Popular Marriage Customs Of The Ages

There is a very long history when it comes to marriage. In the beginning, God created man and placed in the garden for him to enjoy. God saw that it was not good for man to be alone, he therefore took a rib from Adam and created a helper, a unique creature called woman. Therefore, marriage was something nothing short of an adventure and, it was instituted by God. Over the years, various cultures have had different marriage customs that go with traditions and lifestyle. With civilization and modernization, many of the traditional marriage customs have been replaced by new customs. Over the years and generations, marriage has evolved into three major identifiable stages. The customs started with marriage by force or capture, and then went to marriage by purchase or contract, and then finally what we have today is mainly marriage by mutual consent or love. Many jokes have emanated from the motivations of love and, one interesting saying goes like this. 'Westerners marry the women they love while Easterners love the women they marry'.

In the old marriage customs where a bride was captured, it was in the midst of a rival tribe conquering the other. This dates back to primitive times where this was commonplace. It was found that during such aggressions, warriors would have a partner so to speak who was a fellow warrior. From this emanated the custom or the idea of a best man in a wedding. It is really interesting thinking about it. The custom of marriage by contract evolved from the marriage by capture. In many cases, to compensate for a stolen bride, a man would pay the tribe of the woman an amount of property to compensate for her. This form of compensation later evolved into what we call dowry today. Each bride married off had to have a price that kept or maintained good will between clans and tribes. Later, dowry came to be viewed as just a token of appreciation for the bride's parents. Some of the traditional customs are being practiced even today. They have traveled through generations and they are quite a spectacle.

Our modern custom is marriage by mutual consent and love. People are free to marry and even not to marry. This liberation especially for women came in the 9th and 10th century in the modern world. In many cultures it has been seen that with these freedoms to marry, civilization has also taken place. We learn our customs best through myths, stories and legends. If you have no sense of history in your culture, it is time you started searching. This information will amaze you at how far we have come since early customs of marriage. Modernity has given birth to too many customs when it comes to marital union. One of the most recognized form of marriage of this age is elopement. This is where couples come together to declare their love without involvement of society. In the past, this was impossible because girls were guarded very closely. It is fun looking back and seeing how far we have come.

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