The color of the cake is typically white, symbolizing purity. The joint task of the Bride and Groom cutting the cake was meant to symbolize their first joint task in married life. The gesture of feeding cake to each other is a symbol of the commitment the bride and groom are making.
The cutting of the cake is one of the most cherished memories of any wedding. Engagement bands began in ancient Egypt with the circle symbolizing a never ending cycle and the space inside it as a gateway. The addition of a diamond was made popular by Sicilians who believed the stone was forged by the fires of love. Why the fourth finger on the left hand? The placement of the ring on the fourth finger of the left hand stems from Ancient Greece.
The wedding ring has graced the fingers of lovers across cultures, varying in design and ritual but remaining a fundamental symbol of a union. Eating the top tier on your one year anniversary? Because Emily Post said so. Tossing rice at the end of the ceremony is meant to symbolize rain, which is said to be a sign of prosperity, fertility and good fortune.
More recently, wedding meddlers have cautioned against throwing rice because it was rumored to harm unsuspecting birds who swoop down and eat it once the crowd has left. It sure did. Marilyn Yalom, a Stanford historian and author of A History of the Wife, credits the concept of romantic love with giving women greater leverage in what had been a largely pragmatic transaction.
Wives no longer existed solely to serve men. The romantic prince, in fact, sought to serve the woman he loved. Still, the notion that the husband "owned" the wife continued to hold sway for centuries.
When colonists first came to America—at a time when polygamy was still accepted in most parts of the world—the husband's dominance was officially recognized under a legal doctrine called "coverture," under which the new bride's identity was absorbed into his. The bride gave up her name to symbolize the surrendering of her identity, and the husband suddenly became more important, as the official public representative of two people, not one.
The rules were so strict that any American woman who married a foreigner immediately lost her citizenship. How did this tradition change? Women won the right to vote. When that happened, in , the institution of marriage began a dramatic transformation. Suddenly, each union consisted of two full citizens, although tradition dictated that the husband still ruled the home.
By the late s, state laws forbidding interracial marriage had been thrown out, and the last states had dropped laws against the use of birth control. By the s, the law finally recognized the concept of marital rape, which up to that point was inconceivable, as the husband "owned" his wife's sexuality.
And the expansion of democracy , with its emphasis on liberty and individual choice, may also have stacked the deck for love matches. Still, marriage wasn't about equality until about 50 years ago.
At that time, women and men had unique rights and responsibilities within marriage. For instance, in the United States, marital rape was legal in many states until the s, and women often could not open credit cards in their own names, Coontz said. Women were entitled to support from their husbands, but didn't have the right to decide on the distribution of community property. And if a wife was injured or killed, a man could sue the responsible party for depriving him of "services around the home," whereas women didn't have the same option, Coontz said.
By about 50 years ago, the notion that men and women had identical obligations within marriage began to take root. Instead of being about unique, gender-based roles, most partners conceived of their unions in terms of flexible divisions of labor, companionship, and mutual sexual attraction.
Changes in straight marriage paved the way for gay marriage. Once marriage was not legally based on complementary, gender-based roles, gay marriage seemed like a logical next step. Original article on LiveScience.
Tia is the assistant managing editor and was previously a senior writer for Live Science. Her work has appeared in Scientific American, Wired. It was also rare for couples to see each other without the presence of a chaperone, and marriage proposals were frequently written. Divorce has existed for about as long as marriage so although we've had a lot of practice at monogamy, we're still not very good at it!
The ancient Greeks liberally allowed divorce, but even then the person requesting divorce had to submit the request to a magistrate, who would determine whether or not the reasons given were sufficient.
In contrast divorce was rare in early Roman culture. However, as the empire grew in power and authority, civil law embraced the idea that either husband or wife could renounce the marriage at will. Throughout the last thousand years, divorce was generally frowned upon and from the earliest years of the Christian age the only 'proper' way to dissolve a marriage was by annulment - a status that was granted only by the Church. Of course, one British king changed all that during the Sixteenth Century by having arguably the most famous divorce in British history.
In many parts of 16th and 17th century Europe and America, the concept of 'bundling' was widely used. This process allowed courting couples to share a bed, fully clothed with a 'bundling board' to separate them.
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