy Davidman in a civil ceremony in 1956.
Lewis and Davidman were married at Oxford Register Office on 23 April 1956. Their civil marriage was followed by a Christian ceremony in 1957 at the Church of England, after Davidman became seriously ill. The later ceremony was conducted by Lewis’s friend and fellow Christian writer, the Reverend Peter Bide.
Davidman was an American writer who had moved to England with her sons. She and Lewis first developed a friendship through letters and shared intellectual interests. Their relationship later became a marriage, although its public circumstances were complicated by church rules and Davidman’s previous marriage.
Davidman died of cancer in 1960. Lewis’s reflections on her death appeared first under the pseudonym N.W. Clerk in A Grief Observed. The two dates are therefore easy to confuse: 1956 marks the civil marriage, while 1957 marks the religious ceremony. Both are important milestones in their relationship.