W E D D I N G
T R A D I T I O N S
MARRIAGE AROUND THE WORLD B Y
M A J O R
R O G E R S
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arriage, matrimony, wedlock. The ultimate tradition, the ultimate bind. Done for love or lust, tradition or arrangement. Two become one. The word marriage stems from Middle English, where mariage comes from Old French marier, meaning to marry, both born from the Latin word maritare, defined as providing a husband or wife. In America, it has become part of a ceremony that sometimes is as cookiecutter as it is ceremonial. Brides and grooms, best men, maids of honor making the personnel of the court. A religious, or appointed, administrator oversees written vows and pronounces the couple’s union. Rings and a kiss round out the ceremony, and the pair leave the gathering as one. Side note: The practice of throwing rice at the exiting couple, which represents rain and its power of prosperity and fertility, has been banned by many wedding sites. The excuse is that the
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uncooked rice is bad for birds. But between you and me, and a veterinarian query, it doesn’t harm birds – venue operators just don’t want to clean up the mess, lol. I set out on global travel, via the internet, to look at how other places, cultures and people who share our humanity and planet celebrate the day of marriage. Here are some of the strange and wonderful customs that I found. At one time in Fiji, just as in many other places around the world, marriages were arranged. It was thought that the couple isn’t only a couple, but a binding agent, to include two tribes, making them all stronger as a whole. A more nuanced tradition, also born of those times, comes with the presentation of a sperm whale’s tooth to the prospective father-in-law. This practice is known as tabua and is still taken quite seriously by many in the culture. Men are known to save and shop for their tooth even before meeting a mate, and also because the item is
becoming harder to come by and subsequently more pricey in today’s rules of conservation. However, there are still plenty of teeth available for those men willing to spend on the tradition in the hopes of impressing the father of their hope-to-be bride. In Germany, oftentimes a traditional wedding includes primarily immediate family and relatively few guests. A practice called Polterabend requires guests to smash their porcelain dinnerware on the ground. Polterabend’s root verb means to make a lot of noise. It is a traditional move to bring good luck and scare off any bad spirits. The couple spends the evening, which oftentimes goes until morning light, sweeping and cleaning up after the “clumsy” guests. It’s looked upon as the first efforts of a married couple to work together as a team. There are several traditional wedding ceremonies that a couple can follow in Japan. In the binding ceremony called
