WEDDING TRADITIONS

WEDDING TRADITIONS. Weddings are ceremonies marking a rite of passage. In the past, they ritualized the union of two or more people for purposes of securing property, heirs, and citizens and for strengthening diplomatic ties. Weddings united households, clans, tribes, villages, and countries. Such rituals took place in what we now know as the United States long before the arrival of nonindigenous peoples.

For Native Americans, the marriage ceremony was a very public celebration marking the transition of one spouse to the family and household of the other. Most often it was the male partner moving into the female's family in the mostly matrilineal cultures of North America. In the eastern United States, when a young man decided on a partner, he might woo her, but none of this took place in public—except his final approach, which might include his painting his face to appear as attractive as possible when he sought the intended's consent and the permission of her parents. To get that permission, the man might send ambassadors from his family with his intentions to the family of the woman. Depending on the meaning of the marriage in family, village, clan, or tribal terms, the parents consulted people outside their immediate family, such as a sachem or close members of their clan.

A two-part ceremony often followed such negotiations. First was a private reciprocal exchange between the couples' families, to ensure that if either partner decided to leave the marriage, the woman would not be disadvantaged in terms of losing her means of support. Second, a public acknowledgment of the union often included a feast for the village or the united clans. Before the assembly took part in the feast, the bride's father announced the reason for the gathering. Then they ate, and finally, the newly married couple returned home or were escorted to the quarters in which they would well for some or all of the years of their marriage.

The earliest immigrants to North America brought their wedding practices with them from Western Europe. Those rituals included witnesses to stand up with the couple before a minister, which may reflect an ancient practice of "marriage by capture" in which the groom, in kidnapping his bride-to-be, took many strong men with him, where as the bride surrounded herself with women to keep off the aggressors. Bride prices or dowries were a carryover of the practice of repaying the bride's father for the loss of her contribution to the family. Modern weddings continue the practice of having other young men and women standup with the bride and groom, while gifts are brought for the couple, rather than the parents of the bride. Honeymoons may reflect the escape of the kidnapper and his captive. In the nineteenth-century South, wedding trips sometimes included several members of the wedding party and/or the family members of the bride and groom.

Courtship and marriage patterns among slaves were conditioned by their peculiar circumstances. Most prospective partners preferred to choose their spouses from plantations other than their own rather than choose someone they might have witnessed being whipped, raped, or otherwise used by white slave owners or overseers. Plantation owners frowned on such choices, however, because slave children followed the condition of their mother, which meant that if a male slave married off his plantation, his owner would not benefit from any children of the union.

After consent of parents, in the cases of free women brides, or owners, in the cases of slaves, the owner conducted a traditional ceremony or gave that over to a preacher, to be performed, if possible, in a church. Weddings often included many people from the plantation and neighboring plantations. Owners would sometimes open their big houses up for the occasion and provide feasts for the guests. A playful practice to show who would be in charge in the new household involved jumping over a broomstick. Whoever was able to jump over the broom backward without touching it would "wear the pants" in the family. If both partners sailed over without touching the stick, their marriage was destined for congenial relations.

The Chinese who immigrated to the United States in the middle of the nineteenth century in search for gold or work on the railroad were mostly men. Some left wives behind and lived as bachelors or used prostitutes imported from China. Often, Chinese or Japanese families sold their daughters to merchants, expecting them to marry upon arrival in the United States. However, whereas some of the girls and young women were set up in arranged marriages, others were enslaved for prostitution.

Part of the Spanish empire in the Americas extended up into what is now known as the American Southwest. Spanish culture mixed with Pueblo Indian culture to form a new combination of rituals. As with Native Americans in other parts of North America, the Pueblo experimented with sex and consummated marriage relationships before any ceremony took place, which the Spaniard missionaries found repugnant. They insisted on the adoption of the Catholic wedding ritual. There were three phases to the wedding ceremony. First, the bride's friends and relations escorted her to the church, where the wedding was performed by a priest, who also blessed the wedding ring provided by the groom. When the ceremony finished, the crowd escorted the newly weds to the groom's home, celebrating with a feast and warding off evil spirits with gunfire. After the feast, the guests and the bride and groom danced late into the night. The dancing was an important ritual of community coherence.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Axtell, James, ed. The Indian Peoples of Eastern America: A Documentary History of the Sexes. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.

Blassingame, John. The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South. Rev. andenl. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.

Gutiérrez, Ramón A. When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico, 1500– 1846. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1991.

Joyner, Charles. Down By the Riverside: A South Carolina Slave Community. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984.

Rosen, Ruth. The Lost Sisterhood: Prostitution in America, 1900– 1918. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982.

Seligson, Marcia. The Eternal Bliss Machine: America's Way of Wedding. New York: Morrow, 1973.

BetsyGlade

See alsoIndian Social Life ; Marriage ; Slavery .

Wedding Ring

Look, how my ring encompasseth thy finger, Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart; Wear both of them, for both of them are thine. richard iii (william shakespeare 1593)

The ring could be the oldest and most universal symbol of marriage. There are many accounts of the meanings behind the use of wedding rings but the actual origins are unclear. The ring's circular shape represents perfection and never-ending love, and in the seventeenth century social pressure led to the preference of gold as the material because it does not tarnish (Ingoldsby and Smith 1995).

The ring gains even greater symbolism with the inclusion of a precious stone. The clarity and durability of the diamond make it the most popular stone, as does the idea that it represents innocence in the bride. It was a common saying that the diamond was forged in the flames of love. However, other stones have been assigned special meaning as well (Tobler 1984). The emerald guarantees domestic bliss and success in love. The ruby is a sign of love and a favorite for engagement rings. Its red color was widely believed to be a protection from evil spirits and nightmares. The amethyst was believed by the ancient Greeks and Romans to ensure a husband's love and was worn as a symbol of faithfulness. The sapphire represents truth and faithfulness and is said to bring good health and fortune. The garnet stands for true friendship. If you want someone to love you, then you should give them a garnet. Finally, the aqua-marine was believed to make the ring wearer more intelligent and courageous, but more importantly it also gave the person the ability to read another's thoughts (something that might not be beneficial to a marriage)!

Some ancient people used to break a coin, with each partner taking one half. Modern jewelry still represents this idea of matching. We know that the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans all used wedding rings. Since most people are right handed the left hand was considered inferior. Therefore brides would wear their ring on the left hand as a symbol of her submissiveness to her husband. Men would wear their ring on the right hand to represent their dominance in the relationship. Today the ring is typically worn on the fourth finger of the left hand (the ring finger). No doubt this is because it is less likely to get in the way of other activities there. However, it was believed by some ancient peoples such as the Egyptians that there was an artery that went directly from that finger to the heart. This love vein, or venis amoris, made the fourth finger the proper place to wear the pledge of love (Chesser 1980).

Duncan Emrich (1970) has collected many of the folk beliefs concerning the wedding ring. One is that once the ring has been placed on your finger it should never be taken off until death, or at least until you have been married for one (or seven) year(s). The circle of the ring stands for the endless love of the couple, and the following couplet indicates how marriage is good for one's mental health: "As the wedding ring wears, So wear away life's cares."

The early Christian church gave religious meaning to the ring by making it part of the wedding ceremony. "With this ring I thee wed, and this gold and silver I thee give, and with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly chatels I thee endow." The thumb and first two fingers of the hand were to represent the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the fourth finger stood for the earthly love of man to woman.

In ancient times rings or other tokens were used as a pledge in any important agreement, and so it was with marriage as well. In Ireland a man would give his beloved a bracelet of woven human hair. Her acceptance indicated that she was linking herself to him for life. Marriage rings have been made with a great variety of materials, depending on what the people could afford, including leather, wood, and iron. But gold has generally been preferred because of its purity (Fielding 1942).

See also:Marriage Ceremonies

Bibliography

chesser, b. (1980). "analysis of wedding rituals: an attempt to make weddings more meaningful." family relations (april):204–209.

emrich, d. (1970). the folklore of weddings and marriage. new york: american heritage press.

fielding, w. (1942). strange customs of courtship andmarriage. new york: new home library.

ingoldsby, b., and smith, s. (1995). families in multicultural perspective. new york: guilford publishing.

tobler, b. (1984). the bride. new york: harry n. abrams.

other resource

effective promotions inc. "the wedding book." available from http://www.wedding-book.com.

BRON B. INGOLDSBY

wedding There is no mention in the Bible of weddings as religious ceremonies; they were a legal and social occasion marked by customs developed over the ages. There was a procession apparently from the home of the bride, who was veiled (S. of S. 6: 7), to that of the bridegroom (Matt. 25: 6), but the details in Jesus' parable are confusing—would the procession be at night? And would a shop selling oil be open after midnight (Matt. 25: 9)? There followed a lengthy banquet (Matt. 22: 2). The parables of Jesus which centre on weddings indicate something of the joy as the community celebrate a new family. A wedding reception at Cana attended by Jesus and his mother is described in John 2: 1–11. Guests at a wedding reception were expected, just as they are today, to wear their best clothes (Matt. 22: 11–12).

wedding garland, an 18th- and 19th-century custom in British warships of hoisting a garland of evergreens in the rigging of a warship when she entered harbour to indicate that she was out of discipline and women would be allowed on board. It was also hoisted on the day any member of the crew was married; if the captain, to the main topgallant stay, if a seaman, on the mast to which he was stationed in the watch-bill. The custom exists in the British Navy to the present day, and a garland is still hoisted on the day when a member of the ship's company is being married.

wedding one wedding brings another proverbial saying, mid 17th century. (Compare one funeral makes many).
wedding-finger another name for the ring-finger; it was traditionally believed that a particular nerve runs from the fourth finger of the left hand to the heart. The use of the ring-finger is directed in the Sarum rite for this reason.

See also crystal wedding, diamond wedding, golden wedding, ruby wedding, sapphire wedding, silver wedding, tin wedding, wooden wedding.

wed·ding / ˈweding/ • n. a marriage ceremony, esp. considered as including the associated celebrations.

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