Marriage is a sacred rite or act in which a man and a woman become spouses, that is. husband and wife. Weddings have existed since time immemorial, and this custom has gone through three levels ....
The first marriages were actually kidnappings. A primitive man would simply kidnap the girl he wanted to marry, or buy her back - he would pay her family the appropriate value.
Then the marriage was concluded by a contract, in which there was still no mention of love, but only of obligations. In the end, a marriage based on mutual love is established. But. even today there are remnants of the first two levels:
Selling a bride, a custom prevalent in many countries, dates back to the time when the bride was actually sold.
The godparents - witnesses at today's weddings - were probably originally well-armed warriors who helped a primitive man kidnap the bride.
And the honeymoon represented the time when the groom was forced to hide his bride until her relatives got tired of looking for her.
When it comes to wedding customs, many of them are certainly so old that their origins are lost in the distant past. For example, in some primitive tribes, a marriage was considered to be concluded if a young man and a young woman ate a bowl of rice together, which meant that they agreed to live together.
For many peoples, wheat is a symbol of fertility and abundance, hence the current custom of sprinkling the newlyweds with grain. The custom of married couples wearing a ring is one of the oldest and most widespread in the world. It originated so long ago that no one really knows when, so the explanations about the possible origin of that custom are different.
The ring is circular in shape, and the circle is a symbol of unity and completeness. And when a man and a woman get married, they represent complete unity, whose symbol is a ring in the shape of a circle. It is possible that the wedding ring was made in the shape of a bracelet that was placed on a kidnapped girl in earlier times. The circular bracelet on the arm or leg, which indicated that the girl belonged to only one man in the tribe, was gradually replaced by a wedding ring.
The first people to start wearing wedding rings were the Egyptians. In the hieroglyphs, the signs that made up the ancient Egyptian script, the circle represents eternity, and the wedding ring was a symbol of a marriage that lasts forever. Christians began wearing wedding rings around 900 AD.
Why is a wedding ring worn on the little finger? The ancient Greeks believed that one vein started from this finger and went directly to the heart. But, the real reason is probably that this finger is used less than other fingers, so it is more convenient to wear some decoration on it.
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So kidnapping brides was a real thing before. That's fascinating. And so is the origin of the honeymoon. It's pretty new to me