custom, part four
The author’s wedding ceremony. Photo by Mike Olbinski.
Over the past month, I’ve been diving into George Monger’s encyclopedic Wedding Customs of the World, which collates information about hundreds of practices that make up wedding traditions. My goal is to consider what the historical origins, development, and contemporary uses of particular customs tell us about their original contexts and about the assumptions they reflect about identity and social relationships, but I’m especially interested in thinking about how these practices hold up today. I looked at different ways communities are involved in weddings before turning to the white wedding dress. Last week, I explored the roles of various accessories and jewelry. Next week, I’ll wrap up my reflection, but this week I’m exploring various practices that “seal” a marriage. No, not those magnificent pinnipeds that roam the waters. Seals are actions that signify or formally effect a change.
From a ritualist’s perspective, seals play a particularly important role in wedding ceremonies. On one hand, how a couple demonstrates their bond tells us something about the world they come from and the world they intend to create, starting with their home and the community surrounding them. In most cultures, the public declaration of marital commitment is demonstrated through some material, tangible, or kinesthetic practice that not only visibly effects a change - it adds layers of meaning from particular cultural contexts and gives the couple a chance to reaffirm, adapt, or even reject those layers. Because seals typically occur in a climactic moment when the community around the couple are paying close attention, how a couple seals their union also impacts the community around them.
On the other hand, though, seals serve a much more practical purpose. As Daniel Kahneman’s peak-end theory proposes, we remember the best, the worst, and the final parts about an experience. Because the seal typically concludes the ceremony, how a couple seals their union has a profound impact on what gets remembered (in memories and in photographs) from the moment. Because of a seal’s particular impact, it’s particularly important to be attentive to the explicit and implicit messages it sends, the legacies it carries, and the assumptions it perpetuates. Again, drawing on Monger’s encyclopedia as a starting point, I want to reflect on three relationships that get “sealed” in a wedding ceremony - this week, I’ll focus on a couple’s marriage and the new community around them, and next week I’ll turn to the shift in the body politic in which they live.
Sealing the marriage: Exchange of rings, the Kiss, and Binding practices
The explicit focus of a wedding is the change in status for two people, and a number of intimate practices demonstrate that change, including the exchange of rings, the kiss, and binding. I’ve already considered the use of rings in ceremonies, but here I’m more interested in their exchange, the ritualized offering and donning of bands. When exchanging rings, an officiant or the couple themselves typically explain what the ring means, from the simplest “With this ring, I thee wed,” to more specific symbolism like the phrase I most often use, “Take this ring: a reminder of my love, a sign of our commitment, a symbol of our life together.” Either way, the ring becomes more than lovely jewelry: it becomes a material signifier of a new status, and wearing it both affirms the verbal vows proclaimed and impacts how both the wearer and anyone who sees it understands something about the wearer’s identity.
“You may kiss the bride.”
Most American weddings end with a kiss that serves as a kind of punctuation for the officiant’s pronouncement, but its inclusion in wedding ceremonies is a bit more complicated. Monger gets anthropological when exploring the role of the kiss in wedding ceremonies, citing theories about the origin and function of kissing. As a physical act, kissing, he notes, derives from maternal care and that its erotic prominence appears to be a European export (outside of Europe and North America, he suggests, kissing wasn’t treated as an erotically charged action until the 20th century). In some regions, like medieval France, kissing was explicitly associated with marital intimacy, and “a woman kissing or being kissed by a man other than her husband was guilty of adultery.”
On the other hand, a kiss might be (in part) stripped of its erotic edge and bolster various power dynamics. “The nuptial kiss delivered at the altar, with permission of the officiant at the legal marriage ceremony,” Monger explains, “is said to be symbolic of religious permission to have sexual intercourse. However, there may be, in this practice, remnants of the Church of Rome practice of bestowing a benediction kiss, for which the priest kissed the bridegroom, who then passed the kiss on to his bride.” At either end of this spectrum, though, from a kiss’ explicit association with marriage to its reinforcement of social and religious hierarchies, “we” (the abstract collective, not royal, we) have wrenched the kiss from its maternal origins and used it as a subtle tool to subjugate women and to submit sexual activity to religious and civil authorities.
The inclusion of a kiss as the final seal of a ceremony is a relatively recent phenomenon that doesn’t just reflect the changes in attitudes toward public displays of affection. It also reflects the role of sex in marriage. Sex. Fucking. Copulation. Doing it. Whatever you want to call it. Here, I’m not talking about the importance of a healthy, mutually fulfilling sex life. I’m talking about sex as a requirement for a couple to be considered “wed.” Historically and nearly universally, completion of a marriage required much more than public avowal. The wedding wasn’t complete until the newlyweds’ first proverbial roll in the hay, and in many contexts, the wedding party, family members, or social and religious authorities gathered around the marital bed to witness its consummation. In other contexts, particularly societies in which a woman’s virginity is prized over anything else about her, evidence of a bride’s broken hymen (usually a bloodied sheet) is publicly displayed both to prove the marriage’s consummation and to highlight the bride’s virtue. Of course, despite some cultural expectations of male chastity, no one ever sought to publicly prove a groom’s virginity.
At some point, folx recognized that such public demonstrations were, to say the least, intrusive, and the kiss appeared in the ceremony with the officiant’s pronouncement as a proxy for sexual consummation. Because permission to kiss at that moment is delivered by a representative of the state or a religious figure, it’s also a reminder that permission to fuck is granted (and may be rescinded) by the state. This might not strike heterosexual and cisgender people as alarming, but remember that, through Bowers v. Hardwick, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld states’ rights to criminalize oral and anal sex, even between consenting adults, in 1986. And remember that Bowers was the authoritative precedent until 2003 when the Court overturned it with Lawrence v. Texas, informed by the right to privacy guaranteed in Roe v. Wade. Oh, and remember that Justice Thomas’ concurring opinion for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization encouraged litigants to dismantle the rights built on the foundation of the right to privacy, including equal marriage. So when you hear the old “You may kiss the bride,” or even Moira Rose’s conclusion to the wedding of David and Patrick on Schitt’s Creek, “You may kiss each other,” remember that the language of permission reinforces the state’s authority to regulate your sex life.
As a side note, I’ve always found the kiss to be awkward. Even in public, surrounded by family and friends, it’s an intimate encounter. I love that sex and sexuality can be affirmed in the ritual context as essential ingredient in a marriage, but, especially when I’m reminded that it’s a proxy for sex, the burst of applause that typically comes from witnesses always feels intrusive, even perverse. The community behaves the same way a gaggle of royals surrounding a bed might when a newly wed princess is deflowered under their gaze or when onlookers in an orgy might when someone is getting gangbanged. For our own ceremony, my husband and I wanted to affirm the role of sex and sexuality and to avoid any hint of perverse voyeurism or chance to applaud. Our vows, exchange of rings, and signing of our marriage certificate were in the middle of the ceremony, not the end. For the final portion, we invited everyone to stand and to affirm their support for us. Instrumental music vamped underneath the officiant’s voice as he said, “surrounded by your family and friends and by the power vested in me, I pronounce you married and invite you to begin our celebrations with your first dance.” Within a few bars, everyone grabbed a partner and joined in.
Binding is another practice that appears in different forms to signify marital union, with all the physicality but without the sexual baggage. In some parts of northern Europe, “handfasting,” the binding of hands together, alone constituted a wedding ceremony. As legal and religious requirements were placed on weddings, handfasting became a sign of betrothal or even as the start of a trial marriage that could be easily dissolved without stigma for either party. Because of its ancient, pre-Christian origins, handfasting was also suppressed or banned in various regions. Today, neopagan traditions have revived the practice as central to marriage rites, and others integrate it into modern practices, treating it as a connection to ancient heritage, such as Celtic, Irish, or Scottish roots. Binding appears in the form of a lasso in Hispanic and Spanish-influenced practices, including Spanish, Mexican, and Filipino weddings. A lasso or large rosary is tied around the couple by their godparents, parents, or the officiant, signifying both their union and the encompassing support of their community and traditions.
Sealing the community: Eating & Dancing
With attention focused on the couple at the center, the most overlooked aspect of a wedding is its impact on the rest of the people present. The ritual and its surrounding festivities are designed not just to bring a couple together; they also effect a shift in the community. It might be a shift in perceptions (the community sees the couple in a new light), a shift in relationships (the people around the couple are now directly connected to each other through the shared experience of the wedding), or a shift in values (the new community formed in the wedding goes out into the world with reinforced, adapted, or changed assumptions about what a wedding is and all the values connected to it). Those shifts are often cemented with food and frivolity.
There’s a reason that people talk about the food at weddings (and that people getting married obsess over delivering a perfect menu and the best cake imaginable to their guests): sharing food is a fundamental practice in all cultures, and more than any other aspect of a wedding it connects strangers and rekindles (and even repairs) old friendships. For Monger, the wedding meal is the most obvious and demonstrable example of how weddings invite active, embodied participation. It gives “guests a chance to be part of the celebrations,” he writes, but I think it’s more powerful and more nuanced than that. How a couple feeds their guests shapes those relationships. Strict seating plans and plated meals afford a couple the opportunity to engineer particular connections (and avoid landmines) and control the flow of a meal, but they also echo the stiff formality of royal and aristocratic banquets and limit people’s chances of interacting with other guests. Open seating plans, or providing no table seating at all encourages more choice and flexibility for guests to find their own connections and to eat at their own pace, but they often leave less gregarious folx untethered and anxious about where to go and with whom to talk.
What a couple chooses to serve also has an impact on guests. Today, the food options for most American weddings are driven by the catering industry’s standards. Catering teams know what can be prepared and served to various sizes of groups, but most menus defer to the lowest common denominators for food preferences. Any variation from the LCD sometimes incurs significant cost. At our own wedding, we dropped any ambition of trying to satisfy all of our guests’ tastes, but we also used food to lean into our values and experiences and to demonstrate radical welcome to our guests. Except for one salmon dish and one chicken option at the pasta bar, our buffet was vegan, and items were clearly labeled with allergens. This not only reflected our own food preferences and sensitivities; it reflected our commitment to a more equitable buffet.
Food also carries cultural significance, and the inclusion or exclusion of various dishes communicates something about how the couple at the center connects with their heritages. Monger explores the variety of cultural staples that are adapted for wedding celebrations. In regions where bread is both practically and symbolically central to diets, biscuits and breads are common. These items require advanced preparation and benefit from multiple hands - it’s an easy way for a wedding party, a family, or a community to directly participate in festivities - and they’re often decorated with culturally specific symbolism. In other regions where rice is the dominant starch, rice and rice-based delicacies dominate the symbolic buffet.
With the global influence of the American nuptial customs, the wedding cake has become a recognizable and distinctive aspect of the wedding feast, but the elaborate versions reflect a recent innovation. Beyond providing a decadent dessert worthy of celebrations, cakes served a more practical purpose, such as the bridegroom cake in 19th century Virginia. “The dark bridegroom cake,” Monger writes, “was, according to one recipe book writer in 1897, cut by the bridegroom and given to the bridesmaids, with a glass of wine, before going to the church. In Virginia, if both cakes were prepared, they were stacked, with the groom’s cake on top, but it was the lighter bride’s cake that was cut at the reception, with the bride and groom giving each other a piece to eat.” Somewhere along the line, the cake detached from the feast, and a ritualized cake-cutting by newlyweds drew on old aristocratic traditions (the highest ranking people in the room are the first to eat, and witnessing them eat was a privilege for witnesses) and became an expected moment to witness and photograph.
Dancing is another practice that seals the bonds of a community formed around a newly wed couple. Except in regions where political or religious mores ban it, dancing is a pretty ubiquitous way that people express joy during wedding festivities. While some cultures incorporate dancing along the way, most American weddings start the dance party after dinner. Whether guided by a live band, a DJ, or a playlist on the bride’s iPhone, selected songs tell you something about the couple getting married and the world they want to live in and profoundly impact the mood of the community gathered. The selection of songs for first and last dances (remember the Kahneman rule?) also play a major part in what people remember of weddings.
As Monger describes, “Dance can also be used to initiate one or both of the couple into their new role in society, be an opportunity for those at the function to help the couple set up home or help pay for the celebrations, or be part of the competition between males and females.” In Zulu weddings, dance plays a ceremonial and ritual role - the bride’s party dances to show the groom’s ancestors that she is joining the family - but most American weddings reserve dancing for the post-ceremony celebrations. The tradition of the “first dance” emerged from the confluence of two traditions. First, in European royal courts, the highest ranking royals present would be the first to…well, to do everything. They’re the first to eat, before plates would be passed to guests; first to drink, before wine would be poured; first to dance, to set the mood for the evening. A couple’s “first dance,” then, reinforces the sense that they are royalty for the day. Second, the waltz was a radical innovation that emerged from 17th century Vienna that replaced social choreography, the norm for celebrations at the time, with a partner dance that both emphasized individuality and afforded more direct intimacy for a dancing couple. Because it was a two person dance, it provided an isolated performance for the community to watch, admire, and cheer.
Etiquette manuals from the 19th and early 20th century instructed the couple’s first dance to be followed by dances featuring the bride and her father, less for sentiment and more to honor the guy who paid for the party. Today, these practices have evolved. Some couples make their first dance a real performance with surprise choreography and a good sense of humor. Since ballroom dancing is passé, others take lessons and show off their new, if rudimentary moves, earning applause and encouragement for even the simplest turns and dips. The father-daughter dance has become an emotionally-engaging moment that has spun off the mother-son dance to highlight the relationship between a groom and his mother.
For these moments, the community around a newly wed couple are passive viewers, meant to “take in” the beauty and sentiment on display, so it’s important to consider what messages are being conveyed. In addition to the perpetuation of royal and upper class standards, these customs also perpetuate often damaging ideas about gender roles. Ever see a groom dance with his father, or a bride with her mother? Or all three together? Of course not, because such displays rattle our sense of convention and normalcy.
When the rest of the community is invited to the dance floor, though, that’s when the rest of the community seals its bond. Formal group dances like the Jewish hora, the Irish reel, or the Greek Kalamatianos bring the community together with the physical vocabulary of particular inherited traditions, but for most American weddings the dancefloor is a “free-for-all,” giving guests the chance to show off, to get ridiculous, to get lost in the moment, and, alongside friends and strangers, shed inhibitions. Post-wedding gossip often includes who danced with whom, who disappeared from the dancefloor with whom, who showed up to breakfast with…well, you get the idea. It’s not just tantalizing information - it’s evidence that the newly formed community grew from transgressing old boundaries and differences.
Of course, we all know that dessert and dancing come after dinner, but in recent decades the cake cutting and first dance have been absorbed into a moment earlier in most festivities. Here’s how it typically goes: guests take their seats; an emcee or DJ introduces members of the wedding party and the newly married couple; the couple proceed to the dance floor for their ceremonial first dance (even though no one else can dance until after dinner), followed by other sentimental dances; then they go to the corner of the dance floor to cut and feed each other a piece of their cake (even though they haven’t eaten dinner yet) before they sit down to be toasted by their witnesses. It makes for a tight sequence, but this pattern doesn’t serve the couple or their celebrations: it serves the Wedding Industrial Complex.
Once upon a time, they served to punctuate and move celebrations along, but now they’re compressed to maximize efficiency. See, the first dance, the cake cutting, and toasts are prime photo opportunities, but photographers are on the clock. So are caterers, and early first dances and toasts give them more time to prep and deliver food. The cake needs to be cut and plated, too, which can be most efficiently done while guests are eating dinner. This way, by the time the dancing starts, caterers and event staff can start to clear dishes, clean up, and maybe even be released early from work.
