Weddings, whats the point?

Wedding is a very public thing for the community as much as anything else. A marriage is something everyone in the community is meant to know about and still having a public ceremony to declare that someone is married serves the function of announcing the marriage to the community. It also helps act as a guarantor of the marriages taking place freely without any kind of undue duress or coercion. The community can see there isn’t a shotgun held behind anybody when it’s happening.

A lot of the traditions around the weddings come from the functions used to perform. So like having a best man; The thing that he’s meant to be best at fighting. Because weddings tended to get interrupted by angry family members who want to stop them. In mediaeval times the church said people get to choose who they marry but parents often think they ought to be able to decide who the children married. So having a good fighter there to deal with people storming the wedding was a good idea.

I would argue even bridesmaids have a kind of community function. You are showcasing the eligible young women still available in the community. Weddings draw a lot of people together. And it puts the young men in the community in The right headspace to think about who they might want to marry. Literally putting the eligible young women upfront in a uniform to mark them out is quite useful. Although my understanding is that the tradition of having bridesmaids wear the same dresses is relatively recent.

The father giving the bride away also makes a lot of sense he’s paid for the wedding, traditionally, and up until this point he would probably have paid all of her living expenses. any money she made would probably have gone straight to him because women didn’t really have professionals outside of their family homes. So in a sense he is handing over his financial obligation to support his daughter to somebody else.

some of these traditions like having a best man and the father giving away the bride don’t really make sense anymore. Some of them like having bridesmaids are actually quite useful, except these days generally they’re not ‘maids’. You get quite a few married bridesmaids.

but I still think in general the idea of a wedding being an event for the community collectively still makes a lot of sense.

Wedding is a very public thing for the community as much as anything else. A marriage is something everyone in the community is meant to know about and still having a public ceremony to declare that someone is married serves the function of announcing the marriage to the community. It also helps act as a guarantor of the marriages taking place freely without any kind of undue duress or coercion. The community can see there isn’t a shotgun held behind anybody when it’s happening.

A lot of the traditions around the weddings come from the functions used to perform. So like having a best man; The thing that he’s meant to be best at fighting. Because weddings tended to get interrupted by angry family members who want to stop them. In mediaeval times the church said people get to choose who they marry but parents often think they ought to be able to decide who the children married. So having a good fighter there to deal with people storming the wedding was a good idea.

I would argue even bridesmaids have a kind of community function. You are showcasing the eligible young women still available in the community. Weddings draw a lot of people together. And it puts the young men in the community in The right headspace to think about who they might want to marry. Literally putting the eligible young women upfront in a uniform to mark them out is quite useful. Although my understanding is that the tradition of having bridesmaids wear the same dresses is relatively recent.

The father giving the bride away also makes a lot of sense he’s paid for the wedding, traditionally, and up until this point he would probably have paid all of her living expenses. any money she made would probably have gone straight to him because women didn’t really have professionals outside of their family homes. So in a sense he is handing over his financial obligation to support his daughter to somebody else.

some of these traditions like having a best man and the father giving away the bride don’t really make sense anymore. Some of them like having bridesmaids are actually quite useful, except these days generally they’re not ‘maids’. You get quite a few married bridesmaids.

but I still think in general the idea of a wedding being an event for the community collectively still makes a lot of sense.